TRANSFER DAY; GEORGETOWN BACK TO THE COAST STOPPING AT JAHALY RICE
FIELDS
We spent most
of the day travelling back to the coast, four or five stops were made with an
extended stay at Jahaly Rice Fields. We set off at 8am from Baobolong Camp and
drove south over the bridge to the south bank. A quick stop was made a
kilometer or two just after the bridge to look for one or two species missing
from our list.
A small
watering hole that had almost completely dried up still attracted a number of
birds, we stood and watched the coming and going of several species there. Black-rumped Waxbill, African Silverbill,
Yellow-fronted Canary, Red-billed Firefinch and Bush Petronia seemed to be the most common. A quick search of
nearby scrub revealed our first Yellow
White-eye, we found 3 of them, we also saw Red-throated Bee-eater and lots of wearvers and bishops in small
flocks.
Across the
road from the pool we searched some more mature trees and found Green Bee-eaters, several we feeding
from higher braches but some came down lower and posed for the cameras. A Scarlet-chested Sunbird looked stunning
in the morning sun as did Beautiful
Sunbird and more Red-throated
Bee-eaters.
We continued
our journey westward making a short stop to look at a colony of Maribu Storks and another stop to look
at a pair of Verraux’s Eagle Owls, the
owls showed very well, the best I have seen them.
Next stop was
at Jahaly Rice Fields where we spent a couple hours walking the tracks in search
of more species. Almost immediately after setting out we saw several Painted Snipe as they flushed from the
rice fields. This was our most wanted species and it wasn’t until the end of
our walk that we actually saw a couple on the ground good enough to photograph,
they were certainly worth waiting for, the colourful female (role reversal in
this species) is quite spectacular. We also searched for Black Coucal as four were seen last week by a WINGSPAN group, but
they must have moved on.
We ate lunch
at Jahaly before setting off for the long journey back to the coast,
fortunately the roads are now very good except for about 40km between Soma and
Kalegi. We made inpromtu stops to look at a few species, mainly birds of prey,
an adult Bateleur was particularly
nice, but nothing new for us was seen during the rest of the trip.
Our arrival
back at the Senegambia Hotel was thwarted by typical Gambian incompetence as
they had no rooms for us even though the rooms were booked and paid for! We
were transferred to the Sunset Beach Hotel, a sister hotel. You can do without
this kind of hassle when you are hot and tired after a day on the road.
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