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Hannah Buschert began birding in school due to a required Biology of Birds course and a professor who included Sir David Attenborough’s Lifetime of Birds to punctuate classes. Virtually as if by chance, Hannah landed the dream job of Park Ranger within the Rio Grande Valley at Bentsen-Rio Grande Valley State Park the place she guided many birders who crammed her head with far-off locations and unbelievable birds. Referred to as house to the Oregon Coast to function the household motel, in her free time she leads Tufted Puffin walks and escapes to information at birding festivals and discover the world as typically as attainable. Hannah is keen about journey, tourism, and birding and hopes to encourage others by her podcasts: Hannah and Erik Go Birding, Ladies Birders (Pleased Hour), and Hen Nerd Ebook Membership.
For myself and my husband, journey is versatile. There are some locations we wish to see in our lives, birds we wish to get, however we’re additionally pushed to go to locations the place we all know few individuals who have gone. eBird is a big assist with that. Kenya, Tanzania, and South Africa are closely eBirded as a result of Individuals recurrently go to. So, when looking out data, we observed a scarcity of eBird studies in Senegal and The Gambia. There are some lists there from the few Individuals which have visited and the rogue European birder that has taken to utilizing eBird, however in any other case, it’s pretty below eBirded. In line with Google, Senegal is about the identical dimension as South Dakota. eBird exhibits that as of this writing, 9479 have submitted 142.2K lists in South Dakota and Senegal has had 757 eBirders submit 12.1K lists. In fact, there are components in play, a obtrusive one being itemizing platform desire (eBird vs. BirdTrack, for instance).
With a heat, dry tropical local weather, it’s no shock that Senegal is a well-liked West African vacation spot for European vacationers as it’s a comparatively brief flight to flee winter climate.
To succeed in Kaolack, you’ll possible both fly into Dakar or Banjul, Gambia. Kaolack is a few three-hour drive from both place to begin (nonetheless with the Banjul route you get to take a wild ferry experience and undergo a maze of border verify stations). Driving by Senegal, you see dusty village streets with small, clay homes and girls sitting out entrance promoting watermelons, bananas, or oranges. Sahara mud is heavy and really noticeable because it obscures the dawn and colours the sundown – to not point out fixed mud in your sneakers. However one of many actual treasures of Senegal lies close to a city referred to as Kaolack. That is the place you discover a birding phenomenon that makes the annoyances of standard street checkpoints with both navy officers or native regulation enforcement, whizzing scooters, and bumpy roads definitely worth the effort.
We ended up within the space simply south of Kaolack at round 4:00 pm the place we headed off the freeway right into a small village alongside the Saloum River. There, we picked up an area information from the village with dozens of wide-eyed youngsters shouting “toubab” on the automobile (interprets from Wolof to “white individual”) and drove off in direction of the river. I didn’t have an important concept of what we had been doing, however I used to be alongside for the experience, so I used to be a bit confused once we first parked, and the river was not in sight. I quickly understood that we had arrived a bit early so we might wander by a dusty, shrubby area to spook up a Savile’s Bustard. Bustards are awkward birds who bounce round within the brush. To me, their silhouette appears to be like like a big shorebird or miniature Ostrich, they’re good-sized birds with skinny necks and legs and huge heads. Numerous species could be present in dry grassland habitats in Africa, Eurasia, and Australia, so it’s enjoyable for a North American to bump into this not frequently-seen-bird. After scouring the terrain for about one-half mile we had been fortunate to have one flush up after which trot awkwardly away whereas donkeys seemed on and brayed in our course. Then off in the hunt for the primary occasion!
The Saloum River floodplain is extensive, salty, and muddy, so rain boots are extremely beneficial. The native information paddled us throughout the brief, slow-flowing river in a slender canoe after which we sloshed by the mud in direction of the tree-lined oasis throughout this hazard.
Our two native guides didn’t hassle with boots and easily walked barefoot by the thick mud which different from a lovely deep indigo colour when you broke the floor to a boot-sucking chocolate mess. As this can be a roost website, the perfect time to take this journey can also be the most popular a part of the day and with the problem of slogging by the mud with caked boots, I contemplated telling my group to proceed with out me.
