List of birds of Gabon

Situated on the border of Cameroon and the Congo, the remarkable wilderness area of Gabon has a population of fewer than 1 million people and 75% of the country is covered by pristine, primeval rain forest. Furthermore, it has the highest diversity of tree and bird species for a given area anywhere in Africa. The areas of forest, some of the largest in Africa, support one of the most diverse avifaunas on the continent, and along with the many long rivers, huge areas of coastal mangroves and mudflats, and savannas, support such star birds as Congo Serpent Eagle, Long-tailed Hawk, Black Guineafowl, Forbes’s Plover, Rosy, and Black-headed Bee-eaters, African River Martin, Red-headed Picathartes, and Rufous-bellied Helmetshrike.

• Abdim’s stork
• Afep pigeon
• African black duck
• African blue flycatcher
• African broadbill
• African crake
• African cuckoo
• African cuckoo-hawk
• African darter
• African dwarf kingfisher
• African emerald cuckoo
• African finfoot
• African firefinch
• African fish-eagle
• African forest flycatcher
• African golden oriole
• African grass-owl
• African gray hornbill
• African gray woodpecker
• African green pigeon
• African harrier-hawk
• African hawk-eagle
• African hobby
• African jacana
• African marsh-harrier
• African openbill
• African palm swift
• African paradise flycatcher
• African penduline-tit
• African penguin
• African piculet
• African pied hornbill
• African pied wagtail
• African pipit
• African pitta
• African pygmy goose
• African pygmy kingfisher
• African rail
• African reed warbler
• African river martin
• African sacred ibis
• African scop’s owl
• African shrike flycatcher
• African skimmer
• African spoonbill
• African stonechat
• African swamphen
• African swift
• African thrush
• African wood-owl
• African yellow white-eye
• African yellow-warbler
• Akun eagle-owl
• Allen’s gallinule
• Alpine swift
• Amethyst’s sunbird
• Amur falcon
• Angola batis
• Angola swallow
• Ansorge’s greenbul
• Arctic tern
• Arrow-marked babbler
• Ashy flycatcher
• Audouin’s gull
• Ayres’s eagle
• Ban swallow
• Banded martin
• Banded prinia
• Band-rumped storm petrel
• Bank swallow
• Bare-cheeked trogon
• Barn owl
• Bar-tailed godwit
• Bat hawk
• Bateleur
• Bates’s nightjar
• Bates’s paradise flycatcher
• Bates’s sunbird
• Bates’s swift
• Black bee-eater
• Black coucal
• Black crake
• Black crowned crane
• Black cuckoo
• Black dwarf hornbill
• Black gosh-hawk
• Black guineafowl
• Black heron
• Black kite
• Black noddy
• Black sawwing
• Black scimitar-bill
• Black spine-tail
• Black tern
• Black-and-white casqued hornbill
• Black-and-white mannikin
• Black-and-white shrike-flycatcher
• Black-backed barbet
• Black-bellied bustard
• Black-bellied plover
• Black-bellied seed-cracker
• Blackcap babbler
• Blackcap illadopsis
• Black-capped apalis
• Black-casqued hornbill
• Black-chested snake-eagle
• Black-chinned weaver
• Black-collared bulbul
• Black-collared lovebird
• Black-crowned night-heron
• Black-crowned tchagra
• Black-crowned waxbill
• Black-eared ground-thrush
• Black-faced canary
• Black-faced rufous-warbler
• Black-headed bee-eater
• Black-headed gull
• Black-headed heron
• Black-headed paradise flycatcher
• Black-headed waxbill
• Black-headed weaver
• Black-necked wattle-eye
• Black-necked weaver
• Black-rumped buttonquail
• Black-shouldered nightjar
• Black-tailed godwit
• Black-tailed waxbill
• Black-throated apalis
• Black-throated canary
• Black-throated coucal
• Black-throated malimbe
• Black-winged bishop
• Black-winged kite
• Black-winged oriole
• Black-winged pratincole
• Black-winged stilt
• Blue malkoha
• Blue quail
• Blue-billed malimbe
• Blue-breasted bee-eater
• Blue-breasted kingfisher
• Blue-cheeked bee-eater
• Blue-cuckoo-shrike
• Blue-headed bee-eater
• Blue-headed coucal
• Blue-headed crested flycatcher
• Blue-headed wood-dove
• Blue-shouldered robin-chat
• Blue-spotted wood-dove
• Blue-throated brown sunbird
• Blue-throated roller
• Bob-tailed weaver
• Booted eagle
• Brazza’s martin
• Bristle-nosed barbet
• Broad-billed roller
• Broad-billed sandpiper
• Bronze mannikin
• Bronze-napped pigeon
• Bronze-winged courser
• Brown babbler
• Brown booby
• Brown illadopsis
• Brown nightjar
• Brown noddy
• Brown twin-spot
• Brown-cheeked hornbill
• Brown-chested alethe
• Brown-chested lapwing
• Brown-crowned tchagra
• Brown-eared woodpecker
• Brown-hooded kingfisher
• Brown-throated wattle-eye
• Brubru
• Buff-breasted sandpiper
• Buff-spotted flufftail
• Buff-spotted woodpecker
• Buff-throated apalis
• Cabanis’s bunting
• Cameroon sunbird
• Cape cormorant
• Cape gannet
• Cardinal woodpecker
• Carmelite sunbird
• Caspian gull
• Caspian plover
• Caspian tern
• Cassin’s flycatcher
• Cassin’s hawk eagle
• Cassin’s honeyguide
• Cassin’s spine-tail
• Cattle egret
• Chattering cisticola
• Chestnut wattle-eye
• Chestnut-breasted nigrita
• Chestnut-capped flycatcher
• Chestnut-flanked sparrow-hawk
• Chestnut-headed flufftail
• Chestnut-winged starling
• Chinspot batis

