Gambia & Casamance Birding Tour

Why combine The Gambia with Casamance

British birders have been visiting The Gambia for forty years, and with good reason: the river, the rice fields and the up-country savanna hold a superb list. Casamance, immediately across the southern border in Senegal, remains almost unknown to them — yet it adds dense coastal forest, an enormous mangrove system and a very different set of birds.

This is not a marketing figure. It comes from twenty-seven eBird checklists filed during the tour of 20 June to 6 July 2026, all of which you can read in full.

The Gambian leg

Five days working east along the South Bank Road, based at Tendaba Camp and Janjanbureh, with a boat trip on the River Gambia.

Days 1–2

Banjul to Tendaba. Roadside stops at Kampant, Kassagne and Sutu Sinjan. Woodland Kingfisher, Senegal Coucal, Western Plantain-eater. The Tendaba waterhole at dusk brings Scarlet-chested and Copper Sunbirds, Levaillant's and Klaas's Cuckoos, Bearded Barbet and Yellow-fronted Tinkerbird.

Day 3

Dasilameh and the river. Pearl-spotted Owlet at first light, then the Dasilameh wetlands: Spur-winged Goose, Knob-billed Duck, Beaudouin's Snake Eagle, Four-banded Sandgrouse. The bird of the day is usually Egyptian Plover. Afternoon boat trip from Kuntaur adds African Fish Eagle, African Darter, and both White-backed and Rüppell's Vultures.

Day 4

Wassu, Kuntaur and Bansang. Our richest single day — seventy species. Greater Painted-snipe, Purple Heron, Black-headed Lapwing, Grasshopper Buzzard, Northern Red Bishop and Yellow-crowned Bishop coming into breeding plumage.

Day 5

Janjanbureh and the Tendaba mangroves. Violet-backed Starling — a bird one of our guests came back specifically for — plus Yellow-bellied Hyliota, African Green Bee-eater, Yellow-crowned Gonolek and White Helmetshrike. Boat into the mangrove for Goliath Heron and Yellow-billed Stork.

Day 6

Kwinella, Pirang and Tunjina. Red-winged Pytilia, White-shouldered Black Tit, Chestnut-crowned Sparrow-Weaver, Long-crested Eagle. Three Greyish Eagle-Owls at dusk to close the Gambian section.

The Casamance leg

Nine days based at our own lodge in Abéné, on the Senegalese coast. Sites are close, so mornings are spent in the field and afternoons free — apart from the two-day run down to Pointe Saint-Georges.

Days 7–8

Abéné and Niafaran. Fifty-six species before lunch on the first morning. Sulphur-breasted Bushshrike, Red-shouldered Cuckooshrike, Blackcap Babbler. At Niafaran, a single kapok tree carries a full colony of Village Weavers in breeding plumage. Guinea Turaco and Bruce's Green Pigeon at the forest edge.

Day 9

Sitokoto and the Kassel road. Yellow-breasted Apalis, Osprey, and the first Black Crowned Cranes. Pin-tailed Whydahs beginning to grow their tail streamers.

Day 10

Kabiline. A big-bird morning: sixty Greater Flamingos, four Abyssinian Ground Hornbills, African Pied Hornbill, and four Black Crowned Cranes displaying.

Day 11

Kafountine forest. Guinea Turaco, Western Bluebill, Black-and-white Mannikin. A troop of Western Red Colobus lives in the sacred tree at Abéné, and lets you watch at leisure.

Days 12–13

Tendouk and Pointe Saint-Georges. The Tendouk mudflats hold Ringed and Kentish Plovers, Dunlin, Slender-billed Gull, Gull-billed and Lesser Crested Terns, and Eurasian Curlew among the Whimbrel. At the Pointe, Splendid and Purple Starlings — and, with luck, African Manatee in the quiet water.

Day 14

Niafaran again, in the understorey. Sulphur-breasted Bushshrike and Red-bellied Paradise Flycatcher, this time close enough to photograph properly.

Day 15

The Karone Islands. A last morning by boat through the bolongs, combining birding with a little light sport fishing. African Fish Eagle, Caspian Tern, African Darter. Transfer to Banjul the following morning.

Target species

Birds our guests most often ask for, and where we look for them.

• Egyptian Plover Dasilameh
• African Finfoot Janjanbureh
• Violet Turaco Abéné forest
• Guinea Turaco Kafountine
• Abyssinian Ground Hornbill Kabiline
• Black Crowned Crane Kabiline
• Violet-backed Starling Gambia, June–Oct
• Northern Carmine Bee-eater Niafarang, Dec–Mar
• Red-throated Bee-eater Gambia, colonies
• Blue-cheeked Bee-eater Karone Islands
• Shining-blue Kingfisher Kassel
• Giant Kingfisher mangrove
• Blue-breasted Kingfisher wet woodland
• Splendid Sunbird lodge garden
• Beautiful Sunbird Jan–Feb
• Pygmy Sunbird savanna
• Bearded Barbet Tendaba
• Pearl-spotted Owlet Kwinella
• Greyish Eagle-Owl Tunjina
• Rüppell's Vulture River Gambia
• Beaudouin's Snake Eagle Dasilameh
• Four-banded Sandgrouse Dasilameh
• Grasshopper Buzzard Bansang
• African Manatee Pointe Saint-Georges

Two birds beat us on the last tour: African Finfoot, lost to rain at Janjanbureh, and Verreaux's Eagle-Owl, searched for repeatedly without success. We would rather tell you that than pretend otherwise.

Your guide

Patrick Tourneur has lived in Casamance for twenty-six years and runs the lodge at Abéné himself. He guides the Casamance leg personally; on the Gambian side we work with Abdoulaye Ndour, a Gambian guide who knows the up-country sites intimately.

His fieldwork has been covered in two independent ornithological magazines — L'Oiseau Magazine, published by the LPO, and L'Épeichette, the bulletin of the Paris ornithological society.

What our guests say

Practical details

When to come

November to March is the classic season: stable weather, Palaearctic migrants present, thinner vegetation. December to March gives the widest variety. June to October is a different proposition — most Palaearctic birds have gone, but intra-African migrants such as Violet-backed Starling arrive, resident species are breeding, and the weavers, bishops and whydahs are in full nuptial plumage. That is the window photographers tend to prefer.

Getting there

Fly to Banjul. The tour begins and ends there, and transfers are included. No internal flights are needed.

Group size and pace

Small groups only. Walking is easy — four to six kilometres a day on flat ground, with frequent stops. Boat sections use wide, flat-bottomed craft.

Accommodation

Tendaba Camp and Janjanbureh on the Gambian leg; our own lodge at Abéné for the Casamance section, where rooms are air-conditioned and the two-hectare garden alone holds sixty species.