Senegal - a second helping

Diadiam III was our base for the next three days. Ringing was quite varied - the nets set either around the edge of the wetland or in the dry acacia scrub just a few metres beyond. The ecotone between wetland and parched scrub was impressively abrupt: about  50 m of tough, well-grazed green grass between the inundated cattails and scrub with a ground flora parched dead for the season. It was instructive to catch some wintering Palearctic migrants (Wood Sandpipers in particular) and a few Cattle Egrets and Squacco Herons (first herons I've had the privilege to handle) and to start looking at the local birds in more detail: Spur-winged Plover, Long-tailed Nightjar and plenty of Black-headed Weavers.

Cattle Egret being well-behaved

Cattle Egret still being well-behaved

Squacco Heron. Also being well-behaved. Interesting to discover that they have very very finely-serrated bill edges. Makes sense, if you need to cop hold of slippery fish, but they're a devil for tangling in a net.

When the day grew too hot - usually about midday - or windy, there was time to explore a little. Walking the edge of the wetland was moderately productive for odonata, though there wasn't the diversity I'd hoped for. The commonest species by far were Broad Scarlet Crocothemis erythraea and Black Percher Diplacodes lefebvrii, but patience paid off with a few Long Skimmer Orthetrum trinacria and one or two Pied-Spot Hemistigma bipunctata. There were plenty of (African) Common Bluetails Ischnura senegalensis to see too, though picking up any other damselflies was decidedly hard work.

Common Bluetail - Ischnura senegalensis rather than the European elegans. The black pattern on S2 is quite a difference.

I think this is a female Pied-Spot Hemistigma albipunctum

The well-named Black Percher Diplacodes lefebvrii. Perching.

The thorn scrub was also pretty well dominated by giant milkweed plants - a toxic ruderal which seems to coppice well when it's cut. Apparently the latex is impossible to remove with soap and water, so you have to wait for it to dry and then peel or chip it off. Some of the plants were pretty large around the base, so they can obviously get pretty old. They had an interesting fauna attached - a grasshopper species (Poekilocerus sp?) and plain tiger butterflies - their respective nymphs and larvae munching away and, given their warning colours, merrily absorbing the toxins. There were also tephritid fruit flies busy using the fruits and a bright orange aphid (oleander aphid?) sucking on the sap. These in turn were being munched by ladybirds and tended by ants, which themselves were being taken out by some very juvenile mantis (possibly Sphodromantis viridis, but as Mantis religiosa and a Miomantis species were also in action, who knows...)

Grasshopper nymphs on giant milkweed. The flowers seem to be particularly favoured.

Plain tiger caterpillar - this one's not on milkweed for once

Oleander aphids?

On the second morning four of us elected to go on a boat trip to see the pelicans - for which Djoudj is famous - on the Djoudj river. We were driven out to the embarkation point and had a while to wait until our boat set off, so enjoyed a bit of roadside birding. There was a group of White Pelican fishing at the sluice under the road and constant groups of pelicans passing overhead in the direction of the colony. Once we were past the initial 'wow' factor of the pelicans, there were other things to take in: an Osprey perched up on a pylon; Reed Cormorants and White-breasted Cormorants accompanying the pelicans; Squacco Herons lurking on the edge of the vegetation trying not to be seen; a couple of Little Bee-eaters on some cattails. A warthog sauntered out of the scrub and trotted down the road. A Jacana feeding in the lee of some cattails. That kind of thing.

Great White Pelicans doing their thing in the early morning sunshine.

White-breasted Cormorant - variously treated as a species in its own right and a subspecies of Great Cormorant - on the way to hanging with pelicans

Little Bee-eater on reed

Squacco heron landing...

...and landed. Trying to merge with the primrose-willows and cattails.

Warthog. Trotting.

Soon enough we were gathered up for the boat, joining another small group of tourists. We puttered off up the river and were soon passing some more waterbirds: African Darters (always elegantly cool), an African Fish-Eagle posing on top of a dead tree - against the light, naturally - and trying to ignore us. The boat was soon being followed by marsh terns, all apparently Whiskered Tern, picking small fish and invertebrates out of our wake. Then we rounded a corner and were faced with a chaotic feeding frenzy of pelicans, egrets and cormorants through which we had to gently nudge our way. That was... pretty impressive! Pelicans upending and diving right next to the boat, almost an arms-length away from us, cormorants twisting and sliding through between them, terns hanging above and waiting for an opening to drop in and snatch a snack, and all along the edge of the river egrets and herons (five species present and correct) leaning eagerly forward to grab their share of any fish that escaped towards the apparent safety of the reeds.

