We’re deep in the Bangweulu Swamps which straddle Zambia’s Luapula and Northern provinces. As we try to find purchase on the ever-moving swamp vegetation, the shoebill, one of Africa’s most rare and iconic bird species, lifts its wings in solemn greeting.
Carefully choosing our footing in the muddy morass of decaying vegetation and blood-warm water, we move closer to get a clearer view of the bird we’ve spent the morning searching for.
“Too close,” I think as we reach a clearing and I lock eyes with the fierce looking bird, suppressing my instinct to take a step back. Earlier, I had sunk chest deep into the swamp with an ill-considered move and my camera and dignity had barely survived being pulled out by Godfrey and a group of young boys who had joined our small party of birders when we’d set out from Nsobe Community Campsite earlier that morning.
The shoebill stands over a meter tall, with a clog of a bill measuring some 23cm by 10cm. It looks like it is hewn of rock, sharpened and scratched through use, but otherwise indestructible. There is something ancient, knowing and reptilian in the giant bird’s yellow stare. There are only a few thousand of them left in the world. These swamps, and Uganda, are the best places to see them. “We don’t have exact figures for the swamps but do aerial surveys to check where nests are,” says researcher Carl Huchzermeyer who works for African Parks. Current numbers in Bangweulu probably aren’t higher than about 100 birds.
Earlier in the day, as the plains and then the neatly weired fields dotted with fish traps had given way to untouched swamp, replete with mosquitoes and leeches and razor sharp shards of reed, I’d begun to wonder just what I’d gotten myself into. Would we find one of a 100 birds in an area that covers thousands of square kilometers? Godfrey was confident. “This is the shoebill road. It doesn’t lead anywhere else,” he said.
Trekking deeper and deeper into this astonishing wetland, I remained unconvinced, alternately amazed and terrified by the alien landscape, fecund with squirming, wriggling life. The world literally shifts beneath your feet and each step is both gamble and balancing act; there are holes in the thick web of vegetation and no indication of how deep you may sink, or what your foot may inadvertently find when you break through! There is no shelter from the sun or escape from the ripe, earthy smell that rises up as pockets of decaying vegetation are disturbed.
Bangweulu is one of the world’s great wetland systems, made up of Lake Bangweulu, the Bangweulu Swamps and the Bangweulu Flats or floodplain. We’d arrived the night before in a cloud of golden dust. It had been an epic day on some spectacularly bad roads, traversing Lavushi Manda National Park, Lake Waka Waka and villages full of children and ducks and women wrapped in colourful chitenge cloth.
Situated in the upper Congo River basin, the Bangweulu system is fed by nearly 20 rivers and is drained by the Luapula River. The lagoons and channels that crisscross the swamps help control the annual flooding downstream. Large grassy floodplains, like the one we were camping on, lie mainly south of the swamps, but also in the north-north-east. Much of the area is managed by a partnership agreement between African Parks, Zambia’s Department of National Parks and Wildlife and the local communities.
As we trudged through the swamp, I wasn’t surprised to learn that this is where David Livingstone reportedly lost his way and finally, his health, shortly before his death at Chief Chitambo’s Village, near Lake Bangweulu 1873. Three hours in and the world was uniformly watery. I had no idea where we or the dry plains were. My legs were cut open from the sharp grasses, my muscles and lungs were taxed by the strain of wading through the thick, fertile soup and my eyes stung from sweat and sunscreen. The experience was excruciating at times and I understood the exhausted, dejected demeanor of a French couple we’d seen the night before, who had spent the whole day in the swamps and not found the bird they were looking for.
They’d been particularly unlucky though, as the shoebills are seen quite reliably, confirms Carl. In fact, thanks to an initiative by African Parks, each bird and nest has its guardian; a community member who keeps tabs on the birds’ movements. “At the shoebill nests, we employ ‘guards’ to check the area is safe and help escort visitors. Even in the wet season we rely on fishermen to help guide us to birds. The community gets a portion of revenue and sees a direct benefit to protecting the birds,” explains Carl.
It helps that the birds are also very good at staying still. Shoebills spend hours watching intently for catfish and other prey, including snakes and even baby crocodiles. “Their heavy bill, massive head and powerful build are adaptations for catching fish in thick marshy vegetation. They slam their bill with incredible force into the grass. The hook on its end impales the fish and the side of the bill acts like secateurs to help them pull their prey out of the thick tangle,” he explains.
At the mention of crocodiles, I had frozen, but Godfrey assured me they prefer the open lagoons to the tangle of papyrus and bulrushes we were navigating. These clumps of vegetation are interspersed with short, floating meadows of grass and ferns like the one our shoebill was perched on. They generally like the areas between the seasonal floodplains and the permanent swamps and the best time to see them is quite early in the dry winter season from March to August. This is also when you can still canoe through the channels in the swamps before the water levels drop, confirms Carl, instead of having to trek in on foot, like us, having planned our trip for early October. “It’s amazing is how much the area changes through the seasons. You go from one extreme to the other; from underwater to almost as dry as a desert with dust storms. Everything here adapts to this,” says Carl.
The shoebills are particularly well adapted; genetic studies now place shoebills in the same family as pelicans, although they’re often referred to as storks. Their true affiliation with other living birds is still ambiguous, making them unique in the birding world. As well as being vulnerable to habitat loss – a breeding pair needs about a 2 kilometer square territory – their biggest threat is the illegal trade in wildlife.
Community involvement in their conservation is very important, even more so as Bangweulu is classified as a game management area, not a national park. “People can still live in the area and pursue their livelihoods. Between 50 000 and 80 000 people are dependent on the ecosystem in and around the park and the wetlands. Fishing is the main source of income for these communities. The fish is smoked and dried and sold all over the country,” notes Carl, who began his work in the area looking at the role that fish and fishing plays in sustainable livelihoods. He was then employed as a fisheries manager.
“The eco system is very resilient as it floods and dries every year. In the wet season it gets colonized by the fish and people catch the fish when it dries up. The fish are small, breed quickly and are adapted to the boom/bust habitat,” he explains. There is also a 3 month fishing ban in Zambia, to allow the fish to breed at the beginning of the rains, which has helped stabilize the population. “Most people adhere to this and the great consensus is that people have seen better catches as a result,” he confirms.
The mammal populations in the park are also growing now that the park is getting good support through African Parks. “There are herds of thousands of endemic black lechwe and if you’re lucky, you might see a sitatunga,” says Carl. Aside from the shoebill, there are about 400 other bird species to see too.
Heading back to camp after our epic encounter with this extraordinary bird, I was astonished to learn that in our 5 to 6 hour trek we’d covered only about 4 kilometers in total due to the difficult terrain. We felt like we’d emerged from a primal soup, dripping, muddy, sweaty, cut up and exhausted. Not many get to see this incredible bird, or experience the world it inhabits. It’s a world that, like the shoebill, seems to exist outside of time.
Additional Info
You can see the shoebill on an independent self-drive trip like us, using Nsobe as a convenient base, or fly in on a Shoebill Safari with a known operator. The camp on Shoebill Island is currently being renovated.
You can learn more on the below pages:
