THE GAMBIA TOUR 1 - DAY 5 – 9TH NOVEMBER 2012

BANJUL TO BARRA (across the river by ferry) – Kaur Wetlands – Georgetown

What a Fantastic day! Despite travelling over 200Km upriver, taking two ferry crossings and not making too many stops we recorded 111 species, incredible really, 45 species were added to our trip tally which now stands at 180 after 4 days!

It was dark and cool as we left our hotel at 6:30am, we boarded the bus and drove quickly to the ferry terminal in Banjul. We needed to catch the first ferry at 7:30am so that we could be on the road north of the river by 9am. Everything went to plan except that the hotel forgot to make our packed-breakfast, this meant that we had to stop in Barra, on the north side of the river, to eat our breakfast. So by 9:45am we were on our. The crossing was excellent and we listed quite a few terns and gulls as well as two Pomerine Skuas, a Gull-billed Tern was new for the list too.

Our drive upriver also went smoothly, we stopped umpteen times to look at perched birds and for the photographers to do their stuff. Brilliant views were had of both of the Bishops, Northern Red and Black-winged, we also stopped for Lizard and Grasshopper Buzzards. One stop was made to look at a Dark Chanting Goshawk , italso produced Veillot’s Barbet and Striped kingfisher in the same tree and a Melodious Warbler flew out from it. Another stop was made to pick up a Pygmy Kingfisher that we saw sitting in the road, it had obviously been hit and was dazed, it couldn’t fly so we took it under our wing, so to speak!

A scheduled stop next to a large wetlands was superb we spent a great hour there. The marshes were packed solid with birds, thousands of them. We saw both Pelican species in high numbers, hundreds of great White Egrets with Intermediate, Cattle and Little Egrets. Also Western Reef Egrets, Grey, Purple and Squacco Herons, Yellow-billed Storks, African Spoonbills and the superb Black Heron which were striking up their umbrella feeding pose, fantastic. All around this mass of black and white were Sengal Thick-knee, Spur-winged Plover, Wattle Plover and a single Greenshank.

Other birds seen around the marshes were Zitting Cisticola, Black-faced Quailfinch, Long-tailed Cormorant and a few Yellow-billed Kites. We drove into Farrafenni where we picked up picnic supplies for lunch which we ate sitting by the side of a large watering hole a few miles further east. Despite the disturbance of frequent visits to the water by herds of cows we logged a good number of bird species there. A large mixed flock of birds were regularly visiting the pool, the flock was made up of weavers, buntings, canaries and lots of doves were also there. The Long-tailed Whydah, Namaqua Dove, Green bee-eater, Cut-throat Finch, Cinnamon Breasted Bunting and the Red Bishop added a lot of colour to the throngs. 

We drove to a second pool where there was less disturbance from cattle and watched even more birds, it was a delight to see so many species. New birds here were Bush Petronia, Pin-tailed Whydah and Red-billed Quelea.

We continued on our eastward journey and made brief stops at small wetlands where we again added more species to the growing daily tally,  Black Crake was seen several times and a family party of the colourful, but tiny Pygmy Goose  was an excellent find. We also saw more Squacco herons, Malchite Kingfisher and Jacana.

The vast expanse of the Kaur Marsh was our next destination, it again held thousands of birds but our main interest was focused on finding the ‘Crocodile bird’ AKA as the Egyptian Plover. It took us all of 2 minutes to locate one, what a beautiful wader. There were also hundreds of wintering Collared Pratincoles, Yellow Wagtails, White Wagtails and huge total of Senegal Thick-knees, I have never seen so many.

It was now getting late and we had still quite a long way to go so off we went, only stopping at the ferry across to Georgetown Island. We crossed the river to the ‘island’ of Georgetown in the dark and the only species that was added to the list was an African Scops Owl two of them called from a tree above us as we sat and ate our dinner.