The Gambia Blog

Chris spies a small bird in the middle distance

Well, I’ve recently returned from four fantastic days on the Chris Packham birding tour in The Gambia. We dragged ourselves through thorny acacias in forty degree heat – heat even the local owls avoided, skipped around marauding cattle in the lessening light of evening, and ran the gauntlet in the noisome charm of the fishing village at Tanji, and all this to get a look at some birds! But such birds: painted snipe, long-tailed nightjars, blue-bellied rollers, white-faced scops owls, splendid sunbirds… 148 species in total. 148. One might search for a lifetime in the UK and not get to that total; we managed it in four days.

I’ll publish some more detailed accounts of the trip over the next couple of weeks, for now here are just a couple of images to whet the appetite.

The boat trip on the River Gambia. The masters consult.

A huge bull interrupts the peace...

The dusty rabble, near Kotu stream.