Another early start and the Idea is to spend some more time around the Kotu area for the morning and venture further afield in the afternoon, we did not manage to do the sewage ponds and Casino cycle track the previous day, and we didn't manage to get that far again on this day either! but we got some good birds and some great images.
Starting just down the road from Kombo Beach we found a Beautiful Sunbird nest and spent some time photographing the female as she went to and fro feeding her young.
Beautiful Sunbird Nectarinia pulchella
A thin layer of hazy cloud made the light softer for photography so I spent a while on the Grey-headed Woodpecker nest and got some nice images of both birds, the middle shot here is the female. There were many other birds around, flocks of White-faced Whistling Duck from the nearby Kotu ponds flew over as did Palm-nut Vulture, this time a boldly black and white adult bird in contrast to the dull brown juvenile seen yesterday. Working around the area we were treated to good views of numerous wintering waders, Whimbrel, Bar-tailed Godwits, Greenshank, Common, Wood and Curlew Sandpipers, plus many of the resident waders such as Spur-winged and Wattled Plover, and the roosting Senegal Thick-knees that we had photographed so well the day before.
3 images above, Grey-headed Woodpecker Dendrocopus goertae
Egrets were all around, Cattle Egrets followed a herd of cows being driven by a Gambian herdsman along by the golf course, with Little, Great White and Intermediate Egrets feeding in the creek, we also found a Black Egret in the rice fields but sadly did not get to see it using its wings as an umbrella-like shade whilst feeding.
Black Egret Egretta ardesiaca
The sparse scrub, Rice fields and Palm tree area to the south of the creek produced a good variety of species, a flock of Rose-ringed Parakeet feasted on some bushes and allowed quite close approach, Senegal Coucal was very numerous and we had good close views of them too. The area was very rich in birds, many we had only fleeting glimpses of and failed to positively I/D but there were Warblers, Weavers and Crombecs etc, see the list at the bottom of the page.
Rose-ringed Parakeet Psittacula kramerii
Senegal Coucal Centropus senegalensis
Beautiful Sunbird Nectarinia pulchella
The birds that I really wanted good images of were the Rollers and they did not disappoint, Abyssinian and Blue-Bellied showed well, stooping down from their high vantage points to feed on a the large insects and small lizards that were all around, these birds are even more stunningly colourful in flight.
Abyssinian Roller Coracius abyssiniica
Blue-bellied Roller Coracius cyanogaster
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