8 March

Mark Hulme writes: On the morning of the 8th of March we opened mist nets close to our old camp site in the thickets and on the first round we were blown away when Tina took a Garden Warbler out of a bird bag, looked at the ring and innocently mentioned “this bird is from London!” Chris and I both knew what this meant, given that we use rings from the Ghanaian Ringing Scheme, and, sure enough, there was the British Natural History Museum address that indicates British rings and, presumably, birds ringed in the UK! There have been more than a dozen recoveries of rings on dead birds across the transition zone but this was, to our knowledge, the first British-ringed Garden Warbler captured and released alive in Ghana. The well-oiled BTO machine was put on the case straight away and we discovered that the bird was ringed on the Suffolk coast on the 25th of August by a now very happy ringer. This means it could be a bird that originally hatched in the UK but it could also be one that was caught on passage from continental Europe.

This highlight apart, the rest of a hot and busy morning’s ringing saw us catch three more Garden Warblers, one just finishing wing moult, and four European Reed Warblers. Afro-tropical bird(s) of the day were a family party of Red-cheeked Wattle-eyes, stunning little birds with a distinctive green-blue wattle around the eyes, particularly impressive in the adult male. We also had good catches of, amongst others, greenbuls, Green Crombecs and Cameropteras, a beautiful Yellow-browed Cameroptera making a change from the ubiquitous Grey-backed Cameroptera.

Above: Garden Warbler with some of the Nsuatre thickets in the background

Above: A stunning adult male Red-cheeked Wattle-eye, Nsuatre

Above: Yellow-browed Cameroptera, Nsuatre

After an exciting, but exhausting morning’s ringing we just about managed to summon the energy to scout for other areas to survey, choosing a more wooded area to the south west, which turned out to be good for Pied Flycatchers, some nice males in breeding plumage now, and OK for some other migrants but nothing that special, or are we now just spoilt?

2 - 5 March

Mark Hulme: On the 2nd of March we packed up reluctantly and said farewell to our scenic camp in the hills and set off for another repeat visit in the hills further to the north near Mampong. Our previous camp, in the grounds of a guest house, had to wait as we arrived a little late so we treated ourselves to rooms for a night before repeating point counts nearby. Chris and Tina confirmed that the vegetation had changed since they were there in December with a lot more farming activity going on now in preparation for the rains. Migrants were present, including Spotted Flycatcher, a male Pied Flycatcher still moulting into breeding plumage, indicating that it may be around for a little while yet, a number of Melodious and Garden Warblers also. Both Chris and I heard Garden Warblers singing, something I’m not used to in Africa. Some migrants, such as Nightingales, sing throughout the winter but Garden Warblers and many other migrant species can be heard singing in late winter once breeding hormones kick in. Unfortunately our visit coincided with another big Ashanti funeral so the guest house was to fill up and we decided that, with the season ticking on, we would head into Kumasi to prepare to visit the thickets of the transition zone to the north west of the city where the project had a lot of success last year.

After the compulsory trawl through Kumasi for a habitable (and affordable) hotel we ended up at one close to Tina’s old University, which proved to be very comfortable, and a Woodland Kingfisher bathing in a nearby swimming pool added some avian interest as well.

On the 5th of March, well rested and with clean, but still slightly damp, clothes, we headed north west towards Sunyani with a stop on the way to explore Owabi Wildlife Sanctuary, a nice, if small, forest reserve protecting a dam which used to provide all of Kumasi’s drinking water and now also provides habitat for a number of water birds, including some sandpipers which failed to yield to our binocular-aided efforts to ID them. The forest around the dam is a potential future survey site. As we headed into the transition zone we stopped for a very late lunch at Sunyani before arriving at Nsuatre in the late afternoon. After some negotiations we failed to obtain permission to erect our tents in the grounds of the local hotel but got a very good deal on some basic rooms, which was a relief given the current heat and the exposed nature of our previous campsite. Just before the light went completely we visited the thickets that the team worked on last year and found them jumping with Garden Warblers and enough Nightingales that I even got an excellent view of one! Encouraged we retired to plan our repeat work on this area with such potential.

