If you
should venture into the forests of West Africa, you might want to bring a
guide. I found one through Birding Pal
and he showed me how absolutely incompetent I am at this bird-spotting lark.
Without him, I doubt that I would have found even a third of the birds that
graced my trip list. To my eyes and ears, the forest seemed empty, but Kalu Afasi was able to pull birds, as
if from a hat, name them and point them out to me.
A White-necked Picathartes (Picathartes gymnocephalus) was served on a plate and a Black Bee-eater was teed up for me. More than forty other life birds were seen on this trip to Accra, Ghana and I have to give credit to Kalu for pretty much all of them.
Picathartes
are birds of legend, shy and range-restricted, but a reliable site can be
reached from Ghana’s capital city in an afternoon. With a whole day off in
Accra, this was too good an opportunity to miss, so I contacted Kalu who
suggested we visit the Winneba Plains
on our way to Bonkro Village to find
this odd-looking bird. After dark, we drove down to the Cape Coast and stopped
overnight before calling in at Kakum National
Park and the Canopy Walkway.
I do not have the time to write up at the moment, but hope to make at least 4 posts from this visit. In the meantime, if you need a guide to lead you through the avian treasures of Ghana, I can recommend Kalu and he can be reached at; kalu_afasi@yahoo.com
Hey,I liked this, thank u for doing it. It was a chill ride through Ghana. You showed me the water was drawn from a well. Then you took a bike ride on a dirt road th rough town. All the way to the school. When you introduced the teachers at the school I started wondering about your local projects and what u guys are doing.
ReplyDeleteYou know there's all sorts of projects for getting the most plants for your space. Lots of green spaces in Ghana, perfect land for planting.Thanks to all!!
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