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The reason to build up
this site was threefold: Help birders and seawatchers to prepare for a seawatching
tour to Senegal, give a picture of the geography and seawatching conditions
through the narrative and complement it with photos and current information
on 'When and Where'. Honestly, I'm not an expert on birding or seawatching
in Senegal, though I has been there for three times. However, my sole intention
with this site is to help future seawatchers in their preparations and to
inspire others to visit Senegal. However, the real pioneers on the subject,
is undoubtedly the French birders Philippe J. Dubois and François
Baillon as well as the British birder Dick Newell with his birding colleagues,
who has a long experience of how and when to seawatch at or off N'Gor. So,
this site is in a way dedicated to these pioneering seawatcher's. There
is, however, in my opinion much more left to be explored concerning the
unpredictable seabird migration off Dakar and N'Gor and the conditions seem
to change from time to time. One example of this: In October 2003 we (four
Swedish birders) discovered the potential of Club le Calao's restaurant
terrace as a seawatching hot spot, while the British birders always used
the N'Gor Hotel, overlooking the strait, and thereafter headed for Isle
N'Gor every day. The two sites are located close to each other, but the
numbers and totals of seabird species passing by (or seen) differs between
them. To sum it up, the seawatching at N'Gor is a great experience. There
is still much more to explore about each seabird species, topics such as
moult and migration patterns, appearance, foraging or migration behaviour,
numbers in combination with weather and wind conditions and differences
in counts from land-based seawatching and pelagic tours. Identification
problems are routine for an avid sea-watcher, but don't forget also to relax
and enjoy when scanning the sea, whether you do it on the Irish west coast
or along the eastern seaboard of the Atlantic (preferably then at N'Gor
in Senegal)!
–
Niklas Holmström, Sweden
Acknowledgements
I would like to thank Erik Hirschfeld who has read through and commented
upon the text. Great thanks also go to Dick Newell who provided valuable
information during the preparation of our first trip, in October trip
in 2003 as well as when writing the text for this web site. Thanks also
to Gary Allport, Philippe Dubois and Betsy Hopkins who have provided material
from the early 90's and where to birding in the Dakar area respectively,
for use on this web site. Not to be forgotten are Clas Cronlund, Göran
Ekström, Jan Hägg, Björn Johansson, Dan Mangsbo, Kristoffer
Nilsson, Martin Oomen and Johan Stenlund who all have generously allowed
me to use their excellent photos from their visits to Cap Vert peninsula.
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