We spent the first two mornings repeating the point counts that Chris, Chris and Tina had surveyed last November and December. The first morning, on Ghana Independence Day, was slightly disappointing Nightingale-wise but that was made up for with good numbers of Garden Warblers, many singing - are some already starting to move north? A fair few Spotted Flycatchers and the odd Pied Flycatcher was seen alongside Melodious Warblers and a Whinchat or two. This was my first visit to the area and the difference in habitat to other areas we had visited was quite stark in places with many more fallow thickets than you usually see alongside cassava, plantain, maize and small teak plantations. The second morning of point counts saw Tina and I head west a little whilst Chris stayed closer to Nsuatre. We had some luck with Nightingales on the first few points before the habitat opened up a little, Melodious Warblers, as ever, were present, as well as a couple of Whinchats close to where there had been a recovery in the past of a UK ringed birds. The birds I saw weren’t ringed, unfortunately! I also has the first singing European Reed Warbler that I’ve heard in Ghana. It was interesting to hear the song in dry grassland rather than the wet habitats we are used to in Europe – Reed Warbler is far from tied to wetlands outside the breeding season. Whilst I was enjoying these sightings and discussing what I was doing with the children heading to the farm on this national holiday Chris was having a Nightingale bonanza at Nsuatre with singing and, mostly, croaking birds common on his point transect, more even than his survey there at the end of last year. Nightingale is another species preparing to migrate and many of the birds we detected here are probably already on the move.

24 Feb – 1 March

 
Mark Hulme writes: After a couple of days catching up on some rest, office work and (for Chris) blog-writting we resumed our search for migrant hot-spots. The town being invaded by a huge number of mourners for a typically grand funeral (for a lady who’s importance and productivity was obvious from the number of attendees) accelerated our decision to get back to fieldwork and find somewhere else to stay. We happened upon a very nice campsite on top of a rather heavily-forested hill with wonderful views over the lowlands to the West, and some TV towers that Alec Eiffel would have been proud of. We could even just-about see one of the Atewa sites we’d visited a few days earlier. We then embarked on some repeats of sites visited last year and a few other areas were also sampled, including our hill, which turned out to be rather good for forest birds with the the hither-to-unrecorded-by-this-project Sabine’s Puffback and the range-restricted Sharpe’s Apalis both being common, although, as ever, encroachment on the forest habitat made us wonder whether these birds would remain here for long. A couple of attempts at ringing were also made close to our camp, picking up some dastardly-difficult Andropadus greenbuls which seemed to be evenly split between Little Greenbul and Cameroon Sombre Greenbul, hard enough in the hand this is one of the more difficult ID challenges in the field. We also caught a Brown-chested Alethe, a new bird for Chris, and some more common forest under-storey species but no migrants were attracted down by our trusty playback equipment.

Above: Tina with Nkawkaw below her

Above: Some Forest/farmland mosaic habitat in the Mampongtin Range

Brown-chested Alethe

Any suggestions moth fans?

Whilst the fieldwork continued apace so too, it seemed, did the early onset of the rainy season, with more stormy weather hitting us whilst we were camping, very dramatic looking out over the clouds building across the escarpment but we weren’t worried this time, we’d learnt our lesson from Kogyae and the tents remained dry.
After a successful stay on the hill we decided to try some more lowland habitat and were directed by the helpful folk at the forestry office to a partially-protected area near Nkawkaw where there is a 40-year cycle of legal logging, which results in a fairly open forest reserve where there is active logging but still plenty of forest-interior species which are rare outside protected areas. It was interesting doing fieldwork whilst a group of loggers went by on their gigantic contraptions but we were encouraged by the presence of birds such as Red-billed Helmet Shrike and parrots (most likely Red-Fronted). Some European Bee-eaters were also spotted along with a large flock of Barn Swallows drinking from pools left by the recent rain, perhaps larger numbers than I’ve seen since our visit to the forests at Ankasa, south west Ghana, in March 2010.

