East Africa’s Great Rift Valley lakes teem with fishing cormorants and anhingas. Long-tailed cormorants hunt Lake Victoria’s tilapia, while great cormorants colonize Lake Turkana’s volcanic islands.

The African darter (anhinga) inhabits quieter waters from Murchison Falls to the Rufiji Delta, often swimming with only its serpentine neck exposed locals call it the “snakebird.” Watch them perched on papyrus stems and dead trees at dawn, wings spread to dry after fishing marathons.

They’re constant companions along the Nile, in crater lakes, and throughout coastal mangroves. Reed cormorants nest colonially with herons and ibises.