TENDABA TO SENEGAMBIA TRANSFER WITH STOPS AT
TENDABA ‘AIRFIELD & KIANG - WEST
Breakfast was as usual taken at 7am and by 8am
we were on the road once again, we didn’t travel far before we stopped for our
first walk. As some stage this area was a grass field and had alanding strip
but that was long ago, it is now a flood meadow with pools and reed beds and
some patches of long grass. It is usually good for pipits and waders, we
quickly found a Plain Backed Pipit but hen our attention was drawn to the water
meadow because we heard the unmistakable call of cranes.
We walked for a kilometer towards the main
river so that we could get a better view of the marshland and a after a short
while we saw two birds in flight, they landed on top of a bush and promptly
started making more cranes!! This is good news as they are now very rare in the
Gambia with less than 50 individuals. We also saw Spur-winged Goose,
Pink-backed Pelicans, Great White Egrets and the usual plovers.
In the scrub behind us we found a fruiting tree
which attracted both the Grey and the
Red Hornbills as well as two confiding Bearded Barbets, African Golden Oriole
and Common Bubul. We also had fun watching Abyssinian Rollers, Bruce’s Green
Pigeon and a Gonolek.
On the way back to the bus guess who slipped
over and landed in thick slimy mud!! Yes, muggings did!
We drove to Kiang West and walked into some
open scrub in search of a few species missing from our list, we didn’t see any
of them but we added Common Redstart and had superb views of Yellow-Fronted
Tinkerbird, Dark Chanting Goshawk, Gabar Goshawk and a Martial Eagle which was
perched in a dead tree, yes what big bird that one is!
Between Kiang and Senegambia we stopped a
couple times, one time was we saw a dead cow at the side of the side covered in
vultures. Several Hooded Vultures remained on the carcass even when we got out
of the bus. We then noticed a couple of Ruppell’s Vultures circling overhead
and one of them landed in a nearby tree giving great views.
Another stop was to search for a White-faced
Scops Owl which failed to show. Soon we were back at the coast and our upriver
adventure was over, we had added about 80 species to our list which was now
approaching 240, not bad for a photographic tour, as most the photographers had
photographed 200+ species.
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