• Chocolate-backed kingfisher
• Cinnamon-breasted bunting
• Cloud-scraping cisticola
• Collared pratincole
• Collared sunbird
• Common bulbul
• Common buzzard
• Common cuckoo
• Common greenshank
• Common house martin
• Common pochard
• Common redshank
• Common ringed plover
• Common sandpiper
• Common snipe
• Common swift
• Common tern
• Common waxbill
• Compact weaver
• Congo martin
• Congo moorchat
• Congo serpent-eagle
• Congo sunbird
• Copper sunbird
• Coqui francolin
• Corn crake
• Crested guineafowl
• Crested malimbe
• Crimson seed-cracker
• Croaking cisticola
• Crossley’s ground-thrush
• Crowned eagle
• Curlew sandpiper
• Damara tern
• Dark-chanting goshawk
• Denham’s bustard
• Dideric cuckoo
• Dja river swamp warbler
• Double-toothed barbet
• Dusky long-tailed cuckoo
• Dusky tit
• Dusky-blue flycatcher
• Dusky-crested flycatcher
• Dwarf bittern
• Eastern-bearded greenbul
• Egyptian goose
• Egyptian plover
• Eleonora’s falcon
• Elliot’s woodpecker
• Emerald’s spotted wood-dove
• Eurasian curlew
• Eurasian golden oriole
• Eurasian hobby
• Eurasian hoopoe
• Eurasian kestrel
• Eurasian marsh harrier
• Eurasian moorhen
• Eurasian nightjar
• Eurasian oystercatcher
• Eurasian reed warbler
• European bee-eater
• European honey-buzzard
• European pied flycatcher
• European roller
• European turtle dove
• Familiar chat
• Fan-tailed grassbird
• Fan-tailed widowbird
• Fawn-breasted waxbill
• Fiery-breasted bush-shrike
• Fiery-necked nightjar
• Finsch’s francolin
• Fire-crested alethe
• Flappet lark
• Forbe’s plover
• Forest penduline tit
• Forest robin
• Forest swallow
• Forest weaver
• Forest wood hoopoe
• Fork-tailed drongo
• Four-colored bush-shrike
• Fraser’s eagle-owl
• Fraser’s sunbird
• Freckled nightjar
• Fulvous-whistling duck
• Gabar goshawk
• Gabon boubou
• Gabon coucal
• Gabon woodpecker
• Garden warbler
• Garganey
• Ghana cuckoo-shrike
• Giant kingfisher
• Glossy ibis
• Golden greenbul
• Golden-breasted bunting
• Golden-crowned woodpecker
• Golden-tailed woodpecker
• Goliath heron
• Gosling’s apalis
• Gray apalis
• Gray greenbul
• Gray ground-thrush
• Gray heron
• Gray kestrel
• Gray long-bill
• Gray parrot
• Gray pratincole
• Gray-green-bush-shrike
• Gray-headed broadbill
• Gray-headed kingfisher
• Gray-headed nigrita
• Grayish eagle-owl
• Gray-necked rockfowl
• Gray-rumped swallow
• Gray-throated barbet
• Gray-throated rail
• Gray-throated tit-flycatcher
• Gray-tit flycatcher
• Great bittern
• Great blue turaco
• Great cormorant
• Great crested grebe
• Great egret
• Great reed warbler
• Great shearwater
• Great snipe
• Great spotted cuckoo
• Great white-pelican
• Greater flamingo
• Greater honeyguide
• Greater painted snipe
• Greater sand-plover
• Greater striped swallow
• Greater swamp warbler
• Greater whitethroat
• Green crombec
• Green hylia
• Green sandpiper
• Green sunbird
• Green-backed camaroptera
• Green-backed twin-spot
• Green-backed woodpecker
• Green-breasted pitta
• Green-cap eremomela
• Green-headed sunbird
• Green-throated sunbird
• Green-winged pytilia
• Grosbeak weaver
• Guinea turaco
• Hadada ibis
• Hairy-breasted barbet
• Hamerkop
• Harlequin quail
• Hartert’s camaroptera
• Hartlaub’s duck
• Helmeted guineafowl
• Heuglin’s masked weaver
• Holube’s golden-weaver
• Honeyguide greenbul
• Horus swift
• Icterine greenbul
• Icterine warbler
• Intermediate egret
• Isabelline shrike
• Jahanna’s sunbird
• Kelp gull
• Kentish plover
• Kitilitz’s plover
• Klaas’s cuckoo
• Knob-billed duck
• Lanner falcon
• Latham’s francolin
• Laughing dove
• Leaf-love
• Least honeyguide
• Lemon dove
• Lemon-bellied crombec
• Lesser black-bucked gull
• Lesser bristle-bill
• Lesser flamingo
• Lesser gray-shrike
• Lesser honeyguide
• Lesser kestrel
• Lesser moorhen
• Lesser sand-plover
• Lesser striped swallow
• Lesser-masked weaver
• Lesser-spotted eagle
• Levaillant’s cuckoo
• Lilac-breasted roller
• Little bee-eater
• Little bittern
• Little crake
• Little egret
• Little flycatcher
• Little grebe
• Little green sunbird
• Little greenbul