The elegant African Darter (a.k.a. snakebird in a number of languages)

Feeding frenzy!

More feeding frenzy.

Skimming the surface. They fly so close, it seems incredible that they don't clip it. Maybe the youngsters get soggy while they learn...

Whiskered Tern preparing to dive.

Whiskered Tern on the dive

Black Herons - the ones famous for fishing under an umbrella formed by their own wings - on their way to the feeding frenzy

Not just Whiskered Terns either - a couple of Caspians joined the fun round the boat

The Yellow-billed Stork that nearly escaped the picture

After all that, the sight of the pelican breeding island was somehow pretty tame. The island is built up to keep the colony safe from flooding, and there was standing room only with a mass of nearly full-grown pelican chicks. The occasional Sacred Ibis stalked quietly along the edge of the colony - presumably foraging - and there was a constant coming and going of adult pelicans, but it all seemed a little uneventful after the earlier encounter. We rounded another vegetated island to head back down the river, admiring a basking west African crocodile, and then bumped into a quartet of Blue-cheeked Bee-eaters busily hunting dragonflies.

It's a bee-eater. With blue cheeks. Guess what it's called...

Pelican predator. Good disincentive for swimmers.

Marsh Harriers were cruising over the reeds everywhere we looked

Between Diadiam III and the entrance to Djoudj there is a sizeable shallow wetland, with variously reeds and grassy edges, small islands and mudbanks. Perfect, in fact, for waterbirds. While we were there, a daily flock of White-faced Whistling Ducks built up from a few hundred to a few thousand, chilling on the water and the islands. Every time a predator hove into view - even as minor as a Marsh Harrier - they spooked and swirled into the air, squeaking frantically. The next most abundant species on the wetland were Shoveler and Black-winged Stilt, then a nicely mixed bag of other waders and herons. Lots of Little Stint and Wood Sandpipers, a regular group of Black-tailed Godwits (one sporting colour-rings), Ruff, Ringed Plover, Kittlitz's Plover, Marsh Sandpiper, Redshank, Greenshank... etc. etc. Backdrop to these was a smattering of Spoonbills, Sacred Ibis, and both Greater and Lesser Flamingos.

 

White-faced Whistling Ducks. Chilled.

White-faced Whistling Ducks no longer chilled

Lesser Flamingos

Spur-winged Lapwing. Never chilled.

Wood Sandpipers. Also not particularly chilled.

 

Further abroad: west Africa

 Some photos and thoughts from Senegal in January 2026.

Snow on the southern Atlas 

 

Arrived in Dakar on the evening of 8th January, to meet up with a group aiming to ring in Djoudj NP for a couple of weeks. Immigration was nicely chaotic, with occasional batches of people waved under the barriers to try their luck on the biometric passport machines - I was one who was waved through, but of course the machine spat the passport back out again. Somewhat fortunately this meant I jumped a bit of the queue though. Didn't help much - the wait for luggage was interminable. Still, nice to be back in Africa after nearly 20 years!

 The ATMs at the airport didn't like my bank card either, so by the time the rest of the group had arrived, tried their luck at ATM roulette and given up, it was proper dark. A taxi ride to Mbour, about 40 minutes down the road was by turns exhilarating, crazy and mildly unnerving. The roads full of traffic, lots of lights, disorientated with the new surroundings, new smells, appalling exhaust fumes and very, very french speed-bumps on the roads every time we went through a settlement. This wouldn't have been so bad had I not bruised my coccyx the day before in a sledging incident at home. Still, the hotel (Blue Africa) was nice enough, there was food and a beer and my room was perfectly accceptable. Mozzie net was a bit raggedy, but there didn't seem to be any lurking there anyway. Popped anti-malarials throughout to be on the safe side. Air-con in the room was so loud that I switched it off to get some peace. Then sleep...