A (legal) logging team off to work in a lowland forest reserve

14th – 23rd Feb 2011

Report from Chris Orsman:
After the final repeat transect visits at Brenu on 9th, it was time to head back to Accra for a “mid-term” rest, and a quick once-over for the project vehicle. There were thankfully no issues to be addressed on the car, so we had it back the following day. A weekend in Accra followed, for all to take a well-earned break (and to catch up on paperwork and blog-writing!).

Whilst in Accra, we supplied the UK HQ’s with all the GPS coordinates for recent migrant sightings here in Ghana. The wizards back at base used some clever GIS mapping to find other parts of Ghana with potentially suitable habitats for these birds. They were able to produce a map of “hotspots” of potential areas to explore for each species which we used as a guide to plan our next couple of weeks in the field.


A refreshed squad re-convened early on Monday 14th, and headed inland and north-east into the Volta Region, bordering Togo, and home to Ghana’s highest peak and a scattered ridge of hills along its length northwards. The “hot-spot” map indicated the possibility of suitable habitats here, but aside from this, Volta Region had not previously been explored by the team. Arriving late afternoon we found ourselves a place to camp in the grounds of a mountain lodge, pitching our tents in the ample shade of mature mango trees. A view from the hilltop overlooked some good looking forest habitat for our first forays the next morning.

Above: The hills of the Volta region

15th Feb An awful but mercifully brief “inconvenience” meant that I wasn’t able to help the team with surveys on our first morning in the Avatime Hills. Apparently the culprit was my lunch yesterday. All I will say is that okra stew is not recommended: I hear (somewhat belatedly!) that even Ghanaians can have problems with it. Leave well alone!!

Mark, Tina and Nat covered some 5 or more kilometres along the hill road to the south, and returned near mid-day having had little luck on the migrant front, save for 3 Willow Warblers after the survey proper had finished, all in Albizia trees. Later in the day Mark explored the road to the north and returned having seen a Spotted Flycatcher.

16th Feb Back to full (?) strength, I set out north this morning with Tina, as Mark and Nat explored the wooded hillsides still further south. We came across 3 Spotted Flycatchers, and a Pied Flycatcher was glimpsed deep in the shadows of a cashew plantation up the hillside to our left. African Harrier Hawk and a Long-tailed Hawk were overhead highlights as we finished off the last hour of the timed species count. No further migrants, though, and sadly none from Mark and Nat.

In the afternoon we headed out even further north to discover whether any good looking habitat was to be found where the hot-spot map indicated. This was around a narrow and not-too-high ridge running north-south. With distinct possibilities evident on the eastern side, we selected our areas for work the next day.

17th Feb Mark and Tina covered an area at the foot of the ridge, where there was a fair amount of disturbance and hence tree-removal. Nat and I walked along the dirt road a little further south where it cut through a much more wooded area. There was still a lot of disturbance here though, but in the shape of mainly cocoa and banana plantations beneath the trees. We still had hopes for a few migrants. Unfortunately it wasn’t to be. After seeing plenty of Naked-faced Barbets, Green Hylias and Grey-headed Negrofinches, we met up again with Mark and Tina, who had had better luck, with Melodious Warbler, Willow Warbler and Spotted Flycatcher.  

Above: Mark and Tina return from fieldwork in the hills of the Volta region

A final afternoon’s look around a scramble of a path in the valley below the camp-site produced no further migrants, but at the head of the group, Mark was lucky enough to spot a White-crested Hornbill in the dense canopy. With the tents packed late afternoon we headed for a night in a guesthouse before trying another potential site just west of there in the morning.

18th Feb With a flask of hot water supplied by the guest-house, we set out to explore the aforementioned site, a low ridge with what looked like reasonable “green” patches, on the satellite images at least. Once there just after dawn, we supped a quick breakfast before fieldwork. Habitat-wise, here we had to “make do” with what appeared to be the best bet for migrant exploration, the least-disturbed portions of the higher parts of the ridge.  

Above: View east from the ridge

It was a largely modified arable landscape, with the promise of more wooded patches in the near distance. Tina and I had a few Tree Pipits, and three Nightingales in what few uncultivated corners we passed.
En route a Violet-backed Starling sang from a tall but solitary and leafless tree. On the way to the higher woods, though, we got rather stuck, hitting a veritable brick wall of dried grass and a tangle of weeds.

