Abuko Nature Reserve

ForestsWest Coast Region,Gambia

Fragile nature — stay on the trail, leave no trace.

A square kilometre of closed-canopy gallery forest in The Gambia, saved by a water-supply fence, with hides over pools where crocodiles, bushbuck and colobus drink.

September·Quiet month

Jun–Oct

The rains turn the forest its greenest — butterflies, frogs and breeding residents fill the canopy — but the migrants have gone north, refilled pools scatter the wildlife and dense undergrowth hides the mammals. The gate still opens daily; only the trails turn muddy.

Year-round Behind the water fence built in 1916, the dense gallery forest, the permanent crocodile pools and four resident primates are here in every month, along with the green-monkey troops that are used to people. The reserve opens daily, all year.

Abuko Nature Reserve is a square kilometre of closed-canopy gallery forest in the West Coast Region of The Gambia, half an hour from the beach hotels, saved by accident when a fence was put around a stream for the water supply in 1916 and made the country's first reserve in 1968, and it is walked on a shaded trail to hides above pools where crocodiles, bushbuck and colobus monkeys come to drink. A few steps past the gate the open, hot track turns into a shaded trail and the air drops several degrees, the forest that the Lamin stream keeps green in a country of savanna, and the trail winds under tall trees to an elevated hide looking straight down on the main pool, where crocodiles bask on the bank, bushbuck edge out of the trees to drink and monkeys forage along the far shore; two crocodile species share the pools, the Nile crocodile and the rarer dwarf crocodile, which is seldom seen. Troops of green monkeys work the trailside trees and drop to the path without hurrying away, and the red colobus, rust-red against the green, lounge and groom on the high branches, a leaf-eater that needs mature trees and is running out of them elsewhere in the country. The reserve is a bird place above all, with a list of more than 270 species in a square kilometre, and from November the migrants wintering from Europe join the forest residents at the pools, with the guides at the gate naming the paradise flycatchers, turacos and kingfishers for visitors who came for the beach and stayed for the birds. Chimpanzees had been extinct in The Gambia for decades, but the country's celebrated chimpanzee project began in these trees in the 1970s with orphans taken from traffickers, later moved to islands in the river upstream. The trail is a loop of two hours, with an animal orphanage at the far end. Abuko is a forest a fence saved, and the hide over its pool is the country's front row.

Worth knowing

Good to know

The two halves of the dry season buy you different animals — December brings the migrant birds, while by March the bare undergrowth and low pools make mammals far easier to see.
Be at the gate when it opens — tour groups arrive late morning, and in the first cool hour the monkeys and birds are both lower in the trees and far noisier.
Give the photo hide an unhurried half-hour — sit still and the bushbuck and crocodiles emerge; walk straight through and all you will have seen is a green pool.
Take one of the guides waiting at the entrance — the red colobus and the skulking forest birds are there whether or not you spot them, and a local eye roughly doubles what you see.
Never hand food to the green monkeys — the troops beside the path are tame enough to take it from you, and a fed monkey quickly becomes a monkey that snatches.

Things to do

1
Meet the green monkeys at arm's length
Troops of green monkeys — the ones Gambians still call vervets — work the trailside trees and drop to the path without hurrying away, close enough to watch a hand turn a fruit over. Sit on a bench for ten minutes and the troop simply carries on around you: infants riding, adults squabbling, one sentry watching the trail.
2
Walk in from the gate and feel the air drop
A few steps past the entrance the open, hot track turns into a shaded trail and the air noticeably cools — you have crossed into the closed-canopy forest the stream keeps green. Take it slowly rather than marching through, and keep looking up. The tree crowns join into a solid roof over the path, and most of the birds and monkeys are up there rather than at eye level.
3
Take the hide above the pools
An elevated hide looks straight down on the reserve's main pool, where crocodiles bask on the bank and bushbuck edge out of the trees to drink while monkeys forage along the far shore. Water is scarce in the country outside, so the birds come in close too: doves picking along the mud, weavers flashing yellow in the shallows, a kingfisher holding station over the creek. Stay quiet and the whole cast assembles in a single view — the one place in Abuko where you watch instead of walk.
4
Find the red colobus in the treetops
Rust-red against the green, Abuko's red colobus lounge and groom on high branches, and this is one of the last places in the country where finding them is easy. They give themselves away by sound — a sudden crash of branches overhead — so walk slowly, stop often, and look almost straight up.

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