THE GAMBIA 2013 - DAY 11 - 25TH NOVEMBER

MARAKISSA LODGE AND SURROUNDING WOODLAND

This was a lovely relaxing day with gentle walks a long lunch and some good birding. The only downside was the weather, it was hot and humid, too hot in the early afternoon to go out walking. 

FINE-SPOTTED WOODPECKER

Marakissa is a small eco-lodge near the Southern border, Senegal is within throwing distance, it has savannah woodland some rice fields, a lagoon and some dense primary forest. We started our walking a couple of kilometers from the lodge, we began by walking through open woodland. 

A Yellow-billed Shrike

The whole area is under threat from development as a new road has recently been built and sand for the road building material has been taken from the forest, there are now 3 huge quarries and this has now denuded the forest as unique habitat has been destroyed.

Bird life was good in parts and quiet in others we found a lovely Fine-spotted Woodpecker and an unexpected Western Bluebill (this bird is usually found in the dense undergrowth of Abuko not sitting in a tree in open woodland!). Blue-bellied Rollers were nesting in a broken palm, a couple of Black-crowned Tchagras called before showing really well.

NORTHERN BLACK FLYCATCHER

We tracked a couple of elusive species after some hard work, the Little Greenbul showed fairly well, it is a small dark green non-descript species whilst the Leaflove proved to be a much harder species to track down, we found a group of 4 of them but they never showed that well despite their noisy calls.

Violet Turaco

Some brighter species seen included: Splendid Sunbird, Beautiful Sunbird, Green Turaco, Abysinian Roller, Bearded Barbet, Red-billed Firefinch and Red-cheeked Cordonbleu.

TOO BIG FOR THE CAMERA - NILE CROCODILES ON THE BANK OF THE LAGOON AT MARAKISA

Our circular walk ended around 11 am as we boarded the bus and drove the 2km to the lodge. This lovely  tranquil setting next to a large lagoon soon livened up when we arrived and we quickly found a lot of birds. The owners are bird lovers and provide drinking pools for them. We found Black-capped Babbler, Long-tailed Glossy Starlings, Piapiacs and several other species coming down to drink.

a Wattled Lapwing

On and around the lagoon we found Giant Kingfisher, Hammerkop, Wattled Lapwing, Greenshank, Common Sandpiper, Orange-cheeked Waxbills and a couple of crocodiles!!

Over a long lunch and a couple of short walks we found a nice selection of species, a roosting African Scops Owl was a very nice find as was Violet Turaco, Bearded Barbet, Double-spurred Francolin, Northern Crombec, Yellow-billed Shrike, Green Wood-Hoopoe, Brown Babbler an Osprey and a Long-crested Eagle circled over us.

there has obviously been a tiff here - Hammerkops

African Scops Owl

At 4pm we set off down the track towards Senegal to look for more species in open grass fields our first stopped was our last because the bus broke down! We watched egrets and herons on a flooded area then the bus broke down, the battery was completely flat, so after a wait and a jump-start we got going again but the driver stalled it and the battery was flat again. So we abandoned our birding and waited for a new bus to arrive which didn’t take long. We returned to the hotel and arrived at 6:30pm in time to take a shower and get ready for dinner.We had only 3 new the list but we had a gentle peaceful day out in a lovely tranquil setting.