Site Report: Yabello

Visits

• 2011-01-09: We got some supplies in Arba Minch, and from there, we started south on the road to Yabello. We thought about skipping Yabello on this trip, but in the end, the allure of the Stresemann's Bush Crow proved too much. And, anyway, skipping Yabello would have required backtracking from Arba Minch to Shashemene. The most striking thing about Southern Ethiopia was how dry and overgrazed everything was. Many of the trees had been partially cut down, presumably for firewood. A common sight was of Borena women carrying ten-gallon vegetable oil containers for the miles that they needed to walk to get to the water supply. The Borena people are said to not eat birds, so some of the birds seemed tamer in this area. I would not say the same about the Hyrax on the hill behind our hotel. The moment we got within 50 yards of the Hyrax, we witnessed a mass exodus of the creatures, and they did not return even after an hour of waiting. We visited a few sites around Yabello. There was a nice juniper forest a few miles to the west of Yabello. To the east, a dry riverbed provided a good walking path through semi-arid scrub. Further to the east, the town of Arero was an easy place to find Prince Ruspoli's Turaco and Broad-billed Rollers. Our final visit was to some wells and a semi-arid plain where we saw antelope.

Species Seen

Lifelists

• Africa
• World

Trips

• Africa: Egypt and Ethiopia