TENDABA TO GEORGETOWN
ISLAND – VIA SOMA WETLANDS - PANGHAN MARSHES – KAUR WETLANDS – WASSU QUARRY.
This was a
transfer day so we spent most of the day travelling and making short stops along the way. Our first impromptu
stop was not far from the gates of Tendaba Camp when a Pearl-spotted Owlet flew
across the road and landed just beside the bus, unfortunately it did land out
of sight so most of us missed it.
After an hour we had travelled just 30km when we
arrived at Soma Wetlands, we stopped for 30 minutes and found out first Egyptian Plover, what a lovely,
colourful bird and a super find. We also found Pink-backed Pelican, Striated Heron, Common Greenshank, Black-winged
Stilt, Caspian Plover and several common species.
From Soma we drove to the ferry at Farafenni and
caught a ferry within minutes of arriving, soon we were on our way heading eastward
on the north bank of the river. We stopped to buy our food for lunch in the
town and then drove 20km to a couple of well known watering holes which are
used by many species of birds as well as cattle. When we arrived a large group
of Little Swifts were above the pool, the flock also held a single White-rumped
Swift, Red-rumped Swallows and a couple of Mottle Spinetails. The pool itself
was fairly quiet but we did see Chestnut-back Sparrow-Lark, Long-tailed
(Exclamatory) Whydah Both the male in breeding plumage, with its extremely long
tail feathers, and the female. A Yellow-fronted Canary, Bush Petronia and
Northern Red-Bishop came down in small flocks, as did Namaqua Dove,
Black-billed Wood-Dove and lots of Laughing Doves.
At the second pool we sat down to eat our lunch in the
shade of the bushes, it was now getting very hot. Our lunch was interrupted by
many sightings, many of the same species as before but after an hour a very
large flock of Red-billed Quelea arrived, a couple of the males were still in
breeding plumage, they were accompanied by Northern Red-bishops and a host of
other birds, We saw for the first time: Cinnamon-breasted Bunting, Pin-tailed
Whydah (a female) and Black-rumped Waxbill but the star of show was a Sudan
Golden Sparrow, what a that one is, it made the Yellow Canary look pale!
After lunch we set off again but before long we reach
the wonderful wetlands of Kaur, there are always lots of birds there and today
was no exception. Very close to the roadside we found Egyptian Plover, in fact there 7 in the area, we got good
photographs this time! A Black-faced
Quail-finch was also near the road, it was a male and it was holding a
feather in its beak, nesting material one assumes.
In the near distance a flock of some 60 Senegal Thick-knees
stood in the water together with Cattle Egret (20) and a single Hadada Ibis,
there were also a flock of 50+ Ruff, Spotted Redshank (2) and a nice find,
Kittlitz’s Plover (4). Collared Pratincoles numbered over 100 and as we
searched the expanse of marsh we found Greenshank, Yellow Wagtail, Comb
(knob-billed) Duck (8), White-faced Whistling Duck (4), Spur-winged Goose (4)
and also many egrets, herons, Spur-winged Plovers and Wattled Plovers. It is
truly one of Gambia’s premiere birding spots and a great place to visit.
A smaller wetland some 10km further along the north
bank is found at Panghan, this consists of large reed fringed pools which have
large areas of lilies and is ideal for some species. We quickly found African
Jacana, Pygmy Goose, Black Crake and a Common Moorhen. Several Pied Kingfishers
were milling about and it is a favoured place of the Squacco Heron, several
were fishing from the edge of the reeds. It was much too hot for a walk so we
just scoped from the road in search of Purple Swamphen and other species but we
failed to locate anything else.
Our excursion of the afternoon was a sand quarry found
just west of the village of Wassu. It was mid-afternoon and extremely warm so
we kept in the shade when we could. The quarries hold an impressive number of Red-throated Bee-eaters and to our
great delight there were about 100 of them present. This is most colourful of
all the Gambian Bee-eaters and my favourite, I took lots of pictures of them
(again) they were glorious. During our walk we also came across a family party
of Northern Anteater-Chats, a flock
of some 50+ European Bee-eaters, also
we saw our first Little Weavers, Village
Indigobird, Beaudouin's Snake Eagle and a Green Sandpiper. There were many other species present but none of them were new
for the trip list, a male Pin-tailed Whydah was an excellent find.
Our last stop of the trip was to look at yet another Martial Eagle; this one was circling
above the road and was being mobbed by a Grasshopper
Buzzard which looks miniscule compared to the huge eagle.
At 4:30pm we reached the ferry for crossing over half
of the river to Georgetown Island., we had to wait for 30 minutes before we
arrived on the island and a quick, short drive to the camp at Baobolong.
We settled into our rooms and met again at 7:30pm for
the bird-log before a nice dinner and a cold beer. Just after dinner we walked
into the courtyard to track down a calling African
Scops Owl which showed up very well under torch-light, an excellent finish
to another great birding day in the Gambia. We saw 108 species, 27 of which
were new for our tally which now stands at 231, with 7 days to go.
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