 The first morning was something of a continuation of the mild culture-shock. The muzzeins began call to prayer nice and early (4.30), which set off a bunch of birds. Took a while for my ears and brain to link up, but eventually Senegal Thick-knee filtered through to my consciousness. A little later the first Common Bulbuls were chirruping their dawn chorus, and it was time to get out of bed and see what the place had to offer. Still pretty dark (tropics: duh!) Coconut palms and direct access to the beach. Obviously a monster roost of Yellow-billed Kites in the vicinity - birds were trailing out over the hotel for the next hour-and-a-half, much to the disgust of the local Pied Crows. The garden of the hotel was a little less productive, but Senegal Coucal, African Silverbill and Variable Sunbird did eventually appear.

Yellow-billed Kites in the dawn

African Silverbill

Offshore there was plenty going on - a telescope would have been useful, but there's only so much kit that I can pack. Still, a steady back-and-forth of Sandwich Terns, Caspian Terns and some yellow-billed terns, some patrolling skuas - the only ones close enough to identify were Arctic - and gulls (Black-headed, Lesser Black-back, Slender-billed and Grey-headed) were nice. Would be fascinating to know what's going on in the distance with a bit of chumming.

After breakfast a trip to the local Super-U (!) for snacks to sustain us, an ATM or four to get cash (#4 delivered the goods) and a streetside stall for a local SIM card. Then back to the hotel for the next taxi, which took us to Djoudj. 

Baobabs at 90km/h

We were shafted by the traffic in Thies, which was apparently unnaturally bad, so the journey took a good seven hours instead of just over five. Fine in itself, but for the fact that we didn't stop for food and had only one loo break (roadside bushes) after about five hours' driving - even that wouldn't have happened if the driver hadn't needed one, I suspect. All in all not ideal, and everyone was grateful when we finally got to Diadiam III, just on the border of the Djoudj marshes. Still, the scenery on the way was interesting: sandy, dry Sahelian acacia-dominated woodland, often heavily (over)grazed by goats, cattle and donkeys. A couple of groups of Gyps vultures on the way - one group definitely Rüppell's, one group apparently White-backed - and one or two Hooded Vultures too. The occasional dead goat and donkey on the roadside testified to the reason they were hanging out so close to the traffic. A couple of Striped Ground-squirrels made mad dashes for the other side of the road. Evidence that one or two hadn't made it as well.

The pool off the veranda at Njagabaar

Room was nice, if basic

We stayed initially at Njagabaar Campement in Diadiam III. Basic round huts to sleep in with variably effective bathrooms (mine had a rather quirky cistern, to say the least). Beds were comfortable enough and the place was nice and quiet. Food was nice (fish with rice, rice with fish; chicken with rice, rice with chicken...) and often quite well spiced. Probably difficult to get by if you're vegetarian and downright tricky for a vegan though. The evening was enlivened by a bit of arthropod-searching under the lights of the compound. Various beetles and a scattering of orthoptera (mole crickets, African Conehead and a Heteracris?) although fewer moths than expected. A sizeable 'orrible 'airy spider near the gate to the compound too.

Heteracris sp.

Conocephalus conocephalus?

 

Dorylus sp.  

Still not dead...

Nope. Not yet. 

 It snowed the other day, which was nice. Today it's raining, which is not so nice. 

 Here's somebody who was clinging to the front of our house the other day. Also nice. Weirdly torpid, sufficiently to be able to catch it by hand, but it flew off ok into the back garden (swearing as it went) when my daughter released it.

 Clearly (!) different from Short-toed Treecreeper by virtue of the broad pale tips to the primaries, the square-ended pale bars in the primaries and the large pale blob on the largest alula feather. So much easier when they call...

Migration

April, April, macht was er will is the local saying and the month has certainly lived up to it. Blazing sunshine to begin with, then snow - albeit very temporary - last week. A couple of days of ok weather to start this week, then relentless rain and rather cold temperatures today. Ideal to have a quick nose around the mouth of the Schussen after dropping the girls at kindergarten, particularly as it's the height of migration at present.

The lake shore is rather narrower than over winter as the snow melts off the mountains and fills the lake, so anything feeding on the shore is closer - makes life easier sometimes. The shoreline also has a thriving strandline community, primarily Catabrosa aquatica with lots of Ranunculus scleratus, and a smattering of Cardamine species, Rorippa and tree seedlings. This, and the strandline of decaying leaves of last year, make a good hunting ground for migrant birds, particularly where the shore is backed by woodland.

