Ghana April 2023 PART 4: In search of a pangolin

 

White-bellied Pangolin

Following our successful encounter with the White-necked Picathartes (following post) our minds turned to another creature well-known from rainforests in the vicinity of Bonkro in central Ghana: the White-bellied Pangolin. Pangolin sits high on the wishlists of many critter lovers. The only mammal to be wholly covered in scales, the survival of several species is in the balance as pangolins are slaughtered in their tens of thousands. Pangolin scales are considered to have considerable value as traditional medicines in east Asia, especially China and Vietnam, but there is no evidence supporting this. Shy and harmless, the pangolin is believed to be the world’s most heavily trafficked mammal. As pangolin populations in Asia disappear, the trade increasingly has shifted to Africa, where the four pangolin species are now absent or rare throughout their ranges.

Before our tour, the group agreed with my suggestion for a $US50 reward for anyone in the villages around Bonkro who found us a pangolin, the stipulation being that we had to be taken to the pangolin and not the other way around. A man with tracking experience came forward and one of our Ashanti guides, Ibrahim Entsie, also had past form in finding pangolins. With these two guys, our group set out at sunset on Day 11 of our trip to find a pangolin. This was not going to be easy. We followed the trackers up and down ridges, along creeks, through regrowth and primary rainforest - often in rough terrain with no paths.

Following the trackers

We spotlighted a sleeping African Pygmy Kingfisher and located a delightful Beecroft’s Anomalure, a kind of flying squirrel.

African Pygmy Kingfisher

Beecroft's Anomalure

Three hours later, the trackers froze when they detected a rustling in the undergrowth: a pangolin feeding on the ground. As soon as the animal realised we were on to it, it rapidly climbed a densely foliaged tree. The pangolin was hard to keep track of as it crashed through the branches but we all managed good looks, although the foliage and its constant movements made photography challenging, as these images demonstrate. The first image in this post is of an animal jumping between branches. In the second image below, it is clinging to the side of the tree, its head visible.

Jeff Skevington had more success with his images below.

We were one very contented group following this encounter.

Later, Ibrahim Entsie explained his personal history with pangolins. His family lived in an impoverished village near the city of Cape Coast, eking out a living from farming palm nuts. He hunted pangolins and other game for bushmeat to sell for several years to raise money to help him finish his school education. The meat was much sought after and the scales were disposed of. Today, a dead pangolin fetches about $US20 on the black market, he says: “It is the Chinese traders who are buying them now for the scales and they might become extinct if it keeps going on.”

Ibrahim Entsie

The pangolin was not the last of the goodies at Bonkro. We had two nights at Ashanti’s new lodge. In and around the picathartes forest we found two wanted specialties: Tessmann’s Flycatcher and Yellow-throated Cuckoo.

Tessmann's Flycatcher

Other birds included a White-crested Hornbill (below) showing nicely in the early morning light.

In the afternoon we visited a logging road in the nearby Kwebene Sam Forest. Here we saw Red-headed Malimbe, Western Bronze-naped Pigeon, Tiny Sunbird, Cassin’s Honeybird and Red-shouldered Cuckoo-shrike. We were back at the logging road the next morning, seeing the distinctive western race of Yellow-billed Barbet, more Red-billed Helmetshrikes, Western Nicator, Violet-backed Hyliota and large numbers of Red-fronted Parrots.

Red-headed Malimbe

After checking into Royal Basin Hotel in Kusami, Ghana’s second biggest city, we visited the nearby Bobiri Butterfly Sanctuary in the late afternoon. The highlight here was a Black Dwarf Hornbill feeding its young at the nest.

Black Dwarf Hornbill

The next morning – Day 13 of our tour - saw us depart Kumasi to head north on the highway that extends from the coast in southern Ghana north to the Burkino Faso border. Two hours north of Kumasi we stopped at a forest remnant called Opra, a key site for the scarce Fiery-breasted Bush-shrike. Some of the group managed brief views of the elusive bird. Other birds included Brown-crowned Tchagra, Red-cheeked Wattle-eye, Grey Tit-Flycatcher and Bearded Barbet.

Brown-crowned Tchagra

We arrived at our next destination, Mole National Park, in the late afternoon after stopping to rescue a Graceful Chameleon (below) by removing it from the busy highway.

Ghana April 2023 Part 3: A tale of hope, angst and joy: The fabulous Picathartes

 

Our group huddled beneath the sandstone rock ledge of a cave deep in the rainforest, hoping to indulge one of nature’s great ornithological experiences: viewing the pre-dusk arrival of the beautiful White-necked (or Yellow-headed as it was formerly called) Picathartes, also known as Rockfowl. This remarkable bird, its bright yellow head bare of feathers, returns to the cave where it builds mud nests late each afternoon to roost. Its humped back and long legs and neck add to its bizarre appearance. We had walked 30 minutes from the nearby village of Bonkro in central Ghana through the Nyamebe Bepo Forest Reserve to reach the cave. It was Day 10 of our 21-day Ghana tour.

