<< Return to Day 1

I had set my watch to sound the alarm at 6:30, but I woke long before, watching the moon through the thin fabric of my mosquito dome. The sounds of the wetland were already awake, calling up to our hilly camp site from the dark space below.

As I got out of the tent, some of the others were already preparing for the day. We had a not-so-frugal breakfast with Nescafé and baguette with cheese and danish salami. Joost reported that he had heard a Pearl-spotted Owlet in the early morning hours.

The moon was setting behind the hills, the stars were dying in the lightening sky, and very soon the sun showed it's fiery brim on the eastern horizon.

Sunrise at Kokoro

Joost and I set out on a stroll down to the wetland edge, he with his spotting scope, I with my camera over the shoulder. Most birds were far off in the distance, but I wanted to try to photograph the ones closer to the shore. Joost stayed on a small hill, scanning the surroundings with his scope, while I advanced as close as I could. The Little Grebes proved not too shy, and gave some nice portraits.

Little Grebe in the early morning light

A small flock of Zitting Cisticolas showed up, but disappeared too fast to give any good photo opportunities. As I rejoined Joost, he showed me a small group of Black Crowned Cranes in the far end of the wetland, hardly discernable as they trodded through the high grass.
As we retunred to the camp, to pack things together, there was a piping song in one of the thorn bushes, and as I looked closer, I discovered a couple of Cricket Warblers (or Longtails), searching for insects on the thorny branches.

Cricket Warbler (or Longtail)

We broke the camp and started the 10 km trip to Namga, where the next wetland should be situated. On Joost map there was even a long streched lake indicated, with the village at it's northern end. We had hardly left our camp site, when we saw a small group of Green Wood Hoopoes flying between the Acacia trees.

The trip to Namga went quickly, and directly after the village we turned right, driving down a dry brook. The brook was very sandy, and I have my precautions about driving in deep sand, but it was nowhere too deep, and we arrived at the waters edge without problem.

Of the natural surroundings of the lake at Namga there wasn't much left. The village had more or less stretched among the full length of the lake, which was now not much more than a oversized pool for cattle drinking and clothes washing. Hardly any birdlife in sight, except for a Hooded Vulture scavenging the remnants of a goat on the shore. Two old men with deeply wrinkeled faces approched us, and greeted us in Djerma. A small conversation evolved between them and us, but it was clear that we were not going to stay.

So we turned and drove back through the village, and again left the road and drove offroad over the harvested millet fields to try to reach the wetland from the other side. And again, we found a more or less undisturbed area. A large, shallow body of water, surrounded by muddy plains, and some hills in the background. We parked the cars in the shadows of a group of large trees, and immediately spotted a Hoopoe sitting in one of them.

A part of the Namga wetland, with a hilly backdrop

Grabbing our scopes, we approached the water. Further from it, the mud had stared to dry and was cracking up i deep fissures. Further off, there was plenty of shore birds wading the shallow lake, or just resting in large flocks. It didn't take long to discover Marsh Sandpipers and Little Stints. But what excited me personally the most where the Common Pranticoles resting just off the shore closest to us. I took my camera, and advanced.
The Pranticoles weren't that shy, but it was difficult to get them large enough in the camera viewfinder. Whenever I approached, they took off with casual strokes of their slender wings, and landed some twenty, thirty meters away. And I, of course, must have stood out like a lighthouse in that flat landscape. At last I managed to get close enough, photographing a Pranticole as it landed not too far off.

Common Pranticole

We had our lunch together in the shades of the trees. And as we set off in direction back to Niamey, we were all very happy that we had joined on this tour. Joost would have to go back to Holland, but the rest of us were looking forward to the next opportunity to go camping and birdwatching together.

© Ulf Liedén