Sure enough, as I arrive at the lakeside, there is a smart male Whinchat busily diving in and out of the vegetation. A blur of black and white resolves into a male Pied Flycatcher, and the morning feels like it's going to be productive...

By the river mouth the willows are buzzing with Pied Flycatchers and another couple of Whinchat are hopping round the shoreline. A series of shrill 'zeeep's draw attention to a trio of glowing Yellow Wagtails, males a feast of citron, green and powder-blue. More noise from the willows now: a Grasshopper Warbler reeling, a Turtle Dove purring (how long since I last heard that?!), then a Marsh Warbler burbling out a stream of mimicry. A flash of red: a female Common Redstart flirting her tail, and then -almost an afterthought, a pair of Ortolan Buntings hopping quietly around, feeding on seeds of annual ruderals.

After all that, the lake itself is almost a disappointment: just a few hundred swallows skimming the water, a couple of Little Ringed Plover, two Wood Sandpipers and a trio of Greenshank to liven up the standard fare. The rain shows no sign of letting up and my hands are by now somewhat chilly, so heading home seems most sensible, but even that route produces another handful of Pied Flycatchers.

Given the continuing cold and rain, you have to marvel that these birds can make it. Hopefully the forecast improvement in the weekend weather will give them a chance to carry on to wherever they are headed.

I'm not dead...

Honest.

Red Kite - common and easy to see here, unlike in Devon. My duaghters can now confidently identify them and pick out the Black Kites when they come by.

Myosotis rehsteineri. A Lake Constance endemic now, apparently extinct at all its former locations in the Alps....

...determinedly a non-competitor, this is a plant of the strandline, flowering twice a year when the water levels permit...

...this is the biggest patch of it that I've yet seen. A low-growing, yet startlingly blue and showy plant...

...and although not good at holding out in the face of competing plants, it has a tough little niche to survive in. More on this plant - and others - later.

Sympecma paedisca - Siberian Winter Damsel. The more eastern of the winter damselflies in Europe and so far the only individual of the species that I've seen.

A spectacular non-native: Giant Knotweed, Fallopia sachalinensis.

Crocus meadow in the Brandnertal, Austrian Alps

Full of Crocus vernus ssp albiflorus and Soldanella alpina. Carex caryophyllea and an Alchemilla in there too for the connoisseurs

Yet another crocus meadow. Bit boring really (not!)

February sings of spring. Or signs?

February already. Where is the year going? The days are lengthening rapidly and the snow has now melted; just a few dirt-encrusted patches of white here and there in the most shady nooks bears testament to the blanket that covered us in January. When the weather is clear and the mountains are visible, it is possible to chart the gradual upward climb of the snowline, but days with clear skies are rather sparse at the moment: either it is grey and mild, or sunny and hazy. Or it rains.

The most obvious response to the change in temperature and day-length is, of course, from the birds. Suddenly there is song all around - the two-tone repetitive 'tee-tah' of Great Tits the most striking to start with. They were quickly joined by drumming Great Spotted Woodpeckers and the slightly manic laughter of Green Woodpeckers. Listen with more than half an ear and you will hear the similar, yet somewhat more mournful song of Grey-headed Woodpeckers, which seem to be widespread in the local area. Over the last week a Black Woodpecker has added a wild, ringing 'klooouuu' to the mix too.

A swelling chorus of Chaffinches is emerging - for now most of the males rather hesitantly launching their songs, so that they fade out into a jumble of notes soon after starting, but it won't be long before they ring loud in the woods and gardens. Mistle Thrushes and Blackbirds have also begun to polish up their notes for the coming spring. All in all, it won't be long before a proper dawn chorus is waking us each day and the first trans-Saharan migrants will start filtering through on their way north. A smart male Black Redstart feeding at the foot of the Schloss Montfort last week could well have been a bird moving back north from the Mediterranean, as could the little flock of Serins feeding in the asparagus fields on the way down to the kindergarten on Friday.

The ground is still cold though, so the plants are not yet really starting to move: a few fresh-looking leaves of Lesser Celandine and some new shoots of Greater Pond Sedge all the evidence that I can find of new growth just yet. It won't be long, though, before we can start to fossick through the woods and meadows to see what there is to offer here. A promise of warmer weather next week suggests that the local beavers will be starting to get out and about again: perhaps a chance to use the camera trap again for something more exotic (to me) than foxes and Roe Deer!