The picathartes cave

I’d had the “rockfowl experience” before: in Cameroon in 2007, with the only other species in this family - the Grey-necked Picathartes, But our Ghana encounter was to be no less memorable. We had waited an hour, full of anticipation, when the first birds were spotted, feeding on the ground in rainforest below the cave.

Then three or four picathartes came from all directions to the cave. Within metres of us, they were hopping from branch to rock, bouncing off cave walls, sometimes pausing to check us out. 

When we left 30 minutes later, two birds were ensconced in their mud nests for the night. It was an encounter to remember.

The White-necked Picathartes is regarded now as a centrepiece of Ghana’s fast-growing ecotourism industry. Tourists flock to Bonkro for the picathartes experience, and many are not birders, although the species is top of the wishlists of the many birding tours to Ghana. 

Our guide Victor Owusu at the entrance to the Bonkfro forest

The highly regarded Ghanaian tour company Ashanti African Tours uses the proceeds of visits to the forest to fund its Picathartes Education & Conservation for Knowledge (PECK) project to boost living standards in local villages. Guides are employed from the local population; 24 community forest committee members are sponsored; and an eight-classroom kindergarten and primary school has been built, providing education to more than 300 local children. Ashanti has provided chalets for a new lodge and a restaurant is planned. A local NGO, Rainforest Rescue Ghana, has been established to manage these plans.

Children at the village school

Yet a cloud hangs over all of this. In recent years, according to a submission by Ashanti to the Forestry Commission of Ghana last January, illegal chainsaw operations have been stopped in the reserve as a result of intervention by the forest committee members and the local community. However, legal logging concessions remain over the reserve. During our visit, seemingly every large tree had a number engraved at its base, signalling the intention of concession holders to log the trees. 

Tree marked for removal

This would destroy the forest and the picathartes population. As a result of intervention by Ashanti and its founder Mark Williams, the Ghana Forestry Commission ordered a halt to the tree removal plan and cancelled timber concessions in parts of the forest last February, just before logging was to begin. However, concessions remain over other parts of the bird’s restricted habitat, and the threat of illegal logging is ever present.

A Bonkro village home

The Bonkro area is the last stronghold for the species, which has been wiped out of its former haunts elsewhere in Ghana by illegal logging, legal timber concessions, and mining. As Ashanti says in its submission: “The presence of ecotourism attracted by the White-necked Picathartes is proving of great benefit for the local economy and community, providing a shining example of sustainable development. The profile of this bird is such that it is ensuring ongoing high-value tourism to Ghana, making it West Africa’s principal ecotourism destination. These benefits can only be maintained and developed with the protection of the closed canopy forest that is required by the White-necked Picathartes and a host of other wildlife.” Anyone wishing to assist Ashanti financially with its conservation and community assistance programs is invited to contactthe organisation.

The Bonkro lodge

Ghana April 2023 Part 2: Rainforests of Ankasa Reserve

Nkulengu Rail 

The next stage of our 21-day tour of Ghana (see following blog post) was a four-night stay at Ashanti’s new lodge at the edge of the Ankasa Conservation Area, a 50,000ha rainforest reserve on the Ivory Coast boarder in the country’s south-west. We had two jeeps with drivers at our disposal here to negotiate the muddy and heavily rutted roads to reach birding sites, the first of which were a couple of pools deep in the forest. 

Ashanti's new Ankasa Lodge

The hoped-for White-crested Tiger-Heron did not materialise at the pools on our first day at Ankasa but a lovely pair of Red-fronted Antpeckers – a difficult target – on their nest did. So did a Hartlaub’s Duck unexpectedly, along with White-bellied Kingfisher.

White-bellied Kingfisher

 Other birds during the day included Blue-headed Wood-Dove, the first of many Yellow-billed Turacos, Great Blue Turaco, Thick-billed Honeyguide and Western Bearded and Yellow-bearded Greenbuls. Grey-throated Tit-Flycatcher was a welcome addition for some. A pair of Red-billed Dwarf Hornbills provided excitement when they were attacked by an immature Black Sparrowhawk. At a late afternoon stop on a ridge overlooking a forest clearing in the afternoon, Congo Serpent-Eagle showed for some, as did a mixed flock of Yellow-casqued and Black-casqued Hornbills. Mixed flocks of Black, Cassin’s and Sabine’s Spinetails were about, joined by a couple of Bates’s Swifts. 

