Senegal and Gambia 2006 Trip report

Posted on by Jeroen Verhoeff
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  • In November 2006 I guided a 25 day long wildlife tour through Senegal and the Gambia.
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  • THE GAMBIA: GUNJUR
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  • Gambia landcrab.
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  • Land crab
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  • We started in Gunjur, on the Southtern Gambian coast. At night giant pouched rats were walking around my hut ; they grow up tot three kilos!
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  • .Gambia mangroves
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  • Mangrove
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  • .Gambia dragonfly
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  • Portia widow, Palpopleura portia
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  • .Senegal nebula spider
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  • Argiope spiders are big!
  • Be careful not to walk into their huge webs…
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  • THE GAMBIA: TENDABA
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  • Tendaba is a river camp in the mangroves. Trips are best done by boat.
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  • .Gambia praying mantis.
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  • Praying mantis species
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  • Walking around the campsite at night I see a small mouselike thing running away from me. When I poke a stick in the croock it dissappeared in I hear a high shreeking and feel him tugging ferociously at the other end!
  • Identifying African shrew species is rather hard, so if anyone knows, please let me know if I am wrong when I think this bulky shrew is a giant musk shrew.
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  • THE GAMBIA: TO GEORGETOWN
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  • Gambian roads are bad; like swiss cheese, but with extra holes.
  • We only stay in the car because of the airco, as walking would often be faster.
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  • .Gambia marabou stork
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  • Marabou stork
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  • gambia bats..
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  • Large eared bat species under the road.
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  • SENEGAL: NIOKOLO KOBA NATIONAL PARK
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  • Niokolo Koba National Park has the last remainig untouched savannah landscapes of Western Africa. The giraffe, rhino, cheetah, ostrich and some hoofed mammal species have gone, and the status of the elephant is uncertain (I think it has gone as well). There are still leopards, lions, wild dogs, and chimpansees left, but there seems to be a lot of poaching going on and there is hardly any money for adequate protection. (In three days we saw only one guard: on an old bycicle, carrying a gun with the price tag still on!). Still we saw quite some wildlife: many kob, abyssianaian hornbills, hippo’s, a small buttonquail (Turnix sylvaticus), bushbuck, warthogs, an oribi, a common duiker, a shining-blue kingfisher, waterbucks and five species of monkey: baboon, vervet monkey, patas monkeys, red colobus and a galago.
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  • Niokolo river Gambie
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  • The river Gambie
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  • .Senegal niokolo banded mongoose
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  • A large group of banded mongooses foraged across the river for a long time.
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  • At night I found a big groove crowned bullfrog and…
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  • .Senegal Niokolo Marbled Snout-burrower
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  • …a small marbled Snout-burrower.
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  • Senegal Niokolo nile crocodile
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  • Nile crocodiles.
  • We saw mostly younger ones; up to 2,5 meter long.
  • One almost snatched a woodsandpiper from a mudbank; right in front of our little boat!
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  • Senegal Niokolo nile monitor
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  • This nile monitor let me approach quite close;
  • any closer and I would be in striking range of its whipping tail…
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  • .Senegal freshwater crab
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  • Fresh water crab
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  • The locals say they let tourists swim in the river. Despite plenty crocodiles and hippos they never lost one, yet… While the rest is laying in a shallow streaming part I start snorkling along the bank of the river. The river Gambie is beautiful, flowing deep through the savannah, bordered by gallery forests. In the scorching heat I hope to cool off, but the water is extremely lukewarm. But half a meter of visibility sure makes up for that. Slowly I proceed over the muddy bottom. A giant kingfisher flies off above me. Small cichlids swim into view and dissappear quickly, but the nurse tetras, beautiful roachlike fish with flaming red tails keep gazing at me just in front of my diving mask. A two feet long african carp, is hanging in the stream.  Between the rocks and logs I discover all sorts of weird looking catfish. Grey ones, spotted ones, 10 to 30 cm long. Some even have whiskers that split two ways. Man; this is great! In deeper water sudenly something really big takes off from the bottom like a rocket, leaving me in a cloud of dust. AAAAAHH!! What was that? A very big fish or a crocodile? Suddenly the warm water feels a bit chilly and I call it a day…
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  • .Senegal Niokolo crocodile night
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  • That night I am walking along the riverbank.
  • I aim my torch light at the water.
  • In the exact spot where I was snorkling there are three crocodiles.