• Little gull
• Little ringed plover
• Little rush warbler
• Little sparrow-hawk
• Little stint
• Little swift
• Little tern
• Lizard buzzard
• Loango weaver
• Long-billed pipit
• Long-crested eagle
• Long-legged pipit
• Long-tailed cormorant
• Long-tailed hawk
• Long-tailed jaeger
• Long-tailed nightjar
• Long-toed stint
• Lowland akalat
• Lowland sooty boubou
• Luhder’s bush-shrike
• Lyre-tailed honeyguide
• Mackinnon’s shrike
• Magpie mannikin
• Malachite kingfisher
• Maned owl
• Many-colored bush-shrike
• Marabou stork
• Marsh owl
• Marsh sandpiper
• Marsh tchagra
• Marsh widowbird
• Martial eagle
• Masked apalis
• Maxwell’s black weaver
• Mosque swallow
• Mottled spinetail
• Mottled swift
• Mountain wagtail
• Mouse-brown sunbird
• Moustached grass warbler
• Naked-faced barbet
• Namaqua dove
• Narina trogon
• Narrow-tailed starling
• Nkulengu rail
• Northern black flycatcher
• Northern double-collared sunbird
• Northern fiscal
• Northern gray-headed sparrow
• Northern pintail
• Northern puffback
• Northern wheatear
• Northern white-faced owl
• Nyanza swift
• Olivaceous flycatcher
• Olive ibis
• Olive long-tailed cuckoo
• Olive sunbird
• Olive-bellied sunbird
• Olive-green camaroptera
• Orange weaver
• Orange-cheeked waxbill
• Orange-tufted sunbird
• Orange-winged pytilia
• Oriental honey-buzzard
• Oriole cuckoo-shrike
• Oriole warbler
• Osprey
• Pacific golden-plover
• Pale flycatcher
• Pale-billed firefinch
• Pale-breasted illadopsis
• Pale-crowned cisticola
• Pale-fronted nigrita
• Pale-olive greenbul
• Pal-nut vulture
• Parasitic jaeger
• Pearl-spotted owlet
• Pectoral sandpiper
• Pectoral-patch cisticola
• Pel’s fishing owl
• Pennant-winged nightjar
• Peregrine falcon
• Petit’s cuckoo-shrike
• Pied avocet
• Pied crow
• Pied cuckoo
• Pied kingfisher
• Pink-backed pelican
• Pink-footed puffback
• Pin-tailed whydah
• Piping cisticola
• Piping hornbill
• Plain greenbul
• Plain martin
• Plain nightjar
• Plain-backed pipit
• Plumed guineafowl
• Pomarine jaeger
• Preuss’s swallow
• Preuss’s weaver
• Purple heron
• Purple starling
• Purple-banded sunbird
• Purple-headed starling
• Purple-throated cuckoo-shrike
• Quail-finch
• Rachel’s malimbe
• Racket-tailed roller
• Rattling cisticola
• Red knot
• Red-backed mouse bird
• Red-backed scrub-robin
• Red-backed shrike
• Red-bellied malimbe
• Red-billed dwarf hornbill
• Red-billed helmet-shrike
•  Red-billed quelea
• Red-billed tropic bird
• Red-capped lark
• Red-capped robin-chat
• Red-chested cuckoo
• Red-chested flufftail
• Red-chested goshawk
• Red-chested owlet
• Red-chested swallow
• Red-collared widowbird
• Red-crombec
• Red-crowned malimbe
• Red-eyed dove
• Red-eyed puffback
• Red-faced cisticola
• Red-footed falcon
• Red-fronted parrot
• Red-headed lovebird
• Red-headed malimbe
• Red-headed quelea
• Red-necked buzzard
• Red-necked francolin
• Red-rumped swallow
• Red-rumped tinkerbird
• Red-shouldered cuckoo-shrike
• Red-tailed ant-thrush
• Red-tailed bristle-bill
• Red-tailed greenbul
• Red-tailed shrike
• Red-thighed sparrow-hawk
• Red-throated pipit
• Red-throated swallow
• Reichenbach’s sunbird
• Richard’s pipit
• Ring-necked dove
• Rock martin
• Rock pigeon
• Rock pratincole
• Ross’s turaco
• Rosy bee-eater
• Royal tern
• Ruddy turnstone
• Ruff
• Rufous-bellied helmet-shrike
• Rufous-bellied tit
• Rufous-cheeked nightjar
• Rufous-chested swallow
• Rufous-crowned eremomela
• Rufous-flycatcher thrush
• Rufous-napped lark
• Rufous-necked wryneck
• Rufous-sided broadbill
• Rufous-tailed palm-thrush
• Rufous-vented paradise flycatcher
• Sabine’s gull
• Sabine’s puffback
• Sabine’s spine-tail
• Saddle-billed stork
• Salvodori’s eremomela
• Sanderling
• Sandwich tern
• Sandy-scop’s owl
• Scaly francolin
• Scissor-tailed kite
• Secretary bird
• Sedge warbler
• Senegal coucal
• Senegal lapwing
• Sharpe’s drongo
• Shelley’s eagle-owl
• Shikra
• Shinning blue kingfisher
• Shinning drongo
• Short-tailed pipit
• Siffling cisticola
• Simple greenbul
• Singing cisticola
• Sjostedt’s greenbul
• Sjostedt’s owlet
• Slender-billed greenbul
• Slender-billed weaver
• Small buttonquail
• Snowy-crowned robin-chat