Above: Tina working in the dense, scrubby farmland

With no path to follow, we had to turn back, and hope that Mark and Nat had more luck in the other direction. They’d managed to get a little further than we, but it seems that every promised “purple patch” was in fact fairly heavily modified, and that the very best looking parts were totally inaccessible (probably on slopes too steep to farm). They still managed to locate several Willow Warblers, Tree Pipits, Melodious Warblers and a Nightingale. Bird of the morning, though, must have been a Purple-throated Cuckoo-shrike, seen by Mark and Nat.

Cutting our losses, we decided to head for our next target, to re-visit and further explore a part of the Mampongtin Range that we’d looked at last December.

Sadly we had to say goodbye to Nat, for the time-being at least, as he had other pressing business to attend to in Accra. We dropped him off at the tro-tro stop and continued on towards Koforidua. A quick lunch in a cafe, and a brief shop for food supplies, and then the heavens opened. We headed through the lashing rain to set up camp. Still raining, and with less than a warm welcome, the site was a sea of mud and looked like a building site. Learning that there were no facilities on site at all, we turned our tail and went back to town. Another (cheap!) guest house, and a view to revisiting a December site in the morning.

19th Feb What an interesting morning! Between us, Mark, Tina and I revisited the same patches of woodland/farm mosaic as in mid December, and amazingly the exact same migrants were present. A Spotted Flycatcher was in the same tree-felled clearing, Nightingales were in the same thickets and Melodious Warblers sang from the same cover. Were these the same birds as in December? This was all pretty heartening. Galvanized after this first success of the day, and lunch at the Linda Dor Rest Stop on the main Accra-Kumasu road, we called in at the Bunso Arboretum, as mentioned in the guide book, in the hope of setting camp. We were given a fine welcome, and guided to where we could stay, perhaps a little riskily in the shade of some very large monkey pot trees. It’s no palm, but these trees produce a very large seed husk, akin to a coconut in size. Thankfully, though, most had already dropped.
 

Above: Our camp in the Bunso Arboretum

Over dinner we planned our assault on the unsuspecting farmlands and forests over the next few days.

20th – 23rd Feb Mixed fortunes with most migrant species. Hard to come by in the more forested hills, most were near cultivation, or the scrubbier parts of this. Tree Pipits on the plateau, with Nightingales and Melodious Warblers and a few Spotted Flycatchers here, with fewer seen at lower elevations nearer the camp. And just where are all those Garden Warblers?!  

Above: Surveying in the forested hills

Above: Highly degraded hillside habitat….

Above: …and habitat degradation in progress

After 9 days straight of fieldwork, some catch up time was in order, somewhere near the next target area. We bade a fond farewell to the guys at the arboretum, and left for one good site from last December and some exploration of some new spots both in the hills and the plains below.


It was a spectacular climb up a windy road from Nkawkaw, through it would seem some protected forest (there was the hint by way of a sign by the roadside!). No National Parks here, but as with the rest of Ghana there are numerous forest zones where timber extraction is limited and controlled. Perhaps this could be worth a visit? On our travels we spotted the Forestry Division’s regional offices, so we decided we should pay them a visit the next day in our search for advice about patches of good forest, and possible access to these.

In the evening we visited a hotel right next door to our guest-house - a night off from cooking for Abraham and a well earned rest for our most excellent chef and chauffeur! In the knowledge that Thursday would mean a “lie-in” (what’s one of those?!), there were tired smiles all round as we strolled back to our lodgings.

Ghana repeat transects (plus a little roving...) Jan 21 to Feb 9

Mark Hulme writes: After a week of bateleurs, bishops, buntings and bubale (hartebeast) in Burkina we headed back into Ghana, my passport heavier with the weight of a new stamp. Before starting the transects we paid a return visit to the area around Tono dam near the Burkina border. Some pleasant birding was, never-the-less, not exceptional for migrants, with a brace of Wryneck, a handful of Melodious Warblers and Willow Warblers, a couple of Booted Eagles, a few House Martins and a Common Whitethroat in some thorny scrub being seen over a morning of timed species counts. Leaving our lodgings in Navrongo we set up camp at our regular guest house in Damongo and started transects on the 22 February. Once again Willow Warblers, Melodious Warblers and Pied Flycatchers were pretty common in the woodland/farmland mosaic around the town, a few more Tree Pipits also being seen this time around. The area was dry considering the particularly wet rainy season that had just passed with much burning having already taken place, in short very similar to this time last year except for a few more leaves on the trees.

