• Welcome to BirdForum, the internet's largest birding community with thousands of members from all over the world. The forums are dedicated to wild birds, birding, binoculars and equipment and all that goes with it.

    Please register for an account to take part in the discussions in the forum, post your pictures in the gallery and more.
ZEISS DTI thermal imaging cameras. For more discoveries at night, and during the day.

Trip report Gambia march 1-15 2013 (1 Viewer)

fleetwood

New member
Report holidaytrip Gambia march 1-15 2013

Last winter, my wife and I, together with a good friend, decided to go on holiday “somewhere were the sun shines and the weather is warm”. To me, a holiday is no proper holiday if there isn’t an opportunity for some serious bird watching. So I proposed Gambia. And Gambia it was.
On the day of our arrival, tired of the journey and longing for a shower and a cold beer, we were adressed by Ebou Barry, who said to be a professional bird guide. Our first impression was good, so we gave him the benefit of the doubt and appointed a half-day trip to Brufut Woods, in two days.
Though I spotted a lot of beautiful birds on my own during the next day, I was amazed to see how many species Ebou detected during a morning walk through arather small woodland area. Of course he has the advantage of experience with the local species, but he also has a very sharp eye and ear! Nice species we saw rhat morning are Black wood hoopoe, Bronze-winged courser, Wahlbergs eagle. Plus a very good view of Long-tailed nightjar.
Because we were very much satisfied by this first trip, we decided to join Ebou for the other bird trips we had in mind. During the days in between, we did birdwatching by ourselves, which was veryrewarding, since our hotel (Badala Park) is situated next to Kotu Creek, an exellent area for spotting mangrove- and mudflat birds, and the Fajara golf course, with all kind of woodland birds (e.g. Silverbill, Violet turacu, Snowy-capped robin chat)
The next trip with Ebou went to a series of smaller areas, fairly close together. These are Mandinaba, Bonto forest and the Faraba bush track. You could call this an “owl trip”, because we saw five different species among which the rare African wood ow land the Greyish eagle owl. But also very fine views of African hawk eagle and Long-crested eagle.

Next day, we went to Tanji, the fishing village, with another guide, who was recommended to us by a friend back home. We knew in advance that he was no good for bird watching(unfortunately he turned out to be no good at all). It was very interesting to see the place where they land the fis hand smoke, sun-dry or fry and eat it. Delicious! (But veryvery spicy..) North of the fishing site there is the mouth of Tanji Creek with a fantastic mixed roost of gulls and tern. There were Caspian-, Royal-, and Lesser crested tern along with Grey-headed-, Slender-billed-, and Kelp gull. And pelicans everywhere, both Pink-backed and Great white.
Our last excursion with Ebou went up country, to Tendaba Camp. Not pnly are the surroundings of Tendaba very worth wile, together with Ebou the journey to and fro is a trip in itself. Along the way he knows lots of places to see nice species. During short (and sometimes not so very short..) stops, we saw e.g. Brown-necked parrot, Senegal batis, Brubru shrike, Gabar goshawk, African fish eagle and Mosque swallow. Tendaba Camp is situated on the bank of the Gambia river, very well situated for outings to neighbouring nature reserves. Accomadations are somewhat basic, the food is local and very good. We made a boat trip to Baobolong (a little disappointing, but still Martial eagle and White-backed night heron), Kiang west (Standard-winged nightjar, Black stork, Bruce’s green pigeon) and the old airstrip (Bateleur, lots of Abyssinian roller).
Allin all a very interesting trip, but what a relief to return to the coast with only 30 C (instead of 40) and a little breeze from the ocean.

June/July 2013, Vrouwenpolder/Holland, Jaap Drijfhout (list of species attached)
 

Attachments

  • List of species seen in The Gambia during our visit 1 – 15 march 2013.doc
    48.5 KB · Views: 133
Warning! This thread is more than 11 years ago old.
It's likely that no further discussion is required, in which case we recommend starting a new thread. If however you feel your response is required you can still do so.

Users who are viewing this thread

Back
Top