THE GAMBIA TOUR 2: DAY 13 - 28th NOVEMBER 2012

BUND ROAD - CAPE POINT ROAD MORNING AND AFTERNOON

We decided to visit the coast for a second time in order to look for waders, gulls, terns and sea-birds that we had not seen yet. We set off at our usual time of 7:30am and drove straight to the well known ‘Bund Road’. This road is a back route into the docks at Banjul and has a large tidal mangrove swamp on the land side and a good expanse of tidal mud-flats on the other. However, we arrived at high tide, so there were not too many birds wading about on mud! We did find lots of gulls and terns and indeed we found a new gull for the list: Slender-billed Gull, they roosted on the water with hundreds of Grey-headed Gulls, Royal, Lesser-crested and Sandwich Terns. A few Pink-backed Pelicans also sat on the water and a couple of Great Cormorants sat on posts.

We drove the cross-river ferry terminal where we stood the beach and scoped the river at its widest point. Plenty of gulls and terns were feeding offshore but we were more interested in Skuas and within minutes we found two Pomerine Skuas that were fairly close to the shore.

Next we drove to the mangrove swamp on the Cape Point Road. I have never seen so many Caspian Terns in one place, there must have been over 1,000 birds. The usual collection of waders were also found but nothing new for our records. We walked over to the beach side of the road and searched some reeds for warblers, we came up with Subapline Warbler and a Zittting Cisticola. By the time we had finished the walk it was getting close to lunch time so we set for the hotel and took a long lunch break.

For the afternoon we returned to the Bund Road and this time the tide was perfect with a good number of waders feeding on the exposed mud-flats. We saw our first Black-tailed Godwits and plenty of Bar-tailed Godwits, Sanderling, Ringed Plover, Grey Plover, Curlew Sandpipers and Ruddy Turnstones. The larger waders were either Whimbrel or Curlew, whilst the majority of terns were Royal or Lesser-crested.

For our last stint of watching we drove across to the Cape peninsular to search for White-fronted Plover without success, but we did find another new wader for the trip list in the form of Oystercatcher, there were 3 of them feeding out on the mud. Not much else was found and the light was now dimming so we set off back to the hotel to get Before we reached the hotel we made a quick stop at a disused sand quarry, it was quite deep and held plenty of water and lots of reeds. The sides of the quarry were covered in rubbish and yet there was still bird lifer in and the pools. We found Purple Swamphen, Common Moorhen and a Little Grebe, we stayed for about 30minutes before heading off to the hotel.