Birds of Kotu, Gambia

Wednesday 1 February. After our arrival in Kotu, this afternoon our first search for Gambian birds.

Pied crows are a common sight in the Gambia, especially in the west, including urban areas.

On the beach: western reef egret and laughing dove.

Sexual size dimorphism and morphometric sexing in a North African population of Laughing Doves (Spilopelia senegalensis): here.

In a field, two spur-winged plovers.

An Abyssinian roller, sitting sometimes on a wire, sometimes on the roof of a shed. Again and again, it dives from the shed roof to the ground, catching a mouse or an insect.

This is an Abyssinian roller video.

A green wood-hoopoe on a tree near the road.

A cattle egret.

A red-billed hornbill on a tree.

A black-headed heron.

The first Senegal coucal of many which we will see in the Gambia.

A yellow-billed shrike.

In a marsh, about ten cattle egrets and a black egret. Black egrets are famous for their way of catching their prey: they spread their wings like an umbrella, thus making a shadow over the water which attracts fish. However, our first Gambian black egret is not doing that now.

Squacco heron. Great egret. Intermediate egret.

Over ten white-faced whistling ducks flying.

Two village weavers in a palm tree.

Two vinaceous doves.

Holes in the mangrove forest soil, made by fiddler crabs. Gambian environmentalists are trying to make this beautiful area a nature reserve, but so far they have not succeeded.

Two little bee-eaters.