Ghana Picathartes & Egyptian Plover Set departure tour 9th – 22nd March, 2014 Tour leader: Charley Hesse Report by Charley Hesse The undisputed bird of the trip, the weirdly beautiful White-necked Rockfowl or Picathartes (Ken Behrens) Ghana is now well established on the world birding circuit. Made famous by the strange White-necked Rockfowl, or Picathartes, Ghana is still the best place in the world to see one. Other star birds include Egyptian Plover and Standard-winged Nightjar and on this tour we had killer views of all of these. Ghana is also a great place to build your world list and even if you have birded Eastern or Southern Africa, you will still end up with a long list of lifers. We did particularly well on this tour with a final count of 436 species in just 2 weeks, almost cleaning up on several particularly diverse groups like greenbuls, cisticolas and sunbirds. Birding in the humid lowland rainforest of the south wasn’t easy, and ranks with some of the most challenging in the world, but Kakum’s famous canopy walkway and some fantastic stakeouts for difficult species meant that we found most of our targets. While not luxurious, the accommodation was adequate to comfortable and everyone enjoyed the camping at Ankassa which was particularly well organized. Other than those mentioned above, our avian highlights included both dwarf-hornbills at Kakum, Hartlaub’s Duck and African Finfoot on the way to Ankassa, Blue-headed Bee-eater on our drive north, Standard-winged Nightjar, Forbes’s Plover and Abyssinian Ground Hornbill in Mole NP. On the tour we had ample opportunity for night watching and found several rarely seen mammals with wonderful names like cusimanse, anomalure and giant pouched-rats. Ghana is friendly, safe and stable with decent infrastructure but most importantly they have the best local guides in Africa. These guys really gave us an incredible trip. Tropical Birding www.tropicalbirding.com 1 9th March – Sakumono Lagoon No birding was programmed until the afternoon but one of the clients and I had arrived last night so after breakfast we spent some time in the hotel garden to pick up our first common birds. Our first short walk around the garden produced Bronze Mannikin, Common Bulbul & Northern Gray-headed Sparrow. From there we walked around to the other side of the hotel where I spotted a firefinch which turned out to be Bar-breasted Firefinch. We climbed up some steps to a veranda which commanded fine views over the area. We spent quite a bit of time here and ticked off many common birds, including Eurasian Kestrel, Pied Crow, Black Kite, Laughing Dove, Little Swift, Barn Swallow, brief views of Purple Glossy- Starling and Village Weaver. The bird of the morning though was a stunning pair of Common Gonoleks, which hopped out on some wires where they sung their distinctive duet. After lunch, we drove to Sakumono Lagoon. On the way we stopped to photograph Yellow-billed Shrike and get much better views of Purple Glossy-Starling. We reached the lagoon, on the other side of the main road from the coast where we saw Royal Tern. We scanned from the side of the road over the lagoon which was at high tide so waders were not too much in evidence. We scanned with the scope to find White-faced Whistling-Duck, Long-tailed Cormorant, Gray, Purple & Squacco Herons, Great, Intermediate, Little & Cattle Egrets, Western Reef-Heron, several Eurasian Marsh-Harriers including a nice adult male, many African Jacanas, Common Sandpiper, Whimbrel and the striking Pied Kingfishers. We also saw several Western Yellow Wagtails and a Plain-backed Pipit nearby. A day-roosting Long-tailed Nightjar was an unexpected bonus at Sakamono Lagoon (Charley Hesse) We got back in the bus to drive around to a different part of the lagoon and on the way spotted our first Wattled Lapwings. We turned off the main road and drove through a residential area, where we saw our first Green Woodhoopoes sat on a roof. We reached a small resort where some people were playing tennis and cooling off in the pool. We could see there were large numbers of shorebirds on the edge of the lagoon but first we wanted to look for Senegal Thick-knee. We walked through some open forest and scrub where we saw African Yellow White-eye, Brown Babbler, Western Plantain-eater, Little Bee- eater, Black-billed Wood-Dove & Ethiopian Swallow. Our driver went off through the scrub and soon we called for us to follow him. As we walked up, he pointed out a thick-knee but it ran off before we could get a look. We heard some more calling and managed to track them down for much better views. From here we walked out