After going a short way into the mangroves, we stopped the boat after Ebrima heard some African Blue Flycatchers high in the trees. After five or so minutes, we managed to catch glimpses of them hopping about behind the branches. Several Mouse-brown Sunbirds were seen foraging low in the mangroves and large numbers of African Darters and Great Cormorants roosted in trees, the latter being a mix of the white bellied and black bellied subspecies.
When the boat made it to an area of extensive saltmarsh, Wooly-necked and Yellow-billed Storks were seen foraging, and Ebrima pointed out a Martial Eagle perched in a distant tree with some large Mosque Swallows off to the left. A White-throated Bee-eater also made a brief appearance.
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| Yellow-billed Stork |
We then moved on to the main day roost of the White-backed Night-Herons, however, after an extensive search along the length of trees, and ingesting an unhealthy amount of engine exhaust smoke, we drew a blank and had to move on. Four or five boats had been out and had seen the herons the previous day, and it was assumed that this disturbance had made them change their roost site, or at least gone a lot deep into the wood away from the river.
Compensation, however, came a few minutes later when I spotted the head of an African Clawless Otter near the river bank. As we moved closer, its pup was seen briefly before diving down to keep a low profile. The parent gave great close views for around five minutes, scrabbling around on the bank, and obviously trying to distract us from the youngster. This was a very rare encounter that Ebrima said he had only ever seen a handful of times, and none of them as sustained and as close as this one was.
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| African Clawed Otter |
On the journey out of the maze of mangrove channels, we got good flight views of a Goliath Heron as it was disturbed from the bank.
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| Goliath Heron |
Once back at the lodge, we had a search of the trees in the grounds which we had been told were roost sites for fruit bats. Sure enough, right up in the top of the crown of one particular tree, we found five of them, lazily staring down at us, giving great scope views.
Back on the road again, we stopped after Ebrima heard a White-shouldered Black Tit from the car, but despite a long search, we couldn't find the bird. We did however see our only Striped Kingfisher and Bateleur of the trip.
The final birding spot of the day was Farasutu Forest, which I would highly recommend every birder to visit. The forest is a community forest and all entrance fees (50p per person I think) go towards supporting the local village. Make sure you bring some extra cash with you as you'll definitely want to give a bit extra - we wished we'd brought more - the bird drinking stations are packed with variety and give exceptional views. It makes you realise just how important ecotourism is to the area, as without it, the forest would inevitably have been removed to make way for more farmland.
A stunning male Western Bluebill was the highlight, but we also saw Violet Turaco, Little Greenbul, Common Wattle-eye, Grey-headed Bristle-bill and Yellow-fronted Tinkerbird amongst others.
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| Western Bluebill |
We then went off with the young man who keeps the water stations filled up and does a lot of work monitoring the birds in the forest. He brought us right to a spot where an African Wood Owl was roosting. This beautiful owl remained asleep as we enjoyed great views of it through the scope.
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| African Wood Owl |
The theme of owls continued when we were taken out of the forest to a more open area. We soon found two Greyish Eagle-Owls roosting in a tree, this time a little more alert.
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| Greyish Eagle-Owl |
Nightjars were the next order of the day, with one each of Long-tailed and Standard-winged Nightjars expertly found in the leaf-litter by the young man. The Standard-winged shocked us both by how small it was.
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| Long-tailed Nightjar |
After this, we we rowed across the river to where we were staying for the night - the amazing Sita Joyeh on Baobab Island. This was by far the nicest place we stayed the whole trip, and again, we would really recommend it. Despite this though, we were the only guests, and it was hard to work out why it wasn't busier, especially having just come from the much more inferior Tendaba which was at full capacity. We enjoyed the evening watching the bats flying around and perching up in the open air dining building, and watched five African Scops Owls in the beautiful grounds.