Category Archives: Africa

Senegal & The Gambia [2025]

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Quail-plover had been high on our wish list for a few years and we decided to plan a two-week trip to Senegal and The Gambia. Inspired by the trip report of Matheve et al (2023) we drafted a similar itinerary, with a car + driver, starting in Dakar (Senegal) and flying out of Banjul (The Gambia) 2 weeks later. After a not so smooth start (the car broke down on the first day) we went to the known birding spots of St Louis, Djoudj and Richard Toll in the north of Senegal. We then drove south, found the Quail-plover at the location near Tip before driving further towards Kaolack from where we visited the Saloum Delta. Next destination was Wassadou camp and from there on to Kedougou and Dindefelo. Most trips turn back towards Dakar from there, but we followed the same route as Hans Matheve et al, also visiting the southwest corner of Senegal for Turati Boubou and Capuchin Babbler. We finished the trip with 2 days in The Gambia for some remaining targets and flew out of Banjul.

Tripreport Senegal & The Gambia
Some photos
GPS

Morocco [2024]

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Although we visited the Western Sahara in 2017 we hadn’t visited the rest of Morocco. We finally made it there and devised an itinerary to search for our missing lifers. We skipped a few sites visited by WP-birders and really focusses on our possible new species. We really enjoyed our time birding in Morocco, excellent varied landscapes, terrific foods, nice hotels and good roads. Since a lot more complete tripreports exist (e.g. McCloskey, Westra) and the amount of info online for Morocco is immense, we decided not to write a full report but just this limited note with our annotated triplist since we didn’t have much to add to existing info.

Some notes
Some photos

Rwanda [2023]

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African Pitta

Last year we visited Kenya in April and the Tanzania in August. With those awesome birding experiences still fresh in our memory we started exploring the possibility to do short trip (9 days) to Africa to continue the streak. We first looked at Uganda, which we had already visited in 2016, but 9 days would be too short to do a full clean up trip. Rwanda however turned out to be a perfect destination; there are 3 major National Parks to visit (Volcanoes NP, Nyungwe NP and Akagera NP), all within a 2-5 hour drive from the capital Kigali. This gives a nice combination of mountain forest birding with many of the Albertine Rift endemics, complemented with some nice savannah birding. In our 9-day trip we were able to visit all 3 sites and see the selection of birds that is only/best seen in Rwanda. In total we saw 259 birds.

Tripreport Rwanda
Some photos
GPS

Gran Canaria [2022]

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This was not a dedicated birding trip but a week of remote working/ leisure combined with finding the last remaining lifer of the Canary Islands: the Gran Canaria Blue Chaffinch (although the local Robin might also be split in the future). Given that we visited in November the bird activity was very low and it took us most of the day to find the Blue Chaffinch near El Juncal (first a female and on the way back a nice pair). The rest of the week was spent working, hiking, enjoying the food and some short birding stops along the coast.

Some notes
Some photos

Tanzania [2022]

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Udzungwa Forest-partridge

Usambara, Uluguru, Udzungwa, Rubeho & Ukaguru – the names alone make you want to go there! Tanzania has a surprising number of country endemics within its borders due to islands of isolated forest mountains in the Eastern Arc chain stretching from Taita Hills (Kenya) to the Udzungwa mountains in Tanzania. With a short taste in Kenya earlier this year we couldn’t wait for more. Special thanks to Ross Gallardy for pre-trip information, David Moyer for contact with Elia and Elia Mulungu for his excellent guiding for a part of the trip.

Tripreport Tanzania
Some photos
GPS

Kenya [2022]

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Sokoke Scops Owl

It had been too long since we had been to Africa, and since Helen did not visit Ethiopia, East Africa was the biggest gap in her life list. Kenya was a perfect destination for a three-week self-driving trip in April, with a great variation in habitats, lots of species and a nice set of endemics.

Tripreport Kenya
Some photos
GPS