Travel Guide Forêt De Mpanga

Less than forty kilometres from Kampala, this 45 km² forest has been protected since 1952. Accessible to visitors, it is home to a research centre frequented by entomologists, botanists and ornithologists. It is a mid-altitude rainforest, similar to the one that extended into the Lake Victoria hinterland before it was cleared. It is, of course, much less interesting than the large forest massifs of the west, but it is a "green setting" appreciated by city dwellers who can, for a day or a weekend, go hiking on the various trails and thus escape from the Kampala fever. The mammals present are limited to monkeys, such as the ascagne or the black and white colobus, as well as wild pigs and squirrels. Sitatungas, small antelopes that are shy and therefore rarely observed, are present, such as the Shoebill, in the adjacent Nakyetema marsh. The avifauna is very important with approximately three hundred species of birds recorded: the blue-breasted kingfisher, the hornbill (grey-cheeked or long-banded), the jackfish parrot and the giant touraco are among the most remarkable, without forgetting the spotted bulbul, the green crombec, the Ugandan warbler or the white-fronted shrike. The forest is also known for its myriad of butterflies (some 120 species of lepidoptera have been recorded) and more than 500 species of trees, shrubs and bushes