GAMBIA TOUR 1 - DAY 2 - 6TH NOVEMBER 2012

KOTU STREAM – CASINO CYCLY TRACK –  KOTU RICE FIELDS – KOTU SEWER WORKS (HOW 

NICE) - BIJILO FOREST NATURE RESERVE    
               

Our first full and what a successful day we had! We all met at 7am for breakfast which we ate out on the terrace that overlooks the gardens. Every few minutes some-one would rush for their camera. We had good close views of Black-necked Weavers, Beautiful Sunbirds, Speckled Pigeon and a few of the doves before we finished our toast!

At 8am we loaded onto the bus and set off for the short trip to the Kotu Stream and as soon as we got off all hell let loose. Birds were everywhere cameras point5ing in all directions, chaos! After an hour we all settled and realised we had seen 35 species whilst just standing on the bridge! Wow, how much better can the Gambia be! Our highlights were the Pied Kingfishers of course, beautiful and so obliging! We also saw Malachite Kingfisher and Woodland Kingfisher, there were lots of waders, gulls and egrets and the usual array of herons and egrets, a Striated Heron perched on a telephone wire seemed a little odd. Talking of wires, we had great views of Wire-tailed Swallow too!

Kotu stream from the brdde looking towards the beach

We set off to walk along the cycle track and nearly trod on a mixed party of Red-billed Fire-Finches and Red-cheeked Cordon Bleu, we got so close you could almost touch them. Along the track we added variable Sunbird, Scarlet chested Sunbird, Hammerkop, White-billed Buffalo Weaver, Shikra, Northern Red Bishop (a fantastic male) and several other species.

On the return journey we stopped to look for a Common Gonolek and whilst doing so we found Northern Puffback, Black-necked Weaver, Green Wood Hoopoe, Grey Woodpecker and another Gonolek.

Our walk across the rice fields was very productive as it was now getting very hot, but we did find Little Bee-eater and a very obliging Woodland Kingfisher. At the sewer works (which was very smelly) we added Black-winged Stilt, Wood Sandpiper, White faced Whistling Duck, African Jacana, Little Swift and Palm Swift.

We then drove back to the hotel for a long lunch break and a siesta, we re-emerged at 4pm when we loaded onto the bus and drove less than a mile to the forest nature at Bijilo. A 2-hour walk produced a good number of sightings including Oriole Warbler which performed well as we found two singing males on territories. We also got great views of Swallow-tailed and White-throated Bee-eaters, the latter being our most sought after for this particular venue. The track through the forest led us to open views of the ocean across some scrubland and it was there that we found another of the group’s favourite sightings, the Blue-bellied Roller, what a stunning bird this is.

We headed back as it got dark well pleased with our late afternoon sortie. Dinner was at eight which was followed by very loud drum beating and African Dancing....well its good night from me!!!!