Ghana- a new popular destination Part One

One of the harder birding areas to visit is West Africa, few countries have a decent tourist infrastructure, several are downright dangerous. Cameroon, popular a few years ago, has had political troubles, and whilst still visitable is apparently "not pleasant". Gabon and areas of the Congo are so expensive they're out of the reach of most birders (how will I get my last Pratincole-Grey?). Gambia was always the first choice, and still is, but it is far from the heart of the region and lacking quite a few species that are available in Ghana. So I recently travelled to Ghana with JT, whose posts you may have seen. 

Most major tour companies now include Ghana on their itineraries, but we decided to go with Kalu Afasi, from Malimbe Bird Tours, on the recommendation of a friend, and it proved to be a very good move. I shall be writing a full trip report on the website later, but a few impressions won't go amiss. The bird list for Ghana is excellent, but because there is so much forest (currently) many passerines are difficult to see well, a telescope is essential. I don't normally take mine because I carry my camera, thankfully JT was fine with sharing, but the birds were often distant. If you want general birding and good numbers of species, then stick to Gambia, if you have targets then I would definitely go to Ghana. Among our targets we had good views of twelve Kingfishers, Brown Nightjar, Standard-winged Nightjar, White-crested Tiger Heron, Dwarf Bittern, Nkulengu Rail, Egyptian and Forbe's Plover, Denham's Bustard, African Cuckoo-Hawk, Long-tailed Hawk, Akun and Greyish Eagle Owls, African Piculet and Rufous-sided Broadbill. Possibly the best bird of the trip was Red-chested Owlet, which was a story in itself. 


JT was unwell on the morning we planned to look for the owlet, so I went alone with Kalu and Cobby, (also a guide and our driver), also the mandatory armed guard from Ankasa, who was himself a good guide.  We soon heard a bird calling, and moved up the trail toward it. Finding them however, is a different matter. On returning home I looked at a number of trip reports to find the species is often "heard only", or missed altogether. The problem seems to be that they are quite active in the day and frequently move within the same small area. That area is quite dense forest, some of the leaves are bigger than the owlet. However, after some time continuously climbing we eventually saw our target, although I was unable to photograph it as it was part hidden and frequently moved. That afternoon JT emerged fit again, and although Kalu wanted to investigate another area, the flexibility built in to our itinerary allowed us to look for the owl again, plus I wanted a photo. So we did it all again. Did I mention one of the issues in birding Ghana is 95% humidity and temperatures in similar figures at times? But we took it slowly and eventually reached the area where we had seen the owl in the morning. At first we couldn't find it, three guides and at least one excellent birder who'd missed it that morning. And me. I picked up a shape and asked JT to have a look, pure luck but it was the owlet! A somewhat surreal moment occurred, silent "high fives" all round and congratulations from the guides, then to try and photograph it. I got on the bird, which was partly hidden behind a stump where a branch had fallen off, and just fired away. I got lucky so have another owl to paint at some stage.        

Overall it was a great trip, but hard work. The tourist infrastructure isn't well developed, but the people were very friendly (JT had a proposal of marriage but it was a joke-I didn't get one!). The only slight problem is getting a meal in a hurry, for some reason wherever we went it took ages. But Kalu organised things so that we ate in the heat of the day when birding was all but impossible anyway. This meant early starts and when dusk fell he had to be almost dragged away from looking for owls, but that's how a birding trip should be for me.


Nearly forgot the butterflies. Tours are available but unless you want them all identified they are uneccessary. Some real crackers! See part two of this blog.


 

 

 

 

 

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