The Tanji Bird Reserve is a
bird reserve in
The Gambia
The Gambia,, ff, Gammbi, ar, غامبيا officially the Republic of The Gambia, is a country in West Africa. It is the smallest country within mainland AfricaHoare, Ben. (2002) ''The Kingfisher A-Z Encyclopedia'', Kingfisher Publicatio ...
. Established in 1993, it covers an area of . It is also known as Karinti, the Tanji River Reserve or the Tanji National Park.
Location
The Tanji Bird Reserve lies 3 km to the north of the fishing village of Tanji and includes the Karinti River. The protected reserve, which incorporates an area of the Bald Cape and the Bijol Islands (Kajonyi Islands), is located 1.5 km from the Atlantic Ocean coastline. The Bijol Islands are The Gambia's only offshore islands.
The Bijol Island consist of two islands which are joined together at low tide.
Habitat
The Tanji Bird Reserve incorporates mangrove, dry woodland and coastal dune scrub woodland. Along the coastal part there is a series of
lagoon
A lagoon is a shallow body of water separated from a larger body of water by a narrow landform, such as reefs, barrier islands, barrier peninsulas, or isthmuses. Lagoons are commonly divided into ''coastal lagoons'' (or ''barrier lagoons'') ...
s, and off shore Bijol islands which are important sites for breeding marine turtles and for roosting birds.
Wildlife
The Tanji Bird Reserve has had around 300 species of birds recorded within it, including 82 species of
Palearctic migrants. The reserve has been declared as an Important Bird Area by
Birdlife International. Species seen regularly on the reserve's lagoons include
Black-headed heron
The black-headed heron (''Ardea melanocephala'') is a wading bird of the heron family Ardeidae, common throughout much of sub-Saharan Africa and Madagascar. It is mainly resident, but some west African birds move further north in the rainy sea ...
,
white-fronted plover,
Caspian tern
The Caspian tern (''Hydroprogne caspia'') is a species of tern, with a subcosmopolitan but scattered distribution. Despite its extensive range, it is monotypic of its genus, and has no accepted subspecies. The genus name is from Ancient Greek ' ...
,
spur-winged plover
The spur-winged lapwing or spur-winged plover (''Vanellus spinosus'') is a lapwing species, one of a group of largish waders in the family Charadriidae.
It is one of several species of wader supposed to be the "trochilus" bird said by Herodotus ...
,
sanderling
The sanderling (''Calidris alba'') is a small wading bird. The name derives from Old English ''sand-yrðling'', "sand-ploughman". The genus name is from Ancient Greek ''kalidris'' or ''skalidris'', a term used by Aristotle for some grey-colou ...
,
Western reef heron
The western reef heron (''Egretta gularis''), also called the western reef egret, is a medium-sized heron found in southern Europe, Africa and parts of Asia. It has a mainly coastal distribution and occurs in several plumage forms: a slaty-grey ...
,
royal tern and
lesser black-backed gull
The lesser black-backed gull (''Larus fuscus'') is a large gull that breeds on the Atlantic coasts of Europe. It is migratory, wintering from the British Isles south to West Africa. It has increased dramatically in North America, most common alo ...
. While the Bijol Islands are an important feeding and roosting area for substantial numbers of shorebirds, seabirds,
osprey
The osprey (''Pandion haliaetus''), , also called sea hawk, river hawk, and fish hawk, is a diurnal, fish-eating bird of prey with a cosmopolitan range. It is a large raptor reaching more than in length and across the wings. It is brown o ...
s, and other birds,
[ including Gambia's only breeding seabirds, including colonies of ]grey-headed gull
The grey-headed gull (''Chroicocephalus cirrocephalus''), also known as the gray-hooded gull, is a small species of gull which breeds patchily in South America and Africa south of the Sahara. It is not truly migratory, but is more widespread i ...
s, slender-billed gull
The slender-billed gull (''Chroicocephalus genei'') is a mid-sized gull which breeds very locally around the Mediterranean and the north of the western Indian Ocean (e.g. Pakistan) on islands and coastal lagoons. Most of the population is somewh ...
s, royal terns, Caspian terns, long-tailed cormorants and Western reef herons.
Management
The reserve has been subject to slash-and-burn harvest by residents of Brufut, who expressed resentment about the establishment of the reserve without their vote and for it being named for a smaller coastal town of Tanji that relied less on the resources within the reserve. This has led to a decrease, though not an extirpation, of most tree species within the reserve. However, residents also near-universally expressed support for being involved in the management of the reserve in a study conducted by researchers from Dalhousie University in 2001.
References
External links
www.birdlife.org
{{authority control
National parks of the Gambia
Protected areas established in 1993