LONDON , GATWICK
– BANJUL – TRANSFER TO SENEGAMBIA HOTEL
An excited
group of 7, full of anticipation, met up at Gatwick at the unearthly hour of
5:30am (ish). The flight was perfect except for a little turbulence (must leave
the baked beans alone before I fly next time). Four of the group had travelled
from the US and so were a little tired of flying by now.
We arrived in
good time and strangely enough our passage through the airport was quick,
efficient and went unhindered, smashing! After a short delay we located our
driver and we jumped on the bus for the 40 minute ride to our hotel.
In and around
the airport we listed several species, Cattle
Egret being the first which was quickly followed by numerous sightings of Pied Crow, Hooded Vulture and Little Swift. Several doves were seen
on the wires, in fact hundreds of doves were present, we identified Laughing Dove and Red-eyed Dove, also seen along the roadside were: Red-billed Hornbill, Yellow-billed Shrike,
Yellow-billed Kite, White-billed Buffalo Weaver and many more vultures.
It took
longer to check-into the hotel than it did to pass through the airport, but
once we were all settled we met up at 3:45pm for a stroll around the gardens.
The beautiful
and extensive gardens of the Senegambia Hotel offer the visiting birder a
lovely opportunity to acquaint his/her self with the common birds of the
region. It has dense scrub, open parkland and large areas of well kept lawn.
The beach backs onto the western border of the gardens and lends another
dimension to the local habitat.
We walked
around the lawns through the open woodland and eventually made it to the beach,
we had a wonderful couple of hours birding and we even took a paddle in the
Atlantic Ocean, such fun!
The beautiful
White-crowned Robin Chat was one of
our first sightings, then they came thick and fast at one point we were rooted
to the spot and didn’t know where to look for the best. There were the most
colourful birds on show and some pretty drab ones too, the aptly named Beautiful Sunbird, Little Bee-eater, 4
species of Glossy Starlings, Speckled Pigeon, Red-billed Firefinch and Broad-billed Roller were the bright
ones, with Common Bubul, Brown Babbler,
Grey-headed Sparrow and Piapiac leading
the drab parade. But all were beautiful in their own way.
Our visit to
the beach was short because of bed light but we did find Caspian Tern, Sandwich Tern, Grey-headed and Lesser Black-becked Gulls.
Our little
excursion wouldn’t be replete without a mention of the Green Vervet and Red
Colobus Monkeys and also the huge Nile Monitor Lizards that roam freely around
the grounds.
After a break
for showering etc we met up in the bar before we sat out on the terrace and ate
a welcomed dinner. The moon was almost full and air temperature was around 25C,
fantastic ending to a lovely start of tour of the Gambia.
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