List of Birds of Gambia

The Gambia is one of Africa’s top countries for bird watching. This little country surrounded by Senegal contains 587 species of migratory and resident birds. Villages, nature parks, and wildlife reserves around the country – from the Atlantic coast to deeper along the Gambia river – are all great spots for watching the most spectacular birds of the African continent.

• Abdim’s stork
• Abyssinian ground hornbill
• Abyssinian roller
• Adamawa turtle dove
• African blue flycatcher
• African collared dove
• African crake
• African cuckoo
• African cuckoo-hawk
• African darter
• African emerald cuckoo
• African finfoot
• African fish-eagle
• African golden oriole
• African gray hornbill
• African gray woodpecker
• African green pigeon
• African harrier hawk
• African hawk-eagle
• African hobby
• African jacana
• African moustached warbler
• African palm swift
• African paradise flycatcher
• African pied hornbill
• African pied wagtail
• African pygmy goose
• African pygmy kingfisher
• African quailfinch
• African rail
• African reed warbler
• African scops owl
• African shrike flycatcher
• African silverbill
• African skimmer
• African spoonbill
• African spotted creeper
• African swamphen
• African thrush
• African wood owl
• African yellow white-eye
• Ahanta francolin
• Allen’s gallinule
• Alpine swift
• American golden plover
• Arabian bustard
• Arctic skua
• Arctic tern
• Audouin’s gull
• Augur buzzard
• Ayres’s hawk eagle
• Baillon’s crake
• Baird’s stint
• Baka indigobird
• Banded martin
• Banded snake eagle
• Bank swallow
• Barbary falcon
• Bar-breasted firefinch
• Barn owl
• Barn swallow
• Barolo shearwater
• Bar-tailed godwit
• Bat hawk
• Bateleur
• Bearded barbet
• Beaudouin’s snake-eagle
• Beautiful sunbird
• Black coucal
• Black crake
• Black crowned crane
• Black cuckoo
• Black goshawk
• Black heron
• Black kite
• Black noddy
• Black stork
• Black tern
• Black wood hoopoe
• Black-and-white shrike-flycatcher
• Black-backed cisticola
• Black-bellied bustard
• Black-bellied plover
• Black-billed wood-dove
• Blackcap babbler
• Black-crowned night heron
• Black-crowned tchagra
• Black-eared wheatear
• Black-faced firefinch
• Black-headed gull
• Black-headed heron
• Black-headed lapwing
• Black-headed paradise flycatcher
• Black-legged kittiwake
• Black-necked weaver
• Black-rumped waxbill
• Blackstart
• Black-tailed godwit
• Black-winged bishop
• Black-winged kite
• Black-winged stilt
• Blue malkoha
• Blue rock thrush
• Blue-bellied roller
• Blue-billed malimbe
• Blue-breasted kingfisher
• Blue-cheeked bee-eater
• Blue-napped mouse bird
• Blue-spotted wood dove
• Bluethroat
• Bonelli’s eagle
• Booted eagle
• Bridled tern
• Broad-billed roller
• Bronze mannikin
• Bronze-tailed glossy starling
• Bronze-winged courser
• Brown babbler
• Brown bobby
• Brown illadopsis
• Brown noddy
• Brown snake-eagle
• Brown-backed woodpecker
• Brown-necked raven
• Brown-rumped bunting
• Brown-throated wattle-eye
• Brubru
• Bruce’s green pigeon
• Buff-spotted woodpecker
• Bush petronia
• Cameroon indigobird
• Capuchin babbler
• Cardinal woodpecker
• Caspian plover
• Caspian tern
• Cattle egret
• Chestnut-backed sparrow-lark
• Chestnut-bellied sandgrouse
• Chestnut-bellied starling
• Chestnut-breasted negro-finch
• Chestnut-crowned sparrow weaver
• Cinereous vulture
• Collared pratincole
• Collared sunbird
• Common bulbul
• Common buzzard
• Common chiffchaff
• Common cuckoo
• Common grasshopper warbler
• Common greenshank
• Common greenshank
• Common gull
• Common house-martin
• Common kestrel
• Common pochard
• Common quail
• Common redshank
• Common redstart
• Common ringed plover
• Common rock thrush
• Common sandpiper
• Common snipe
• Common swift
• Common tern
• Copper sunbird
• Cream-colored courser
• Crested lark
• Crimson seed-cracker
• Croaking cisticola
• Crowned eagle
• Curlew sandpiper
• Cut-throat
• Dark-chanting goshawk
• Denham’s bustard
• Desert cisticola
• Dideric cuckoo
• Dorst’s cisticola
• Double-spurred francolin
• Dunlin
• Dwarf bittern
• Eastern olivaceous warbler
• Egyptian goose
• Egyptian plover
• Egyptian vulture
• Ethiopian swallow
• Eurasian blackcap
• Eurasian coot
• Eurasian crag-martin
• Eurasian curlew
• Eurasian dotterel