• Sooty chat
• Sooty flycatcher
• Sooty shearwater
• South African swallow
• Southern cordon-bleu
• Southern giant-petrel
• Southern white-faced owl
• Souza’s shrike
• Speckled mouse bird
• Speckled tinkerbird
• Spectacled weaver
• Splendid starling
• Splendid sunbird
• Spot-breasted ibis
• Spotted eagle-owl
• Spotted flycatcher
• Spotted greenbul
• Spotted honeyguide
• Spotted redshank
• Spotted thick-knee
• Spur-winged goose
• Squacco heron
• Square-tailed nightjar
• Square-tailed sawwing
• Standard-winged nightjar
• Steppe eagle
• Stone partridge
• Stout cisticola
• Streaky-breasted flufftail
• Striated heron
• Striped crake
• Striped kingfisher
• Superb sunbird
• Swallow-tailed bee-eater
• Swamp greenbul
• Swamp nightjar
• Tambourine dove
• Tawny eagle
• Tawny flanked prinia
• Tawny pipit
• Tawny pipit
• Temmnick’s courser
• Terek sandpiper
• Tessmann’s flycatcher
• Thick-billed cuckoo
• Thick-billed honeyguide
• Three-banded plover
• Tinkling cisticola
• Tiny sunbird
• Tit-hylia
• Tree pipit
• Uganda wood warbler
• Upland sandpiper
• Variable sunbird

