|
The Gambia Birding Group | |
|
Information on:
|
This is a matter of personal preference. If time is a constraint then clearly you will see more birds with a guide who can identify the birds quickly and knows where they are currently feeding. It is perfectly possible to bird many of the sites without a guide. Several of the sites around the coast are quite easily reached by taxi and you may well want to bird these at your own pace. In the reserves run by the Parks and Wildlife Management Department guides are available to help you and no charge is made for their services within the reserves. The West African Bird Study Association (WABSA) have guides at their stall at Kotu Creek, make sure you go to the stall rather than get picked up by pseudo guides lurking nearby. Unfortunately some people have been forging WABSA membership cards but if you are at the stall other guides will soon see off intruders. So you may want to use the WABSA guides listed under guides on this web site and make contact before you go. Some guides have left WABSA to join a new organisation but we have not yet had feed back from members as to how this is working out on the ground. It might be a case of seeing how you get on locally. Having said that, hiring guides is a good way of feeding foreign exchange direct into the local economy in a way that we hope will encourage protection of the habitats. The guides working with Solomon Jallow's group are all competent birders. And Clive Barlow literally 'wrote the book'. In addition to the issue of competency, other issues arise when you are looking to travel further afield - the person who proved to be a wonderful guide on the coast may not be the best person to organise insured vehicles and accommodation upriver. If you choose not to hire
a guide on the coast to take you up river you can travel independently
and use the local bird guides at the various camps. But you may miss out
on sites en route.
Health
When to visit.
|