• Eurasian golden oriole
• Eurasian griffon
• Eurasian hobby
• Eurasian hoopoe
• Eurasian marsh harrier
• Eurasian moorhen
• Eurasian oystercatcher
• Eurasian reed warbler
• Eurasian scops owl
• Eurasian sparrow-hawk
• Eurasian spoonbill
• Eurasian turtle dove
• Eurasian wryneck
• European bee-eater
• European golden-plover
• European honey buzzard
• European nightjar
• European pied flycatcher
• European roller
• European storm petrel
• Exclamatory paradise whydah
• Fanti sawwing
• Ferruginous duck
• Fine-spotted woodpecker
• Flappet lark
• Forbe’s plover
• Four-banded sandgrouse
• Fox kestrel
• Franklin’s gull
• Fulvous whistling duck
• Gabar goshawk
• Garden warbler
• Garganey
• Giant kingfisher
• Glossy ibis
• Glossy-backed drongo
• Golden-tailed woodpecker
• Goliath heron
• Gosling’s bunting
• Grasshopper buzzard
• Gray heron
• Gray kestrel
• Gray phalarope
• Gray-backed camaroptera
• Gray-headed bristlebill
• Gray-headed bush shrike
• Gray-headed gull
• Gray-headed kingfisher
• Gray-headed oliveback
• Gray-headed parrot
• Gray-headed sparrow
• Grayish eagle-owl
• Gray-rumped swallow
• Gray-tit flycatcher
• Great bittern
• Great cormorant
• Great egret
• Great gray shrike
• Great reed warbler
• Great snipe
• Great spotted cuckoo
• Great white pelican
• Greater blue-eared glossy starling
• Greater flamingo
• Greater honeyguide
• Greater painted snipe
• Greater short-eared lark
• Greater swamp warbler
• Green crombec
• Green hylia
• Green sandpiper
• Green wood hoopoe
• Green-backed eremomela
• Green-headed sunbird
• Green-winged pytilia
• Green-winged teal
• Guinea turaco
• Gull-billed tern
• Hadada ibis
• Hamerkop
• Helmeted guineafowl
• Heuglin’s masked weaver
• Hooded vulture
• House bunting
• House sparrow
• Icterine warbler
• Intermediate egret
• Isabelline shrike
• Isabelline wheatear
• Jack snipe
• Kelp gull
• Kentish plover
• Kitilitz’s plover
• Klaas’s cuckoo
• Knob-billed duck
• Lanner falcon
• Lappet-faced vulture
• Laughing dove
• Laughing gull
• Lavender waxbill
• Leach’s storm petrel
• Leaf-love
• Lemon-bellied crombec
• Lesser black-backed gull
• Lesser blue-eared glossy starling
• Lesser crested tern
• Lesser flamingo
• Lesser honeyguide
• Lesser kestrel
• Lesser moorhen
• Lesser striped swallow
• Lesser whitethroat
• Lesser yellowlegs
• Levaillant’s cuckoo
• Little bee-eater
• Little bittern
• Little crake
• Little egret
• Little gray woodpecker
• Little grebe
• Little green bee-eater
• Little greenbul
• Little gull
• Little ringed plover
• Little stint
• Little swift
• Little tern
• Little weaver
• Lizard buzzard
• Long-crested eagle
• Long-legged buzzard
• Long-tailed cormorant
• Long-tailed glossy starling
• Long-tailed nightjar
• Magnificent frigatebird
• Magpie mannikin
• Malachite kingfisher
• Manx shearwater
• Marabou stork
• Marsh owl
• Marsh sandpiper
• Marsh sandpiper
• Martial eagle
• Mediterranean gull
• Melodious warbler
• Montagu’s harrier
• Mosque swallow
• Mottled spinetail
• Mourning collared dove
• Mouse brown sunbird
• Namaqua dove
• Nightingale
• Northern anteater chat
• Northern black flycatcher
• Northern carmine bee-eater
• Northern crombec
• Northern gannet
• Northern lapwing
• Northern paradise whydah
• Northern pintail
• Northern puffback
• Northern red bishop
• Northern shoveler
• Northern wheatear
• Olive-bellied sunbird
• Olive-green camaroptera
• Orange-cheeked waxbill
• Oriole warbler
• Ortolan bunting
• Osprey
• Ovambo sparrow-hawk
• Pale flycatcher
• Pallid harrier
• Pallid swift
• Palm-nut vulture
• Parasitic weaver
• Pearl-spotted owlet
• Pel’s fishing owl
• Pennant-winged nightjar
• Peregrine falcon
• Piapiac
• Pied avocet
• Pied crow
• Pied cuckoo
• Pied kingfisher
• Pied-winged swallow
• Pink-backed pelican
• Pin-tailed whydah
• Plain martin
• Plain nightjar