Ankasa Forest Pond

 Nightfall on our first day at Ankasa was to provide a highlight of the trip. Nkulengu Rail was once an especially difficult species to nail but Ashanti’s team have worked out how to find the birds at their nocturnal roosts through playback of their spectacular call, so these days they are pretty much guaranteed. Our drivers and guides tracked down four birds at their roost (below and first image) which showed gloriously in the spotlight as they were buzzed by hordes of tiny insects. 

 A West African Potto spotlighted in the canopy soon after was another welcome find. Red-chested Owlet was heard here and in many other places in the Ankasa and Kakum forests. 

West African Potto

 Around the lodge, Black Bee-eaters were common and nesting in a sand mound by the restaurant. Cassin’s Flycatcher was also plentiful in the lodge grounds while Finsch’s Flycatcher Thrush (now called Finsch’s Rufous Thrush) appeared on the forest edge below the cabins and was calling fairly commonly elsewhere in the forest. 

Black Bee-eater

Cassin's Flycatcher

Our second day in the forest focused on small trails in search of skulkers. Olive Long-tailed Cuckoo showed after a chase while West African Wattle-eye was easier to spot. Rufous-winged Illadopsis took a while to nail, while Forest Robin was more co-operative. Elsewhere birds included Brown-eared Woodpecker, Shining-blue Kingfisher and White-tailed Alethe.

Rufous-winged Illadopsis

 A Nile Monitor (below) appeared on the road. 

 That evening at the lodge I found a magnificant Fraser’s Eagle-Owl perched on a low-hanging branch at the forest edge below the cabins. Others in our group had views of the bird here and elsewhere on the trip but not everyone connected with the species. 

Fraser's Eagle-Owl

 Our third day at Ankasa saw us back at the ponds, checking out a large colony of bats under a road culvert (they were an Old World Roundleaf bat, Hipposideros spp; several possible species here so ID not possible). 

Bat - Hipposideros spp

A Dwarf Bittern flushed from a pond but not much else. Along the road and tracks, birds included Blue-headed Crested Flycatcher and a trio of bristlebirds: Grey-headed, Red-tailed and Green-tailed, the latter a difficult Upper Guinea endemic to nail. Pale-breasted Illadopsis and Brown Illadopsis were seen. 

West African Batis

 Our last morning at Ankasa – Day Nine of the trip - gave us our first Copper-tailed Starlings. We then returned eastwards, our next destination being Brenu Akyinim, a much drier area of open woodland and shrubland near the coast. Here we had our first encounters with common dry country birds like Double-spurred Francolin, Vinaceous Dove, Double-toothed Barbet, Oriole Warbler, Snowy-crowned Robin-Chat and Marsh Tchagra. The highly localised Baumann’s Greenbul was neither seen nor heard; in its scrubby habitat we made do with Simple Leaflove and Black-bellied Seedcracker. In the evening we returned to the Rainforest Lodge in Jukwa for the night.

Beach at Brenu Akyinim

The morning of Day 10 had us back in the Abrafo Forest for a while, adding the smart Red-billed Helmetshrike to the list at last, while Blue Cuckoo-shrike showed well. Sunbirds included Little Green, Johanna’s and Buff-throated. We headed north a bit to the Pra River, where Rock Pratincoles perched on rocks in the fast-running stream. A large nesting colony of Preuss’s Cliff Swallow here could not be located due to extensive roadworks but we had encountered plenty of the birds in the Kakum area.

Rock Pratincoles

 Locals in a small village by the river showed us how they processed palm oil from surrounding plantations (below).

Ghana April 2023 Part 1: Accra to Kakum

 

Rufous-sided Broadbill

Four years ago, I began planning a 21-day private tour of Ghana in West Africa in association with Ashanti, a highly regarded tour company based in the Ghanaian city of Cape Coast, to be held in April 2020.Then Covid-19 intervened. The trip finally happened from April 1 to April 21, 2023. We were ably assisted throughout the trip by our excellent guide Victor Owusu, his highly capable assistant guide Ibrahim Entsie, and our formidable driver Christian. A full trip report listing all participants, species lists and the like is to follow a series of blog posts.of which this is the first.  En route to Ghana I spent a couple of days in Singapore, where I indulged the shenanigans of a group of Smooth-coated Otters that have become used to people in Bishan Park.

Smooth-coated Otter in Singapore

Some of us arrived in the Ghanaian capital, Accra, a day early, so we opted for an exploratory morning session in the Accra (Legono) Botanic Gardens. A good start was the recently split Olive-naped Weaver by the pool at the hotel.

Olive-naped Weaver

The gardens were alive with birds, among them our first Senegal Thick-knee, Wattled Lapwing, Guinea Turaco, Western Plantain-eater, Woodland Kingfisher, Brown Babbler and Green Wood-Hoopoe. An African Cuckoo, a Grey-headed Bush-shrike and Northern Red-billed Hornbill were unexpected. 

