TENDABA TO SENEGAMBIA HOTEL WITH BIRDING STOPS AT KIANG WEST – KALAGI –
FARA BANTA
The weather
continued to be hot and sometimes humid but we managed to find shelter and a
little breeze for most of our birding excursions. We said goodbye to Tendaba
for the second time and set off to the nearby Kiang West forest trails. We only
travelled a short distance along the track when a shout of ‘cuckoo’ went up. We
stopped abruptly and jumped off the bus to view a Great Spotted Cuckoo, a nice bird for our list. Whilst watching the
cuckoo we came across about 15 other species within about 5 minutes two of
which were also new for our trip list and both were European Migrants too!
First a couple of Whinchats were
seen in the long grassy scrub and then a Willow
Warbler appeared very close in a small tree. It was a nice start to the
day, just scanning around the open fields of this savannah forest we could see
a multitude of species how about this for a 180 scan: Striped Kingfisher, Abysinian Roller, Grasshopper buzzard, Dark
Chanting Goshawk, Whinchat, Senegal Parrot, Fork-tailed Drongo and at least
4 species of dove.
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| group shot standing in front of a termite mound |
We walked down
the track and entered a more dense woodland and within the next hour or so we
found a good number of new species. Northern
Crombec (a tail-less little nuthatch type of bird), White Shouldered Tit, Brown-rumped Bunting,
Yellow Penduline Tit, Chestnut-crowned Sparrow-Weaver and the most wanted
bird a Scimitarbill ( formerly Black
Woodhoopoe).
We then found
3 species of woodpecker in short space of time, Grey, Fine-Spottted and Brown-backed,
the later being our new bird. The sky always held a few species but nothing
out of the ordinary, a Woolly-necked
Stork was the only none raptor.
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| Brown-backed Woodpecker |
Soon it got
too warm for us and the bird-life and so we reluctantly left the area and set
off on our journey to the coast. At 12 noon we stopped at Kalagi Brdige where a
nice restaurant sits on the banks of the wetland, we had a huge panoramic view
of open sky as we sat to eat our meal.
An open
expanse of sky means raptor watching and it soon started with a pair of Lanner Falcons circling just above us. We
noted 4 or 5 Ospreys, 3 species of
vulture which included our second sighting of Griffon Vulture, the other two were White-backed and Hooded
Vultures. Other raptors seen: African
Harrier-Hawk, Grasshopper Buzzard, Wahlberg’s Eagle, Tawny Eagle, Yellow-billed
Kite, Bateleur, Shikra and an African
Hobby.
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| Lesser Blue-eared Glossy starling |
A nice breeze
came off the water as we watched a huge flock of Little Swifts (200+) were flying around and diving down to their
nests under the bridge. We also Lesser
Blue-eared Glossy Starling, Cutthroat, Levaillant’s Cuckoo, Hammerkop, a Common
Redshank, Spur-winged Lapwings, Senegal Thick-Knee and Red-chested Swallows.
We continued
our journey with a couple more stop before got to suburbs of Banjul. A raptor
watch found us watching several birds including a pair of African Hawk-Eagles, they soared very close to us.
A second stop
was to look for African Brown Parrot, we
did see them but only in flight, a bonus for us was a sighting of Long-crested Eagle, we saw this beauty
perched and in flight as it dashed after a dove, it looks great in flight with
huge white wing patches.
We arrived at
the Senegambia Hotel at 6pm in good time to shower and get ready for dinner. It
was like walking into the Ritz after being in the camps upriver!!
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| The beautiful Brown-rumped Bunting |
Our list was
now approaching 280 species so new birds were becoming hard to find, but there
still about 30 possible new sightings and we have 4 days left to enjoy.
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