THE GAMBAI 2013 - DAY 8 - 22ND NOVEMBER

GEORGETOWN – MORNING RIVER CRUISE- NORTH BANK EXCURSION – AFTERNOON RIVER CRUISE No. 2

A change in the weather sent the temperature soaring so we were very glad to be on a boat for most of the day. Our day started at 7am in th dining room for breakfast, hot coffee was a welcome too.

We planned to board a boat for a one-way cruise down river at 9am so we had an hour or so to fill. We did this by taking a track from the ‘camp’ heading east for about 1km. We found ourselves in dense scrub with patches of open areas, lots of bird song was in the air. 

A fabulous find was, in my opinion, the most beautiful of all Bee-eaters the Red-throated Bee-eater what a stunner, there were several of them using an acacia tree for perching and hunting from. They were joined by Village Indigobird, Little Weaver, Common Gonolek, Village Weaver and a Red-billed Firefinch.

A little further along the track we found a couple of European migrants in the form of Olivaceous and Subalpine Warblers, then we saw a Violet Turaco and two Black-headed Plovers flew over us. Another great find was a Gabar Goshawk, it just in the sun preening and posing for our cameras.

RED-THROATED BEE-EATER

R T BEE-EATER WITH A VILLAGE INDIGOBIRD

  

We boarded our boat at 9am and headed down river in a westerly direction, just as we boarded a shout went up “Bateleur, Bateleur”, we all looked up and sure enough a superb adult Bateleur flew over the boat, we all great views of it.

For the next 4 hours we drifted down river watching anything that moved including a Hippopotamus, Red Colobus Monkeys, Monitor Lizard and many species of birds. In fact we found a creditable 63 species during the trip with several sightings of African Fish Eagle nad also a numbers of species of vultures. We searched for both the African Finfoot and the Shining Blue Kingfisher without any joy but we were happy with the rest of the findings. Many Palm Swifts were coming down to drink in the middle of the river, we also bumped into many flocks of Little Swifts and with we found our first Mottled Spinetail of the trip. Overall it was a very pleasant experience in beautiful weather, picturesque surroundings and we saw all those birds.

GABOR GOSHAWK

At the end of the cruise we landed and boarded our bus for the return journey to our camp-on the-island but before we went back we decided to visit a quarry at Wassu to see more Red-throated Bee-eater. Despite a very hot temperature there were hundreds of birds at the quarries, many coming down to drink, whilst others were breeding there. We must have seen 100+ Red-throated Bee-eaters and we found several of the ‘must-see’ Carmine Bee-eater, another stunner. 

THE GROUP WALKING AROUND THE BEE-EATER QUARRY

The Northern Anteater Chat was good to see and another trip tick. Hundreds of weavers, bishops, whydahs, finches, swallows, martins and swifts were coming to drink, it was amazing. In the sky a raptor would drift over every few minutes we saw: Grasshopper Buzzard (3), Lizard Buzzard, Shikra, Red-necked Falcon, Wahlberg’s Eagle, Marsh Harrier and African Harrier-Hawk and a Honey Buzzard was also new for us. In the flocks of hirundines we found several of the huge Mosque Swallow, Red-rumped Swallow, Red-chested Swallow, Sand Martin, Little Swift and more Mottled Spinetails. Flocks of weavers and bishops and many whydahs were flying around and coming to the water.

COMMON GONOLEK

Back on the bus we now headed eastward towards Georgetown approaching from the north bank, we stopped once to admire and photograph a Rufous–crowned Roller and we counted at least 10 Abysinian Rollers sitting on the power lines.

We arrived back at the ‘camp’ at 3pm and immediately decided that it was too hot to go birding on land so we booked a second boat trip for 4:30pm, this one would be to search in earnest for African Finfoot, Shining -blue Kingfisher and Swamp Flycatcher.

The second boat trip lasted 2 hours and we did see some good birds including a pair of African Fish Eagles mating and a Gabar Goshawk ransacking a colony of weaver’s nests. Several Swamp Flycatchers were seen but we dipped on the other two target birds, you can’t say that we didn’t try.

Dinner was eight and at that time it was a joy to sit out in a lovely pleasant temperature, there was a clear sky for the first time on the trip and the display of stars was amazing.