Gorilla trekking day one - the Habinyanja group

Our first day of gorilla trekking dawned clear.

After an 8am briefing at the Bwindi Park Headquarters in Buhoma, we set off in the car to climb to the ridge of the mountain where the Habinyanja group were tracked the previous day.  We trekked across a tea plantation and then entered the impenetrable forest.  At first we walked on a narrow path but when we got word via walkie-talkie that the trackers had found the gorillas, our guide hacked through the dense vegetation with a panga to lead us there.

Our initial sighting was the silverback, Makara sitting at the base of a tree with three other gorillas in the branches above, eating leaves.  As we circled around the back of the tree, we could see the nettles down the hill rustling and one by one we sighted the other gorillas, sitting peacefully munching, scattered about on the ground in thick undergrowth over an area of maybe ten meters by ten meters.  One or two others were in trees on the perimeter of the area.

The most exciting moment was when we turned to see the silverback sitting upright behind and above us, and then he walked down the hill very close to us, followed by two other gorillas.

We stayed and watched the group for about an hour as they moved slowly down the hill, resting and eating.
This video shows the silverback walking under the trees to rest - he lay down and went to sleep lying on his back with his right foot sticking up in the air.

The Habinyanja group has 19 gorillas in all;  Makara the silverback, Maraya the blackback male, younger males Kavuyo and Ruyombo, adult females Kisho, Nyabukye, Binyonko, Rugyendo, Rukundo and Nyamuhango, juveniles Elsa and Hamusini and six or seven more babies.  We estimated that we saw about 15 of them.  I bought a family picture but it's really hard to try to identify which gorilla is which.  I'm told that the shape of the nose is used by primatologists to distinguish individual animals.

This video is of two of the babies playing