• Velvet-mantled drongo
• Vermiculated fishing-owl
• Verreaux’s batis
• Verreaux’s eagle-owl
• Vieillot’s weaver
• Village weaver
• Violet-backed hyliota
• Violet-backed starling
• Violet-tailed sunbird
• Wahlberg’s eagle
• Wandering albatross
• Water thick-knee
• Wattled starling
• West African batis
• Western black-headed batis
• Western black-headed oriole
• Western blue-bill
• Western bonellis warble
• Western nicator
• Western plantain-eater
• Western reef-heron
• Western violet-backed sunbird
• Western yellow wagtail
• Whimbrel
• Whinchat
• Whistling cisticola
• White stork
• White wagtail
• White-backed vulture
• White-bearded greenbul
• White-bellied bustard
• White-bellied kingfisher
• White-breasted nigrita
• White-browed coucal
• White-browed forest flycatcher
• White-browed robin-chat
• White-chinned prinia
• White-collared starling
• White-crested bittern
• White-crested hornbill
• White-faced whistling duck
• White-fronted bee-eater
• White-fronted plover
• White-headed lapwing
• White-headed vulture
• White-rumped swift
• White-shouldered black-tit
• White-spotted flufftail
• White-spotted wattle-eye
• White-tailed ant-thrush
• White-thighed hornbill
• White-throated bee-eater
• White-throated blue swallow
• White-throated francolin

• White-throated greenbul
• White-throated swallow
• White-winged black-tit
• White-winged tern
• White-winged widowbird
• Willcocks’s honeyguide
• Willow warbler
• Wilson’s indigobird
• Wilson’s phalarope
• Wilson’s storm petrel
• Winding cisticola
• Wing-snapping cisticola
• Wood sandpiper
• Wood warbler
• Woodchat shrike
• Wood-house’s ant-pecker
• Woodland kingfisher
• Woodland pipit
• Woolly-necked stork
• Xavier’s greenbul
• Yellow long-bill
• Yellow-bearded greenbul
• Yellow-bellied eremomela
• Yellow-bellied hyliota
• Yellow-bellied wattle-eye
• Yellow-billed barbet
• Yellow-billed ox-pecker
• Yellow-billed stork
• Yellow-billed turaco
• Yellow-breasted apalis
• Yellow-breasted barbet
• Yellow-browed camaroptera
• Yellow-capped weaver
• Yellow-crowned bishop
• Yellow-footed flycatcher
• Yellow-fronted canary
• Yellow-mantled weaver
• Yellow-mantled weaver-bird
• Yellow-necked greenbul
• Yellow-nosed albatross
• Yellow-rumped tinkerbird
• Yellow-spotted barbet
• Yellow-throated bush-sparrow
• Yellow-throated cuckoo
• Yellow-throated greenbul
• Yellow-throated longclaw
• Yellow-throated nicator
• Yellow-throated tinkerbird
• Yellow-whiskered greenbul
• Zebra waxbill
• Zenker’s honeyguide
• Zitting cisticola

Best time for birding in Gabon

The best time to visit for birds is October-November when flocks of Rosy Bee-eaters and African River Martins are usually at their large and impressive coastal nesting colonies where tens to hundreds of thousands arrive in August or September to breed. When the main rains arrive normally in February both species disperse inland with the martins migrating through places such as the Makokou Area in Northern Ivindo NP before spending the non-breeding season in the remote and largely inaccessible areas of the Congo Basin. July-August is the driest time of the year but bird activity can be low during this period.