Purple swamphens and malachite kingfisher in Gambia

This video says about itself:

1 January 2012

Oxpeckers are closely associated with grazing animals in Africa, and in the absence of other large grazing animals in The Gambia, they are closely associated with cattle.

Oxpeckers in The Gambia have an ambiguous relationship with cattle. While they feed on flies and external parasites, they also will feed on wounds and deepen them, delaying healing.

They are very well adapted to their hosts, and very adept at avoiuding attempts by cattle to remove them….

This footage was filmed during a bird ringing expedition hosted by Kartong Bird Observatory, The Gambia.

Tuesday 14 February.

Our last full day in the Gambia, after yesterday’s lapwings and sunbirds.

From Kotu, we are going to the extreme southwest of the country, near the Atlantic and the Senegal border.

8:57: south of Brufut, grey-headed gulls on the roof of a Baptist church.

We arrive at Kartong Bird Observatory. Hooded vultures.

Four purple swamphens in a marsh. Purple swamphen love life: here.

Long-tailed cormorant.

Pied and malachite kingfisher.

African jacana. Spur-winged plover.

Western reef heron.

Snipe from Europe, wintering here.

A purple heron flying.

Black-winged stilt. Squacco heron. Great egret.

Caspian tern. Pied crow.

A common sandpiper.

Another winter migrant from Europe: a yellow wagtail.

Yet another one: a woodchat shrike sitting on a pole.

A dozen piapiacs flying.

A cattle egret.

An osprey flying.

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