CAPE POINT
ROAD &; MANGROVE SWAMP – BUND ROAD – KOTO STREAM (BRIDGE).
Our last full day started off well, then fizzled out
in the middle and picked up again later in the afternoon. We set ourselves a target of 7 new
species to break the 300 mark on our list and because a few waders, terns and skuas
were missing from the list we set off to look for them.
Arriving at
Cape Point Road marshes at 8:30am our first bird of note was a Giant Kingfisher then we found our
first target bird: Black-tailed Godwit, this
bird fed alongside of Bar-tailed
Godwits, Redshank, Greenshank, Black-winged Stilts, Common Sandpiper, Grey
Plover and in the same pool a roosting flock of gulls and terns held over a
hundred Caspian Terns.
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| the beach at Cape Point |
A short walk
produced Blue-bellied and Abysinian Rollers, Zitting Cisticola,
Northern Red Bishop, Senegal Coucal and Pied Kingfishers were so numerous it seemed as though they sat on every wire
in all directions.
A sandy track
led us to the beach area and we could see that many terns were feeding
off-shore. It took us all of five minutes to find a dozen or so Skuas, the Arctic Skua or Parasitic Jeager
(the named used by my American friends in the group) was the most common but we
did see a couple of Pomerine Skuas. A
very distant Northern Gannet was
also seen as well as hundreds of terns.
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| spot the difference! Eurasian Curlew and Whimbrel |
We returned
to the road and found that we had ‘bus trouble’ the battery was flat, so we
couldn’t go anywhere, this meant a delay of about an hour whilst a second
vehicle was sent out to us. During that hour we had a nice time watching a
variety of species.
Some Blue-cheeked Bee-eaters flew around us
and perched on the nearby wires as did a small flock of Wire-tailed Swallows with a few Red-chested Swallows. The rollers looked particularly nice in the
morning sunlight.
By 11am we
were back on the road driving along the ‘new’ Bund Road, this used to be a very
difficult drive with pot-holes everywhere but now it is being re-laid in
concrete and soon to be finished, no more clouds of dust! The tide was perfect but we were disappointed
with the birds out there on the mud flats. A Couple of Curlew Sandpipers, lots of Bar-tailed
Godwits, Common Ringed Plovers, Sanderling, a few Whimbrel and a single Eurasian
Curlew was all we saw. The gull and tern flocks held nothing new for us but
a single Slender-billed Gull was a
nice find.
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| Pied Kingfisher |
A lunch stop
was made in the central port area of this very busy Banjul suburb, we found a very nice restaurant
that served fantastic fresh fruit milk-shakes! After that we drove to the beach
to try to get closer views of Skuas, we parked near the ferry port, the ferry
wasn’t working so the beach area was a mass of people taking the smaller boats for
the river crossing, It was incredibly noisy, dirty and very intimidating because the
‘boy carriers’ were competing for business, if you wanted to board a boat you
have to be carried on the shoulders of a ‘boy’ to save you getting wet, they
receive a 10 dalasi payment for doing this.
We moved away
from the chaos and birded from a patch of beach not covered in litter and
debris. The Skuas were still far out but the occasional one would come closer.
But we did find a small flock of White-winged
Terns and then our 300th species flew by in the form of an
unmistakable Eurasian Oystercatcher.
Our short
beach-watch was over in minutes we all wanted to be away from there so we drove
out of town to look for a much quieter spot. We did this and enjoyed some nice
birding with a cool breeze in our faces. We found a second Eurasian Oystercatcher, another, much closer, Eurasian Curlew and several other waders.
Lastly we
visited two places near the hotel to finish off the day, the first was a small
disused quarry, I say disused but it was being filled up with local rubbish,
what a mess. The quarry had small areas of open water and a thick reed-bed, we
hoping for a couple of new birds but all found was half a dozen Common Moorhens.
Our final
destination was the bridge at the Koto Stream, this where we stopped for our
very first birding excursion almost two weeks ago. It was great to stand on the
bridge and watch many species on the exposed mud flats, the light was perfect
and temperature was just right. However the best birds were found in a tree
just down the road from the bridge, first we found a beautiful adult Klaas’s Cuckoo, then a couple of sunbird
species followed by Northern Crombec and
some adult Little Weavers. The
cuckoo stole the show, everyone loved the emerald iridescence of the bird’s wing
and mantle plumage contrasting with its’ white face, chest and belly. The photos below do not catch the true beauty of this bird's plumage.
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| The Klaas's Cuckoo at Koto - these photographs do not capture the true beauty of this bird |
We left the
bridge having some fond memories of our two visits there, arriving at the hotel
with ample time to shower for dinner, we ate early and had time to relax afterwards,
although everyone was very tired and an early night was the order of the day.
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