• Plain-backed pipit
• Pomarine skua
• Purple glossy starling
• Purple heron
• Purple sandpiper
• Puvel’s illadopsis
• Pygmy sunbird
• Quail plover
• Quailfinch
• Quailfinch indigobird
• Red kite
• Red knot
• Red-billed firefinch
• Red-billed quelea
• Red-billed tropicbird
• Red-cheeked cordon-bleu
• Red-chested cuckoo
• Red-chested goshawk
• Red-chested swallow
• Red-collared widowbird
• Red-eyed dove
• Red-faced cisticola
• Red-footed falcon
• Red-headed quelea
• Red-headed weaver
• Red-necked buzzard
• Red-necked falcon
• Red-necked nightjar
• Red-necked phalarope
• Red-rumped swallow
• Red-shouldered cuckoo-shrike
• Red-tailed greenbul
• Red-thighed sparrow-hawk
• Red-throated bee-eater
• Red-throated pipit
• Red-winged prinia
• Red-winged pytilia
• River prinia
• Rock dove
• Roseate tern
• Rose-ringed parakeet
• Royal tern
• Ruddy turnstone
• Ruff
• Rufous cisticola
• Rufous-chested swallow
• Rufous-crowned roller
• Rufous-rumped lark
• Rufous-tailed robin
• Ruppell’s griffon
• Ruppell’s warbler
• Sacred ibis
• Saddle-billed stork
• Sanderling
• Sandwich tern
• Savile’s bustard
• Scarlet-chested sunbird
• Scissor-tailed kite
• Secretary bird
• Sedge warbler
• Senegal batis
• Senegal coucal
• Senegal eremomela
• Senegal lapwing
• Senegal parrot
• Senegal thick-knee
• Shikra
• Shinning blue kingfisher
• Short-toed snake-eagle
• Siffling cisticola
• Singing bush-lark
• Singing cisticola
• Sjostedt’s greenbul
• Slender-billed gull
• Small buttonquail
• Snowy-crowned robin-chat
• Solitary sandpiper
• Speckled pigeon
• Speckle-fronted weaver
• Spectacled warbler
• Splendid glossy starling
• Splendid sunbird
• Spotted flycatcher
• Spotted honeyguide
• Spotted redshank
• Spotted thick-knee
• Spur-winged goose
• Spur-winged lapwing
• Squacco heron
• Standard-winged nightjar
• Stone partridge
• Striated heron
• Striped kingfisher
• Sub-alpine warbler
• Sudan golden sparrow
• Sulphur-breasted bush-shrike
• Sun lark
• Swallow-tailed bee-eater
• Swamp flycatcher
• Swamp greenbul
• Swamp nightjar
• Tawny eagle
• Tawny flanked prinia
• Tawny pipit
• Temmnick’s courser
• Temmnick’s horned lark
• Temmnick’s stint
• Terek sandpiper
• Tree pipit
• Tufted duck
• Variable sunbird
• Verreaux’s eagle-owl
• Vieillot’s barbet
• Vieillot’s weaver
• Village indigobird
• Village weaver
• Vinaceous dove
• Violet turaco
• Violet-backed starling
• Vitelline masked weaver
• Wahlberg’s eagle
• Wattled lapwing
• Wattled starling
•  Western bluebill
• Western bonelli’s warbler
• Western gray plantain eater
• Western nicator
• Western orphean warbler
• Western red-billed hornbill
• Western reef heron
• Western square-tailed drongo
• Western violet-backed sunbird
• Western yellow wagtail
• Whimbrel
• Whinchat
• Whiskered tern
• Whistling cisticola
• White helmet shrike
• White stork
• White wagtail
• White-backed night heron
• White-backed vulture
• White-bellied bustard
• White-billed buffalo weaver
• White-breasted cuckoo-shrike
• White-crested bittern
• White-crowned robin-chat
• White-faced scops owl
• White-faced whistling duck
• White-fronted black chat
• White-fronted plover
• White-headed lapwing
• White-headed vulture
• White-rumped seedeater
• White-rumped swift
• White-spotted flufftail
• Whitethroat
• White-throated bee-eater
• White-throated francolin
• White-throated greenbul
• White-winged black-tit
• White-winged tern
• Willow warbler
• Wilson’s storm petrel
• Winding cisticola
• Wire-tailed swallow
• Wood sandpiper
• Wood warbler
• Woodchat shrike
• Woodland kingfisher
• Woolly-necked stork
• Yellow penduline tit
• Yellow-backed weaver
• Yellow-bellied hyliota
• Yellow-billed ox-pecker
• Yellow-billed shrike
• Yellow-billed stork
• Yellow-breasted apalis
• Yellow-browed warbler
• Yellow-crowned bishop
• Yellow-crowned gonolek
• Yellow-fronted canary
• Yellow-fronted tinkerbird
• Yellow-legged gull
• Yellow-mantled widowbird
• Yellow-rumped tinkerbird
• Yellow-throated greenbul
• Yellow-throated longclaw
• Zebra waxbill
• Zitting cisticola

Best time for Birding in Gambia

Birding in The Gambia is a year-round activity. With the two distinct seasons – ‘Dry ‘November to May and also ‘Green ‘June to October. In addition to the numerous resident species, each season also attracts a varied selection of migratory birds owing to Gambia’s varied ecosystem.