Of Parts sticky! part Deux + 1 (or 3 if you like)

The weather improved over the last three days in the Gambia, it got hotter!! earlier. Some of the local, ish areas we had left for last were various in habitat and accessability,

The entrance or rather the old way of getting into the Golf course at Fajara had beed repaired / closed of so we walked back to the main entrance, having been offered a couple of spliffs for breakfast, we declined graciously. Once through the main entrance were we had to negotiat the group of caddies! who on seeing Binoculars all wanted to show us an Owl, and as the Verreaxs Owl was readily visible from the side road, we declined, in the end we had to be forceful. we moved around cautiously as the golfist were swinging wildly in fact the safest place to be, was on the Browns!!

The otherwise well good spots were very quite with only Lizzard Buzzard really giving us a good show as it swooped around chasing lizzards! The norm was Francolin, both species, Stone Partridge, Long-tailed Cormorant, A very nice Grey Plover, Common sandpiper, Whimbrel, Greenshank, Green Sandpiper, plus five different kingifshers. The Long-tailed Glossy Starlings were accompanied by Lesser and Greater Glossies loosley that is. Sunbirds were, it seemed everywhere, several were around the bottles collecting palm sap, which is fermented into a very nice Palm wine.

A Sap Collector

Once the fruit stems are cut bottles are attached to collect the sap.

From here we walked over to Kotu Creek, bridge, Sewege pools and a few other places, we did not get to Lamin Lodge as our Transport had been booked for a sensible time to get back to the base camp for the evening meal.

The penultimate day was to be spent at Abuku Reserve to catch up on one or two species as yet not found, one in particular the bloody Common Wattle Eye, this bird had for some reason been eluding us all through the trip, call so close at time you could hear it breathing, nearly! And the other little darling was the Orange Cheeked Waxbill.

It was not long before the Wattle Eye was calling right next to us, and suddenly it popped up in the open, what a nice specimen sadly the light was not so good so it was a record shot only in the hope of a retry later.

The now normal Monkeys were duely photo'd and the odd Butterfly and Dagonfly they are very nice indeed.

A Brown Babbler

It was not long after that we caught up with one or two other delights, We had the Orange Cheeked Waxbill and another Sunbird the Red Chested Sunbird what a corker he was.

Anyhow it was soon all over, the Beer was drunk, the Birds was seen, and all that is The Gambia was really enjoyed, so much so we are not going back!!!

Hello Ghana!! whats the beer like?

Thanks for reading

Paul