6th Cataract, Sabaloka - by Julie Dewilde

I was recently contacted by Julie Dewilde, a birder living in Khartoum. She has sent me a couple of trip reports, the first of which is published below. Tom J.

Saturday 5th May at the 6th cataract, Sabaloka

This weekend I visited the sabaloka site with Laurent. We camped on the island and I could go for some birdwatching early in the morning.

On the beach side of the island, I could observe a few waders : little stints and temminck’s stilt, kittlitz plover, common sandpiper, egyptian plovers, spur-winged lapwings and  few great egrets. A pied kingfisher was fishing, some whiskered terns were flying away and a white wagtail just landed in front of me.

Common Sandpiper

Pied Kingfisher

Then I decided to visit the island. I could observe lot of goldens sparrows, Northern masked weavers and Village weavers, some warblers,  a small group of white-headed babblers, the usual doves and bulbuls, several black scrub robins, one blue-naped mouse-bird, one red-billed hornbill, some african silverbills, one northern red-bishop, several African pied wagtails and european bee-eaters, little bee-eaters, and green bee-eaters.

White-headed Babbler

Black Scrub-Robins

Red-billed Hornbill

Northern Red Bishop

African Pied Wagtail

When I arrived to the cataract, there were a lot of swallows flying, mostly ethiopina swallows and plain martins, whiskered and white-winged terns. Small groups of cattle egrets, little egrets, grey herons, african spoonbills and european spoonbills were migrating to the North. A big group of about 300 white storks were also flying to the north.

African Spoonbill