Aleg at dusk

Mohamed Vall and I had a long weekend's birding trip down to Guidimakha province. This the southermost part of the country and borders both Senegal and Mali. It has more rainfall and longer rainy season than anywhere else. Consquently it birds include species not found eslewhere in the country.

We started out at noon last Friday. Needless to say it is impossible to travel there in half a day. We elected to stay the night in Aleg. Indeed we arrived ahead of dusk and managed some birding at the lake before it got too dark.

Sunsetting over Lake Aleg (courtesy of Mohamed Vall)

A late arrival coupled with extra time needed to walk to the edge of the lake through muddy landscape meant we missed out on identifying so many birds. However we stumbled over many collared pratincole, yellow wagtail and spur-winged lapwing in the fields on our walk towards the water's edge.

Some of the birds going up

Indeed there were many hundreds of birds huddled round the remains of the lake which was only one twentieth the size of our last visit. It will only swell again with the next rainy season, probably from late July onwards.

glossy ibis

Of the larger birds there were probably between 100 and 200 each of cattle egret and glossy ibis.  There were certainly hundreds of assorted waders but most went unidentied.

sacred ibis with cattle egret

There was some good news though. Even though the gloom we could pick out a group of sacred ibis among the cattle egret. This was the first addition to my Mauritanian list of the weekend. Unfortunately we couldn't make out which type of spoonbill was present. This could have added another if they had been African.

We were reliant of identification of birds which chose to come close to our corner of the lake. These included several terns. Many were white-winged black tern and a few were gull-billed tern. 

whiskered tern (courtesy of Mohamed Vall)

More good news was that we could make out a few whiskered tern which were in breeding plumage.

This was a second welcome addition to the list.

collared pratincole

The next morning we left Aleg early and stopped first at Lake Jintu on the Senegal River near Boghe. The light and the birding were excellent. We could indentify all we saw and good pictures were taken. Three more additions were made to the list too. I will blog about that next.

Species identified at the Lake and near-by woodland
Northern Pintail  12

Little Egret  3

Cattle Egret  110    

Glossy Ibis  140

Sacred Ibis  14

Western Marsh Harrier  1

Black Kite (Yellow-billed)  1

Common Ringed Plover  35    

Little Stint  40

Wood Sandpiper  24

Collared Pratincole  40

Gull-billed Tern  12

White-winged Black Tern  55

Whiskered Tern  6

Laughing Dove  12

Namaqua Dove  8

Southern Grey Shrike  2

Woodchat Shrike  4

Brown-necked Raven  2

Black-crowned Sparrow-Lark  14

Sand Martin  5

Barn Swallow  40    

Red-rumped Swallow  1

Western Orphean Warbler  2

Black Scrub-Robin  4

Northern Wheatear  2

Long-tailed Glossy Starling  3

Western Yellow Wagtail  45

Red-billed Quelea  300

Guandu Nature Park, Taipei

My final call in the Taipei area was a morning spent at Guandu nature park. This is another venue that can be reached using only the Metro. It is recovered wetland and mangrove run by the country's main birding NGO.  

I arrived early (at 8 am) to maximise my chances of seeing birds before the heat of the day. This turned out to be a mistake since the park doesn't open until 9 am!  This is good news for the birds and less good for the bird watcher.

sacred ibis flying

The viewer is kept a long distance away from the main part of the reserve and a spotting scope would have been useful given the distances involved between you and the main bird activity. Nevertheless one of the first birds I could make out was sacred ibis which was a lifer for me. It's numbers are increasing from an originally escaped population.  

It's also a bird on my remaining target list in Saudi Arabia. There is a similar escaped population which breeds in Bahrain which occasionally wanders across to the eastern province of Saudi Arabia.  And in the South west, a truly native population is present in the Jizan area at least in summer. I have failed so far to see either. 

mixed group of sacred ibis and cattle egret

Out in the wetland it was mixing with cattle egret.

grey heron

Some of the other water birds were more familiar. Several grey heron were spotted.

black crowned night heron

It was also the only place in Taipei where I meet up with black crowned night heron, both adult and juvenile. 

ruff

On the mudflat out at great distance I could make out several ruff and one other wader, a plover which I could identify nor photograph properly.

(eastern) cattle egret

The cattle egret were extraordinarily tame (like the Malayan night heron seen the day before in the Botanical Gardens) and is almost certainly a reflection of the Taiwanese attitude to birds. 

water buffalo wallowing

Like with the Botanical Gardens, part of the park was closed for maintenance following the typhoon two weeks before. I suspect this hampered my prospects for seeing new birds quite considerably and especially for land birds.

a lily pond

Nevertheless I did add to my Taiwan list in the gardens. I saw a few oriental turtle dove, a bird I first met in Japan last summer.  

Oriental turtle dove

My most satisfying bird of the whole visit was black naped (blue) monarch. Several of these flycatchers were observed in the shaded areas.

black naped monarch

I think this bird just pipped the sighting of a crested serpent eagle which despite seeing four birds of prey in Taiwan was the only one I positively identified.

Another bird of prey seen at the park was probably a goshawk but I can't be certain. It certainly scared the Himalayan black bulbul in the area as it flew through the bushes.
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Javan myna at the park

I believe I met my objective of gaining a basic understanding of the types of families of birds present in Taiwan. I never intended to go for as big a list as possible. 

My next series of blogs will be about Palau which is the next stop on my eastern tour. 

List of 39 species all seen in the Taipei area.

L= lifer
E= endemic

	TianMu (city)	Guandu (wetland)	Wulai (hills)	Botan. Gardens
White breasted Waterhen  (L)				x
Common Moorhen		x		x
House Swift  (L)			x
Malayan Night Heron (L)				x
Black crowned Night Heron		x
Little Egret	x		x
(eastern) Cattle Egret		x
Sacred Ibis (L)		x
Crested Serpent Eagle (L)		x
Ruff		x
Maroon Oriole (E,L)			x
Common Magpie	x
Taiwan Blue Magpie (E,L)	x		x
Grey Treepie  (L)	x		x	x
Large-billed Crow			x
Rock Dove	x		x
Spotted Dove	x
Oriental Turtle Dove		x
Barn Swallow	x	x
Pacific Swallow			x
Taiwan Barbet  (E,L)	x	x	x	x
Grey-capped Pygmy Woodpecker (L)			x
Chinese Bulbul  (L)	x	x	x	x
Himalayan Black Bulbul (L)	x	X	x	x
Taiwan Scimitar Babbler (E,L)			x
Grey-cheeked Fulvetta (L)			x
White-bellied Erpornis  (L)			x
Japanese White-eye	x	x	x	x
Taiwan Whistling Thrush (E,L)			x
Black naped Monarch (L)				x
Javan Myna (L)	x	x
Jungle Myna	x
Common Myna	x
Black Drongo	x
White Wagtail	x
Plumbeous Redstart (L)			x
Oriental Magpie Robin (L)				x
Eurasian Tree Sparrow	x	x	x	x
White Rumped Munia (L)	x