The 14th Pan African Ornithological Congress was held in Dakar, Senegal, from 16-21 October 2016. It was attended by 240 people. There were 6 plenaries, 17 symposia and 32 posters.

A weaver symposium of 5 talks was held after the first plenary. Weavers are known for their diversity of nests and bright colours, so it is not surprising that the first 3 talks concerned the nests of weavers, and the next 2 talks focussed on colours of weavers.

There were several options for the Mid-congress tour, and I had chosen the one to Mbour and Joal. The Institute for Research and Development at Mbour is a research station with a patch of forest. Many bird species were seen on the 3 hour walk. There is also a museum with 3000 bird specimens.

On Friday Colin Jackson presented the keynote in the Bird Ringing symposium that was co-hosted by Colin and I. Colin presented an overview of ringing effort in different regions of Africa.

After the congress I had organised to spend a few days at Mbour IRD to do some ringing and train 4 forestry students. I travelled with Colin Beale and Nick Mundy who were birding for the day. 85 birds were caught with Village Weavers and Little Bee-eaters at the top of the list.

Over 200 photographic records were submitted to the ADU Virtual Museum, to provide distribution records.

Thanks to all the PAOC organisers for a great cnference! Thanks to the IRD Director, Mr Laurent Vidal, for permission to ring at Mbour IRD. Thanks to Daouda Sylla, ornithologist at Mbour IRD, for his help with the ringing. Thanks to the UCT Research for funding.

Read a longer report here.