On 12th of November the wife and
I jetted of to The Gambia in West Africa. A place I have visited on many
occasions, 15 including this trip, since 1997 and I am good friends with Clive
Barlow the author of the Field Guide to the Birds of the Gambia and Senegal. I
have been on several field trips with him and also spent many an hour drinking
the local beer, Julbrew with him. This was my wife’s first visit and found the
country, the food and the beer very nice but not overjoyed by the ever
friendly, perhaps too friendly, local “bumsters”, who were constantly
approaching us trying to get you to visit ‘their’ restaurant or be your ‘guide’.
Being a little agoraphobic meant this was a tad too much for Debs but over the
years I have learned to ignore it, they soon leave you alone once you show
you’re not interested. As mentioned in my last post this was meant to be a NBA
holiday (if you haven’t worked it out yet, it means No Birding Allowed!) to
spend time with the wife but, I did get out in the mornings and Debs did come along
on a couple of birding trips with Clive and me. I did notice on this trip that
there seemed to be a lot less birds about than the last time I was here
although the numbers of Black Kite seemed to me incredibly high, both facts
confirmed by Clive. On the morning of the 13th Debs and I were
picked up from in front of our hotel and were taken to Clive’s house before
moving on to Brufut for the first days catch up and birding with some of the
first birds seen were Fanti Saw-wing, Levailant’s Cuckoo and Klass’s Cuckoo.
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| Record shot of Fanti Saw-wing in Brufut |
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| Levailant's Cuckoo under a bush at Brufut |
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| Klass's Cuckoo Brufut |
Some other birds seen around here included
Hooded Vulture, Grey-headed Sparrow, Red-cheeked Cordon-bleu, Vinaceous dove,
Senegal Coucal, Little Swift, and Blue-breasted Kingfisher and not far down the
path a family of Gambian Mongooses were frolicking in a family group of at
least 16 animals, a rarely seen spectacle in daylight. There were also birds
such as Yellow-crowned Gonolek, Whistling Cisticola, Double-spurred Francolin,
Greater Honeyguide, Fine-spotted Woodpecker, Western Grey Plantain-eater,
Fork-tailed Drongo and Pygmy Kingfisher. Later on in the afternoon I took a
walk down to the beach where Royal and Caspian Terns were passing offshore
while on the beach were Whimbrel, Speckled Pigeon, Pied Crow, Wattled Plover
and Black Kite. I did notice throughout the day an inordinate amount of
Butterflies present, it looked as if someone was sprinkling (throwing even)
confetti in the air non-stop.
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| Gambian Mongoose Brufut |
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| Western Grey Plantain-eater in Brufut |
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| Red-billed Hornbill Brufut |
On the 14th Clive and I took a
trip to Tanji where we spent a great deal of time scanning through the Gull
& Tern flock looking for colour rings finding a fair few Sandwich Terns and
Lesser Black-backed Gulls bearing Scottish and Danish rings respectively. Birds
encountered at Tanji included Osprey, Long-tailed Cormorant, Lanner Falcon,
Spur-winged Plover, Bar-tailed Godwit, Common Sandpiper, Grey-headed Gull,
Red-necked Falcon, Red-billed Hornbill, Olivaceous Warbler, Little Bee-eater
and Northern Puffback Shrike. As well as Red-eyed Dove, Pied Kingfisher,
Golden-tailed Woodpecker, Bronze Manikin, African Thrush and White-billed
Buffalo Weaver. While among the plethora of Butterflies there were Caper White,
Common Grass Yellow, White-lady Swallowtail, Dark Blue Pansy and Spotted Acraea
plus Common Wall Dragonfly, Red Basker Dragonfly, Gambian Stripped Squirrel,
Agama Lizard, Green Vervet Monkey and Red Colobus Monkey.
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| Caper White at Tanji |
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| Dark Blue Pansy at Tanji |
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| Spotted Acraea in Brufut |
The 15th
saw us back at Tanji and once again checking rings on Gulls as well as taking
in the surrounding avifauna with such species as Great-white Pelican,
Great-white Egret, Shikra, Oriole Warbler, Common Whitethroat, Variable
Sunbird, Red-billed Firefinch, Senegal Parrot, African Grey Hornbill, Green
Woodhoopoe, Piapiac, Gull-billed Tern and Kelp Gull all noted. Also Audouin’s
Gull, Slender-billed Gull, Black-winged Stilt, Four-banded Sandgrouse,
Red-chested Swallow, Northern Wheatear and Blue-spotted Wooddove all made the
list. The rarest sighting was of a Cape Hare in the forested part of Tanji on a
track leading to the beach, in 30 years of residency in The Gambia Clive has
never seen one in the day, only at night in headlights or dead on the road. I
managed a record shot before it disappeared into the undergrowth.
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| Cape Hare in Tanji a rare daylight sighting |
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| Hooded Vulture on beach at Bijilo |
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| Grey-headed Gull at Tanji |
