The centre piece of the trip was a two-night stay in Diawling National Park. It was my first visit there.
The whole journey was a total success. Over 135 species were seen including more than 125 in the park. Twelve species were added to my Mauritanian list increasing it from 280 to 292 using the ebird-Clements count.
We started out at dawn on Saturday 30th December.
We had an early and unexpected result. Barely 90 kilometres out of Nouakchott and near the side of the road was a barbary falcon.
barbary falcon 1
It is relatively rare in Mauritania though breeding has been reported sporadically in parts of Banc d'Arguin to the north as reported in The Birds of Banc d'Arguin. The Atlas of Muaritanian birds has it more widespread. Both sources are in stark contrast with The guidebook "Birds of Western Africa" which shows just three records in country. Though two of these records are very close to where this bird was seen. It was, of course, an addition to my country list.
barbary falcon 2
dark chanting goshawk
Our first birding stop was short and it was at Kaur Macene.
african jacana
For someone new to Mauritania it could be seen as a good place but for Mohamed Vall and it was only so-so this time round. It is the first large fresh water in the south nearest to Nouakchott. It has plenty of species but we had expected a wintering duck population. For some reason there were none.
I suspect the water body has competition from near-by Diawling and Chott Boul.
Of course, there were plenty of other water birds including African jacana.
dark morph western reef heron
squacco heron
Squacco heron winters in very large numbers in the south west corner of Mauritania. It was certainly very common in Kaur Macene.
Hamerkop
yellow-billed kite
blue-cheeked bee-eater
The book "Birds of Western Africa" says blue-cheeked bee-eater are resident in Mauritania. I have been saying on this blog that they all migrate by early December and come back in July. We are both wrong. They are definitely migratory in Nouakchott and all the way down south to Kaur Macene but from then on in the south west, we kept seeing them. I may still be right about the central south and south east though as trips there in late winter did show any.
African mourning dove
The road from Kaur Macene to Diawling is not good. We travelled slowly and were birding as we moved. We noticed that yellow-billed kite were soon replaced by marsh harrier as the default medium sized bird of prey.
osprey
We picked up an osprey.
We arrived at the eco-lodge at Diawling at around 1.30 pm where we met up with a ranger called Abdullah who is a mutual friend of Mohamed Vall. The cooking of a late lunch was arranged for 4pm so we went out birding straightaway.
We headed back the way we came but slowly. The main area of birding that afternoon is known as Bassin Bell (or Bell Basin in English).
greater flamingo
One of our target birds was lesser flamingo. However, at first, at least only greater flamingo were seen.
Egyptian goose and Spur winged goose
It is immediately apparent that Diawling at this time of year has great diversity of water birds. Spur-winged goose and Egyptian goose were observed as we drove by.
black-headed gull and grey-hooded gull
There are two very small fishing hamlets where local people bring the catch in to dry. These are a magnet for very many birds. A mixed group of black-headed gull and grey hooded gull was seen at the first hamlet. I will write more about what can be seen at these hamlets in this blog and the next. They are important places.
After the hamlets there are expanses of open water at the moment. They mostly dry up by spring. However, they held thousands of ducks last weekend.
common shelduck with a shoveller
Eight common shelduck were observed. This is a major rarity in Mauritania but it appears there has been an irruption of them in West Africa this winter. Two have been observed as far south as Dakar.
hundreds of garganey
The diversity of ducks wasn't high despite the large numbers. The vast majority were northern shoveller and especially garganey.
Despite careful scrutiny, I couldn't find a single teal with garganey.
In another stretch of open water, Abdullah pointed out some distance flamingos. They turned out to be lesser flamingo. Along with the common shelduck, this was another addition to my country list.
distant lesser flamingo
Closer to the shore were twenty or so pied avocet.
pied avocet
Going eastward from Bell Basin, open water gives way more to marshland and some grassland.
marsh harrier
Marsh land here meant several marsh harrier.
African darter
black heron
Eventually we turned round and headed back towards the eco-lodge. We made a short stop at one of the hamlets to admire the large number of black heron. We thought we had seen a yellow-billed stork flying above there but didn't get a good enough view to be sure. These hamlets are apparently good places to see giant kingfisher but we didn't get any joy with this one.
Nile crocodile at Diawling
African stonechat
We arrived back at the lodge a little after four p.m to find our pre-ordered late lunch waiting for us. The cooking and the service at the lodge was seriously good.
common bulbul
After eating and a shower we had about one hour's day light. We elected to bird in the woodland around the lodge. A family of common bulbul were right outside our chalet and two striped kingfisher were in the nearest large tree.
female Senegal batis (photo: Mohamed Vall)
Arguably the best bird in this short walk near the lodge was a Senegal Batis.
little weaver
There were weavers around but none of the elusive village weaver which has evaded me in Mauritania so far. It is only found in the far south. Among the weavers we did see and which were identified was little weaver. Note the small size and the greenish hues to the crown and back.
The Saturday had given me six additions to my country list. I would have settled for one more on the Sunday. Instead there were five. I will blog about that next.
No comments:
Post a Comment