Guinea Turaco

Senegal Thick-knee

Woodland Kingfisher

A group of Lesser Spot-nosed Monkeys was seen.

Lesser Spot-nosed Monkey

The first morning of the tour saw us at Winneba Lagoon west of Accra. A Brown (Mangrove) Sunbird showed well - potentially a tricky target. Good numbers of Black Herons were doing their oddball thing, using wings as canopies while fishing. Western Reef-Heron was common and muddy pools hosted a smattering of shorebirds including Kittlitz’s and Grey Plover.

Black Herons fishing

Brown Sunbird

We headed north to the Rainforest Lodge in Jukwa, our home for the next three nights. In the afternoon we had our first foray in the rainforests of southern Ghana, the haunt of numerous West African and Upper Guinea bird specialties. We visited a relatively new logging road in Abrafo Forest near Kakum National Park. One of our first birds was Yellow-footed Honeyguide, a much-wanted and difficult target.

Yellow-footed Honeyguide

The group in Abrafo Forest

Others to follow as we walked the road included Yellow-billed Turaco, Black Spinetail, African Pied Hornbill, Brown-cheeked Hornbill, Fanti Drongo, White-tailed Alethe and Yellow-spotted and Hairy-chested Barbets. An absolute stonker was a Long-tailed Hawk that showed nicely as it passed overhead.

African Pied Hornbill

Our second day was occupied by the famous canopy walk in Kakum National Park. We were there at first light and spent the morning on platforms above the rainforest canopy.

Victor on the canopy walkway

Rainforest in Kakum National Park

 A Willcocks’s Honeyguide put on a show as it landed above our heads catching what appeared to be bees from a small hive. Sunbirds included Yellow-chinned (recently split from Green), Blue-throated Brown and Olive. Other birds included Tit-Hylia, Ussher’s Flycatcher, Rufous-crowned Eremomela, West African Wattle-eye, Fanti Sawing, Sharpe’s Apalis, and Melancholy and Fire-bellied Woodpeckers.

Willcocks's Honeyguide

 Small Sun Squirrels were fairly common.

Small Sun Squirrel

We then walked a small track, finding a stunning Rufous-sided Broadbill (first image in this post). A late afternoon visit to the canopy walkway offered little more although Palmnut Vultures passed close by. 

Palmnut Vulture

As dusk fell we heard Brown Nightjar and saw a superb mammal – Pel’s Anomalure ()below).

The next morning saw us in farm bush and secondary growth in the Antikwaa area. White-spotted Flufftail was seen at a couple of sites. Red-cheeked Wattle-eye, Puvel’s Illadopsis and Kemp’s Longbills were among the specialties that showed for most of the group although a few failed to get on to these skulkers. A large flock of Rosy Bee-eaters was more co-operative.

Rosy Bee-eaters

In the heat of the day some of us ventured to the Cape Coast Castle, an historic site 30 minutes south of Jukwa. Built by the British in the 17^th Century, an estimated 3 million slaves passed through this horrendous prison, torn from their homes in shackles to be shipped as slave labour to the Americas. Half died before getting there. As many as 1000 men would be held in a cell area (image below) barely 150m long with a trough in the middle serving as a urinall they slept in their own waste. Dissidents were locked in airless cells to die of starvation. 

This barbaric practice continued for centuries, the ships departing from what is today a scenic harbour (below) adjacent to the fort. Visiting this place was a sobering experience; these things should never be forgotten.

In the afternoon we returned to the logging road we visited two days earlier. Birds included Chocolate-backed Kingfisher, Purple-throated Cuckoo-shrike, White-tailed Alethe and Black-and-white Shrike-flycatcher. Mixed greenbul flocks included Yellow-bearded and Western Bearded. We chased key nocturnal targets after sunset. The first to fall was Brown Nightjar, always a diffcult bird, which flew in and showed well enough, although somewhat distant. Next was an Akun Eagle-Owl which perched high in a tree, offering everyone a look if again not as close as we would have liked. Finally, a Fraser’s Eagle-Owl showed briefly for a few of a group. All three night birds were in the same area.

Akun Eagle-Owl

Brown Nightjar

Our last morning in the Kakum area – Day Five of the trip – found us back in the Abrafo Forest. We saw Red-thighed Sparrowhawk, Buff-throated Sunbird, Blue-spooted Wood-Dove, Sabine’s Puffback, Dusky-blue Flycatcher, Blue-throated Roller and Black Casqued Hornbill. African Piculet was a delightful addition to the list (second image below).

Black Casqued Hornbill

We then headed east to the famed Ankasa Forest, stopping along the way to check out, among other things, African Pygmy Goose, Allen’s Gallinule and White-browed Forest Flycatcher.

African Pygmy-Goose

As everywhere with Ghana, sights along the road provided plenty of entertainment.