Nonetheless, as soon as we reached the tree line, there was a well-worn path into the stake-out which was solely a few hundred toes additional. A lot to my pleasure, it was shaded and a great place to recuperate from the warmth.
Because the solar moved in direction of the west, we started to see our goal birds swarming within the blue – hundreds of Scissor-tailed Kites. It is a identified website for Scissor-tailed Kites who roost nightly throughout November by March. After a day of seeking out lizards, rodents, and bugs, they in a single day in humongous baobab timber alongside this stretch of river. After we first arrived, they had been flying excessive up however because the solar lowered, so did the swarm. With the bare eye, you might see the silhouette of the birds with their lengthy, forked tail and general white undersides. Placing up binoculars you’ll be able to see the black patagial patch on every wing. Out of the blue, one after one other would swoop down in direction of the best branches of the baobab scoping out the scene. Finally, the swooping turned to perching and shortly the timber had been loaded with kites. They’re a lovely hen of prey capped with grey that goes down their again and a streak of eyeliner making it look extra like a White-tailed Kite whereas perched than a Swallow-tailed Kite.
After the journey to succeed in this vacation spot and with out the noise of fixed visitors, honking horns, and speaking within the background it was simple to think about I used to be within the depths of the wilderness. So, I chuckled to myself when, sitting on the base of a big baobab tree within the wilds of Senegal in 100F afternoon warmth praying for each breath of wind as hundreds of Scissor-tailed Kites swirl above me anticipating roosting for the evening, I acquired the ding of a Costco advert on my cellphone. An hour into the spectacle, we had counted 2500 Scissor-tailed Kites who had been perched within the timber or nonetheless hovering above. What an imposing hen worthy of the battle to get to the location.
We walked again to the sting of the forest and scanned the river for a couple of minutes and tacked on Larger Flamingoes, 70 Lesser Kestrels, and some vultures to the record earlier than the trek again over the mudflats to succeed in the canoe. The solar was setting, the air had cooled off, however a salt layer clung within the air as I felt some reduction that I had made it that far with out dying from the warmth. By the point we had made it again to the automobile and had been heading again to drop off our information within the village, a Lengthy-tailed Nightjar flew in entrance of the headlights and aided us in including one other lifer to the day.
Scissor-tailed Kites – whereas not threatened now – are a weak species. Habitat degradation is a big attainable menace to the species. And enormous congregations like we noticed, can simply be impacted by localized occasions corresponding to harm to the roosting website. Pesticide use can also be a attainable menace to the inhabitants. On eBird there are solely 556 data of this species, so that you may suppose they’re quite uncommon. Nonetheless, that merely exhibits recording bias and a must develop utilization OR
After having birded in Senegal, listed below are some notes I might point out to different potential vacationers:
- Warmth. Within the dry season, day-after-day is between 95-100F with clear skies and little humidity.
- French and Wolof are the 2 most typical languages we encountered with English being very rare. We had been greeted with “bonjour, ca va?”
- I like to recommend a information or at the least a driver. Crossing the border into Senegal is a multi-step course of that’s tremendous difficult with no directions. After which driving in Senegal? We had been met with common checkpoints and had been hassled by native authorities.
- You higher have CFA (West African Francs). We spent a few week in Senegal, and we had traveled there loaded with British Kilos, Gambian Dalasi, and United States {Dollars}, and a collection of bank cards, and never one in every of these had been accepted. Drinks at accommodations or at comfort shops needed to be bought with CFA, which we had been unable to order from our native financial institution.
Senegal may not be on the prime of your journey record, however I feel there may be loads of magnificence within the hard-worked, desolate landscapes, ladies wearing shiny, lovely attire, contemporary watermelons, donkey-drawn carts loaded with hay, individuals, or watermelons, and the attention-grabbing intersection of what French influences stays from colonization (which was comparatively current, having solely gained independence in 1960), Islam influences, and Senegalese heritage. To not point out hundreds of Scissor-tailed Kites!
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