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Blue-bellied Roller Coracius cyanogaster ©Nigel Blake http://www.nigelblake.co.uk Gabon is a country in west central Africa sharing borders with the Gulf of Guinea to the west, Equatorial Guinea to the northwest, and Cameroon to the north, with the Republic of the Congo curving around the east and south. Its size is almost 270,000 km² with an estimated population of 1,500,000. The capital and largest city is Libreville. Gabon is located on the Atlantic coast of central Africa. Located on the equator, Gabon has an equatorial climate with an extensive system of rainforests covering 85% of the country. There are three distinct regions: the coastal plains (ranging between 20 to 300 km from the ocean's shore), the mountains (the Cristal Mountains to the northeast of Libreville, the Chaillu Massif in the centre, culminating at 1575 m with Mont Iboundji), and the savanna in the east. Gabon's largest river is the Ogooué which is 1200 km long. Gabon has three karst areas where there are hundreds of caves located in the dolomite and limestone rocks. Some of the caves include Grotte du Lastoursville, Grotte du Lebamba, Grotte du Bongolo, and Grotte du Kessipougou. Many caves have not been explored yet. A National Geographic Expedition visited the caves in the summer of 2008 to document them (Expedition Website). Gabon is also noted for efforts to preserve the natural environment. In 2002, President Omar Bongo Ondimba put Gabon firmly on the map as an important future ecotourism destination by nominating more than 11% of the nation's territory as National Park (13 in total), which may be the largest area of nature parks in the world. Natural resources include: petroleum, magnesium, iron, gold, uranium, and forests.

contributor

Wikipedia
(GNU Free Documentation License)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gabon

numbers

Number of bird species: 777

useful reading

A Birders Checklist of the Birds of Gabon

Birds of Western Africa: An Identification Guide

Coastal Waterbirds in Gabon

Field Guide to the Birds of Western Africa

Guide des Oiseaux de la R?serve de la Lop

useful information

Proact

clubs

African Bird Club

West African Ornithological Society

reserves

Important Bird Areas

trip reports

Travelling Birder
http://www.travellingbirder.com
The Travellingbirder.com birding trip report search engine guides you to 7,000+ birding trip reports on the Internet. You can search for trip reports from a specific country and time of year. Not all these reports are in English. So, if you can’t find the trip report you want on this Fatbirder page… give them a try!

1996 [July] Don Roberson & Rita Carratello

1998 [February] - Don Taylor

2001 [September] Nik Borrow - Gabon, São Tomé & Príncipe

2004 [March] - Tropical Birding

2004 [September] - Michael Mills & Callan Cohen

2006 [August] - Nik Borrow

2006 [June] - Adam Riley

2006 [October] - Michael Mills

2007 [August] - David Hoddinott

2007 [July] - David Hoddinott

2009 [March] - Rick Taylor

tour operators

Mistral Voyages

Patrice Christy

Tropical Birding

other links

Checklist

Filednotes on Gabon Birds

Gabon Birding - on Worldtwitch