Senegal: a final taste (the waffer-thin mint)

All good things come to an end, and a ringing/birding trip is no exception. The final morning at Bidiel was spent packing and clearing up, a short walk in the scrub to bid farewell to some avian - and non-avian - friends and then the taxi was there for the long drive back to Mbour. We took a different route back towards St Louis, eschewing the main road for a dirt road parallel with the river (in effect this meant a good 90 minutes on a surface alternately rutted and pitted with caterpillar track marks from grading, rather like driving on the most extravagant rumble-strip you could imagine. Being off the main road did have some advantages though: we saw a few more isolated villages, had tantalising glimpses of some nice habitat where there must have been some decent birding (oh, for transport while we were at Diadiam!) and encountered a scattered troupe of patas monkeys foraging on the roadside. Needless to say, achieving semi-decent photos through the car window wasn't really possible.

By the time we finally hit tarmac, we were all grateful for the smoother surface and the dust-free breeze finally able to blow in through the windows (at which point the driver's mate insisted we shut the windows so he could turn on the air-con, leading to a general rise in the temperature at the back). St Louis felt like a major conurbation in comparison to the villages we'd grown used to over the past couple of weeks. The drive along the riverside was again a feast (!) of sewage, rubbish, herons and gulls, processed at a brisk 50 km/h. 

Scrubby-looking Cattle Egrets hanging out with a Western Reef Heron

Grey-headed Gulls doing their thing

Another Western Reef, with Black-headed Gulls and a Lesser Black-back

The journey down to Mbour was mercifully faster than the trip out, and we were back at the hotel well before sunset. Time for a walk along the beach (footballers, walkers, huge kettle of yellow-billed kites, osprey, western reef heron, whimbrel, potter wasps and a couple fascinated by the view through my binoculars) before settling down for the night. With the usual tropical speed darkness fell, food was eaten and it was time to retire - only to discover that there was no light in my room. Fortunate that a mobile phone has a torch function, eh? And that an e-reader has a backlight...

Part of a kettle of kites

Departure from the country was late evening the following day for everyone, so we spent the morning on a trip to the Bandia 'game reserve' about half an hour away from the hotel. Our local fixer (thanks Saliou!) arranged a vehicle, we crammed ourselves into the back and pottered off. The journey was enlivened by a shed load (cement sacks) across the middle of the main road, the lorry somehow being stuck between two trees on the roadside. Fortunately the roadsides are wider than the road surface, so three lanes of traffic could develop on either side of the obstruction, merging vaguely in turn to get back on the two lanes of road on the other side of the pile. 

Just... how?

Bandia is a 1,500 hectare enclosure with a fairly representative selection of the native large mammal fauna that used to exist across this part of Africa. All carefully kept inside and with no predators, it's more safari-park than safari, but there were a few things which stood out in particular. The first and most lasting was the difference in the vegetation. Yes, it's a little further south than the Sahel scrub near Djoudj, so in Guinean-Sahel savannah, but the lack of people and the low-intensity grazing means the flora perhaps resembles a less modified vegetation (pre-westerner?) much more closely. It was really very impressive. Light acacia-rich woodland with what looked like a rich herbaceous layer and much more mammal and bird life than outside the fence: Helmeted Guineafowl (the only ones of the trip), Abyssinian Rollers, loads of Long-tailed Glossy Starlings, plenty of pigeons of various descriptions. Loads of finches/waxbills/weavers. African Wattled Lapwings in company with Spur-winged Plovers. Griffon Vultures overhead, Mottled Spinetails sweeping over the canopy. And - at least these weren't captive - more patas monkeys fossicking through the vegetation. 

 

Glossy starling with a long tail

Horse in pyjamas

Finally a decent picture of a Patas

African Wattled Lapwing

Green monkey looking oh so innocent

Mottled Spinetail

Griffon on the prowl

Even cuter than a monkey: today's squirrel is African Striped

Cattle Egret with dinner table

Gloriously blue Abyssinian Roller

The reintroduced fare was nice to see too - impala, derby eland, zebras, a couple of ostrich, wonderful giraffes and so forth, but somehow not as cool as the truly wild life. The visit rounded off with a visit to the crocodile pool, where green monkeys loafed on the restaurant tables and kept an eye out for goodies that could be snatched from an unwary tourist. A little stream feeding the pool was a welcome source of predator-free water for the monkeys and a variety of birds: within a few minutes African Thrush, Vieillot's Barbet and a couple of Bearded Barbets had come to drink.

The remainder of the day was spent at the hotel - final packing, bill-settling and general relaxation.