Common Crane and White Stork observed at Oursi

Photo © Oursi Bird Club

We have just heard the news that, with Common Crane, a new species has been observed at Lake Oursi by the Oursi Bird Club - please see the photo of the birds. Common Cranes are rare at the southern fringes of the Sahara. Also, a sighting of White Storks has been remarkable. Thanks to Oursi Bird Club for letting us know about this news.

Where is Lake Oursi?

The Oursi lakes are extremely remote. Measuring on a map, Oursi lies less than 200 miles from the capital of Burkina Faso, Ouagadougou, and less than 250 miles from Timbouktou in Mali. (See Google Map and a PDF Map). But getting there is a different thing. The roads are partly sand tracks and they might not be usable at all as happened recently when severe floods hit the southern fringe of the Sahara. In August 2007, a NATURAMA/BirdLife delegation got stuck at Oursi for two days because of flooding. The delegation also faced the collapse of their huts during a torrential downpour – there is no ‘western standard’ accommodation at Oursi.

Photo © Muhtari Aminu-Kano

Lake Oursi, Burkina Faso

Lake Oursi is highly threatened. One reason is the intensive land-use: over-exploitation of the natural resources through intensive livestock farming and deforestation. Other problems stem from poaching, the drying-out of the ponds and lakes, which, with climate change, is likely to happen more often in the near future, and expanding sand-dunes.


© Oursi bird Club

For many years, our partner, a Site Support Group, the Oursi Bird Club, with support from NATURAMA, has been addressing the threats (Site Support Groups are local groups looking after Important Bird Areas, a concept that has become highly successful within the BirdLife partnership around the world).

Photo © Muhtari Aminu-Kano

NATURAMA and the Oursi Bird Club have increasingly focused their attention to help people managing their environment. This is most important considering that Burkina Faso is one of the poorest countries on Earth, with rural people depending heavily on natural resources.

Besides bird monitoring, environmental awareness has been raised and activities to stabilise the local ecosystems have been developed. Recently, Swedbio, an international development programme of the Swedish government, through the BirdLife network, has enabled a project at three sites in Burkina Faso that supports local communities in securing their livelihoods through sustainable natural resource use. Oursi is one of those sites. The project promotes agroforestry which secures habitats from the loss of soil from erosion and desertification as well as preventing the siltation of water bodies. In 2006, for example, a total of 1.2 km of hedges were planted at the ponds. Measures like this help the local people and the wetland-dependent birds – as well as woodland and savannah birds - at the same time.

CBC member donates a digital camera to Oursi Bird Club

Photo © Muhtari Aminu-Kano

A good start has been made to the partnership, when in early November, a delegation of the BirdLife Secretariat handed over to the Oursi Bird Club, along with a Cambridgeshire Bird Club annual report a digital camera, which a member of our Club had very kindly donated. The camera will enable our friends at Oursi to document the changes in the environment and the impacts that the habitat restoration work will have on the ecosystems.

Birds of Lake Oursi

Lake Oursi is one of only ten Important Bird Areas (IBA) in Burkina Faso, located in the very dry north close to the borders with Niger and Mali. Average annual rainfall in this part of the country averages less than 400mm and the dry season typically lasts for 8-10 months. The IBA, part of the Réserve Partielle du Sahel north of the town of Gorom-Gorom, is made up of a series of lakes interspersed with sand-dunes, grassland and stands of trees.

African Jacana © Dick Newell

White-faced Tree-ducks © Dick Newell

The area is very important for wetland birds. A waterfowl count in January 2003, for example, found 34 wetland species, including 2,132 Garganey (with an estimated 7,000 birds present), 1,857 White-faced Tree-ducks, 1,019 Knob-billed Geese, 671 Ruff, 640 Spur-winged Geese, 447 Moorhen, 427 Black-winged Stilt, 370 Grey Herons, 252 African Jacanas, 227 Glossy Ibis, 219 Wood Sandpipers and 84 Black-tailed Godwits, the logo bird of Cambridgeshire Bird Club. More than 100 species of waterbirds have been recorded at the site. See here for a list