Though there aren't many juicy plants to be seen at present, there is still colour and interest to be found in bryophytes and fungi in the woods.

A gratuitous patch of Radula complanata

A recent visit to an old stamping ground was productive. The Rheindelta on the southern shore of the Bodensee is a long pair of artificial banks which channel the river Rhine out into the lake for a couple of kilometres. The bay just to the west of the river is one of the larger areas of shallow water in the lake and thus proves attractive to waterfowl. A calm day was impetus enough to go back and explore for the first time in thirteen years (how did that happen?!) and show the children some ducks.

The Fussacher Bucht did not disappoint. The bay was three-quarters frozen, so birds were concentrated near the lagoons and, despite an appalling winter for wildfowl on the lake overall, there were still enough birds to impress two small children. The duck flock was two or three thousand strong, divided equally between Red-crested Pochard, Tufted Duck and Common Pochard, with a smattering of Goldeneye around the fringes. Sprinklings of Coot, Whooper and Mute Swans, Caspian Gulls and Goosander added a little variety to the mix, while a bevy of cold-looking Grey Herons and Great Egrets speckled the banks. A lone fox on the ice caused mild alarm among the ducks for a while, but stood no chance of snaring any but the most dim-witted of them and eventually trotted gently back towards the reed fringe of the Rohrspitz.

Mixed ducks (all the specks at the back) in the Fussacher Bucht - a small group of Red-crested Pochard lurk in the foreground

The frozen south

The last two months have been rather hectic in all. Having moved, registered and dealt with all the bureaucracy around health-care, car and insurance, we finally found a place to live in Eriskirch. This meant that we had to re-do a chunk of the bureaucracy to keep our adress up-to-date, but that's a small price to pay for a bit of stability.

The new flat is just a couple of minutes' walk from the Eriskircher Ried: our local patch, if you will. [Apologies, but a good few of the links in this post will be in German. Google Translate may help, but don't count on it...] The Ried (map in link) is a fairly large protected area - one of the largest on the German portion of the Bodensee shoreline - and consists of 600 hectares of the lake shore, associated reedswamp and fen, with 'streuwiesen' and woodland further inland before the orchards reappear. 

The protected area is a Natura 2000 site (link to the data forms here: use the bottom three links for the pdfs), an SPA (Special Protection Area designated under the EU Birds Directive for those who may not know) designated in 2007. It appears to be important for populations of various breeding birds: Hobby, Great Reed Warbler, Quail, Grey-headed Woodpecker and Wryneck in particular, and for a sizeable aggregation of wintering waterbirds; counts of about 10,000-20,000 Tufted Duck and Pochard are mentioned, along with around 1,500 Red-crested Pochard. So, in theory, the local patch looks pretty interesting.

In practice, there certainly seems to be plenty of potential. Diving duck are fairly prominent around the lake edge, though Goldeneye and Red-crested Pochard seem to be the most abundant species at present this winter (acknowledged that it's a fairly poor winter for waterbirds so far though). There are also plenty of Mallard, Coot, Great Crested Grebe and Cormorant. There are always groups of Goosander scattered around and Little Grebe are more plentiful than anywhere I have ever been before. Whooper Swans are here in reasonable numbers, along with a small number of Bewick's. Black-headed, Common, Caspian and Yellow-legged Gulls are all widespread (ah, the joys of returning to the complexities of large white-headed gull identification) and herons are represented by lots of Grey Heron and variable numbers of Great Egret. Grey-headed Woodpecker are certainly around, if thinly-spread, though the landbird scene is rather restricted by the time of year and a decent blanket of snow in the last week or so, along with some freezer-like temperatures.

Pictures of the meadows in spring and summer look enticing, so as the year continues to turn, it's going to be an exciting time with plenty to discover. I dare say there will be more on the subject later!

The river at the south of the Ried - the Schussen - at the start of the snowfall. Three days later the river had frozen across, leaving a disconsolate-looking troop of Teal marooned on the ice.

Looking north across the meadows towards Eriskirch, where the church rather dominates the skyline.

A view across the meadows to some mistletoe-infested willows.