Leisurely Flutterings

A Jaunt to Lake Mahuzi

Bird life is the dominant feature at Jambo Beach on Lake Muhazi. This small lake is a pleasant hour's drive east from Kigali, and the landscape is radically different from the west side of the capital. As you approach Tanzania, the hills are pulled much flatter and the landscape morphs into savannah scrublands. I must emphasize once more how beautiful Rwanda is from the window of car when one has a reliable driver and uncrowded roads.

After Sunday morning services in Kigali, we had just enough time to venture out, lunch on the lake, and make it home before dark. Jambo Beach is a restaurant and bar on the north shore of Lake Muhazi. It is known for its idyllic location, creative concrete sculptures, and the two Ugandan cranes that wander around while you eat. The huge birds strut slowly and deliberately until one of them spots an insect in the grass; then both of them flap their wings, open their beaks, and jump up and down until one manages to pounce on their prey. The impression they give wavers between mighty hunters and hysterical women.
While the cranes were flapping around the yard, a colony of yellow weaver birds squawked overhead. Their beautifully woven grass nests decorated a nearby oak tree like holiday ornaments. The male weaver has a rough job: he builds as many as ten nests, and his female mate chooses the one she likes best. During our visit, the males were weaving like crazy. All of them, perhaps thirty or forty birds, would fly away at the same time to find building materials, leaving behind an eerie silence. Then after a few minutes all of them would return at once, swamping our conversation with boisterous cheeping as they fluttered upside down and wove the new grass into the walls of their nests. At one point during the fuss, one nest fell to the ground behind my chair. It must have been recently built because the thickly woven walls of grasses and wildflowers were still green and fragrant. Unfortunately, that weaver didn't spend as much time fastening it to the branch as he did on its impeccable construction.

As we were leaving, the cranes injected a bit of action when, after being fed the last of our chips by a member of my party, they decided to attack her. They started pecking at her in protest when the food ran out, wings flapping in their melodramatic style. We all made it safely to the car, though, and returned to Kigali with a cautionary tale against feeding large, stupid birds.