onto the grassy area bordering the lagoon where we found at least one Black-backed Cisticola amongst the similar and more common Zitting Cisticolas. From here we stared shorebirding and found a full array, with Black-winged Stilt, Spur-winged & Common Ringed Plovers, Spotted Redshank, Common Greenshank, Green, Marsh, Wood & Curlew Sandpipers, Black-tailed Godwits, Ruff and Little Stint. We even saw some Collared Pratincoles, Black Tern and a Black Heron mixed in with all the stilts. The highlight of the afternoon though was flushing a Long-tailed Nightjar. It dropped back down into the grass and we walked up to get views of it on the ground. Our light arrival day birding had been productive with over 60 species seen. Tropical Birding www.tropicalbirding.com 2 10th March – Shai Hills to Kakum via Winneba Plain We had a very early breakfast and left before dawn. The Shai Hills reserve was less than 30 minutes from the hotel and we were soon walking in along the main track. As the light improved we started to build our list with Yellow-fronted Tinkerbird, Spotted Flycatcher, Senegal Eremomela and the dapper White- shouldered Black-Tit with its striking plumage and pale eye. A Shikra shot across the road as well as an African Gray Hornbill and African Pygmy-Kingfisher. Green-backed Camaropteras were calling everywhere but it took a while for everyone to get views. There was some commotion ahead and the local guide thought it might be birds mobbing a predator. We had great views of Blackcap Babblers, Brown- throated Wattle-eye, African Thrush and Splendid Sunbird. Further on the ranger accompanying us spotted a covey of Stone Partridges under a tree and the local guides went to the back of the thicket to walk them across our field of view. We picked up a Cardinal Woodpecker, a beautiful male African Paradise-Flycatcher and Yellow-rumped Tinkerbird but a calling pair of Mocking Cliff-Chat only gave flight views. The bus caught us up and we drove through some open areas to find several herds of Kob, a kind of small antelope. We also found a Gray Kestrel, White-throated Bee-eaters, Flappet Lark, 2 stunning Blue-bellied Rollers and an African Pied Hornbill. We got out at a parking lot by the start of a trail and saw several raptors including African Cuckoo-Hawk and Lanner Falcon. We started along the forest trail but the canopy was thick and birding difficult. After a lot of work we managed to see Buff- spotted Woodpecker, Northern Puffback, Green-headed & Olive-bellied Sunbirds, and the unique Oriole Warbler which finally showed well. We went back to the bus and drove to a site for African Barred Owlet. We had one calling close several times but unfortunately we were unable to locate it. Stone Partridge have recently joined the New World Quail family (Charley Hesse) On the drive back we had Green Woodhoopoe, Tree Pipit, some Olive Baboons and great views of a male Greater Honeyguide. We went back to the hotel for lunch, then packed up and checked out. We were leaving Accra and heading for Kakum National Park. On the way out we had a Black-shouldered Kite on a wire, but little else of interest before arriving at Winneba Plains. Here it was hot and windy but with some hard work and determination we made some good additions to the trip list. First off we had flight views of Black-crowned Tchagra, Black-billed Wood-Dove & Ethiopian Swallow. We made our way through the cisticolas with Singing, Croaking, Red-faced & Siffling Cisticolas and also saw Whinchat, Red-winged Prinia, Plain-backed Pipit, a fine male Copper Sunbird, flight views of Moustached Grass- Warbler, a pair of Yellow-fronted Canaries and several Yellow-shouldered Widowbirds. There were plenty of raptors around too with Eurasian Marsh-Harriers, European Honey-buzzard and finally a Red- necked Buzzard. The main target at Winneba though was the Black-bellied Bustard and luck was on our side. Mike spotted one as it flushed up and we had its mate on the ground slinking away behind a bush. We went back to the bus and set off, but after a short distance found a couple of Bar-breasted Firefinches mixed in with a flock of Bronze Mannikins. All that was left now was a long drive to Kakum. Tropical Birding www.tropicalbirding.com 3 11th March – Kakum Forest After an early breakfast, we drove up in the dark to the nearby Kakum National Park, site of the famous canopy walkway. Dawn was just breaking as we arrived and we walked up the stone path through the forest. After a steep walk up, we arrived at the entrance platform and made our way along the well-made but still rather hair-raising walkway out to the first platform.