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  • Senegal flying bugs.
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  • Flying bugs around lamplight
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  • .Senegal Niokolo red dragonfly.
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  • Red darter species
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  • Senegal niokolo giant praying mantis
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  • Giant praying mantis species
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  • Senegal archiope spider.
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  • Archiope spider
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  • Other cool night critters I saw were: a white tailed mongoose, a civet, a softshell turtle,  and a Senegal bichir, a sort of dinosaur age like fish.
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  • Senegal niokolo nightfall.
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  • Niokolo sunset
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  • Red cichlid with young
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  • senegal puffadder
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  • Puffadder at night
  • Trying to find a civet I jumped over a fence.
  • One hour later this huge and supervenomous pufadder was lying in the same exact spot as where I landed.
  • Timing is everything…
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  • Senegal niokolo fisherman.
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  • Fisherman on the river Gambie
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  •  NORTHERN SENEGAL: ON THE ROAD
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  • .Senegal chameleon chamaeleo senegalensis
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  • Graceful chameleon
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  • It was crossing the road (that’s how you most often see them, because in the bush you don’t so easily!), sow we helped, in exchange for some pictures.
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  • .senegal beautiful bug
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  • Rainbow shield bug (Calidea dregii) What a bizarre beautiful species!
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  • SENEGAL: SINE SALOUM
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  • One of the largest mangrove forests in the world lies in Senegal. Many European birds overwinteren here: we see lots of ospreys, European bee eaters and black kites.
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  • Senegal saloum fish
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  • Little fish trapped in a tidal pool
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  • Senegal saloum heron roost island
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  • Bird roost
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  • One tiny island in the vast delta consists only of mangrove trees. When we approached it at dusk we saw hundreds of white, reef, great and cattle egrets, pelicans, cormorants and pied kingfishers flying in. After some heavy fighting for place they settled to sleep, safe from any land predator.  
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  • .Gambia mud skippers
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  • Mud skippers
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  • Fiddler crab
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  • The ghost crab is the coolest crab I met so far. They hide in deep tunnels in the sand and only come out when the coast is clear. Then they sometimes patrol the beach in big groups. And they can run really fast!
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  • Gambia silver moony
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  • Despite crocs and sharks I took a quick dip in the mangroves.
  • The beautiful silver moonies were worth it.
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  • .Senegal long-tailed nightjar
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  • Night safaries turned out to be pretty good here..
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  • We saw lots of great stuff: Mozambique nightjars, a large-spotted genet, a hausa genet, three watermangooses, two Senegal galagos, eight splendid pale foxes, three striped jackhals, scrub hares, Nile rousette fruit bats, Gambian epauletted fruit bats, mice and a gerbil.
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  • I could not identify this cobra species back in 2006.
  • I suspected it might be a not yet discovered species or subspecies at the time.
  • Only in 2011 I found out this species was officially classified as a full species in 2009!
  • Meet the Senegal cobra, Naja senegalensis.
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  • senegal four-banded sandgrouse
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  • This female four banded sandgrouse was approachable to a couple of inches, scared as she was to fly up and crash into the dark trees.
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  • THE GAMBIA: MARAKISSA
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  • .Gambia forest cobra
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  • Young forest cobra
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  • .Gambia egyptian gecko
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  • Egyptian gecko
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  • gambia black spitting cobra
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  • A big and beautiful black necked spitting cobra was resting on this tree at dusk. It slipped inside but returned a bit a couple of minutes later.
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  • gambia brook's house gecko.
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  • Brookes housegecko
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  • This nesting barn owl showed me her seven eggs for just a second when I took a short peek through a crack under the roof.
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  • Gambia market
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  • Gambian market
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  • THE GAMBIA: ABUKO
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  • Gambia abuko nile monitor
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  • Nile monitor
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  • Abuko is a tiny left over bit of the original Gambian Galleryforestst which you should not miss. Although only as big as a small citypark and often crowded with monkey feeding tourists, it still is surprisingly rich in wildlife.
  •  Red colobus monkeys act relatively wild, making incredibly jumps from tree to tree.  Bushbucks sometimes come very close and all sorts of birds abound.
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  • Gambia abuko dwarf mouse
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  • I found this tiny mouse in a hole in the ground.
  • Is this a Temmincks dwarf mouse? Does anyone know?
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  • It was dwarfed by this huge whip spider that shared his hole.
  • What an amazing creature!
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