Above: Nat recording vegetation in Damongo

Our two transects in and around Mole National Park were fairly quiet bird-wise, surprisingly dry again, although our ever-helpful guard Zach calling in a Black Wood-hoopoe was a highlight, and a male elephant wandering around camp made for a bit of excitement, as did the unexpectedly prompt service when we ordered our lunch!

A dry-season bloom in Mole National Park

We decided to take the opportunity to re-visit the Daka floodplain and see if the Whinchat density was similar to our visit in the first half of December. There were still plenty of Whinchats, though we detected slightly fewer than last time, and I was impressed by my first visit to this area – a small group of Blue Quails was great to see, to add to the one I saw at Kogyae last year, a gigantic Denham’s Bustard flying in the distance and my first Beaudouin’s Snake Eagle, an excellent view of a female, made for a nice morning’s transect.
After some well-needed rest and office work in Tamale we stopped off at Buipe on the Volta river, the waters having receded a little since the floods last year, and did some timed species counts which produced particularly high numbers of Willow Warblers along the edge of the waterlogged woodland as well as some Wood and Green Sandpipers, a Ruff and a Painted Snipe. A pair of roosting nocturnal Bronze-winged Coursers were flushed by Chris Orsman and Tina, but not by Nat and myself, it’s alright for some, I’ve been looking for that bird for years! It could be an interesting site to keep an eye on in the future.

Educating the Buipe youngsters in birdwatching: Nat, Chris and Tina

Between the 28 January and 1 February Kogyae camp, Kogyae Strict Nature Reserve in central Ghana, welcomed us warmly, as ever, and the fruit bats decided to be a bit quieter this time around, enabling us to get a bit more sleep than usual, until the last night that is.... There had been less burning than at this time last year, perhaps due to the increased rains, and the grass was very tough to walk through, some of it up to two and a half times higher than Tina......Melodious Warblers were perhaps the most common migrant amongst a small number of Willow Warblers and Pied Flycatchers, fewer Whinchats were seen than last year. I detected a Great Reed Warbler close to some burnt grass in which I’d heard one at the same time last year, which was interesting, but overall rather disappointing from a migrant point of view. On the plus side I managed to ride out a rather ominous illness but the elements had their revenge by unleashing a tropical storm on the last night which, whilst it put out a nearby bush fire, uprooted our tents (OK, uprooted my tent, that will teach me not to guy it properly), left Nat and Abraham wondering what was going on when their tents collapsed on them (Aha! So I wasn’t the only one) and had us running around like headless francolins trying to ensure things stayed dry whilst having what seemed like several swimming-pools poured over us all at once. Thankfully no damage was done and we managed to reach Kumasi the next day in one collective piece, and even managed to dry the tents in the morning sun. Tropical sun has its uses.

Buying provisions in Techiman prior to Kogyae

Grass in Kogyae 2.5 times taller than a Tina

From Kumasi, Ghana’s second biggest city and old capital of the powerful Ashanti kingdoms, we decided to investigate some areas on the way to our next transect site, Kakum. Lake Bosomtwi, formed in an ancient meteorite impact crater, is surrounded by rather lush hills which looked promising but we managed only a Melodious Warbler in a short walk along the road so we carried on to Obuasi, the heart of Ghana’s gold-mining industry, not blessed with decent habitat itself but a base to explore nearby hills the following morning. Once again the odd Melodious Warbler and a few Barn Swallows were seen, and we got a refresher in forest birds in anticipation of Kakum, but otherwise not of much of interest to us.

February 4 to the 7 at Kakum was, as always, very interesting in terms of the forest habitat and the different variety of Afro-tropical species on offer. A pair of Tit-hylias were nesting above our tents in some hanging vegetation, and we caught a glimpse of some Mona Monkeys from the canopy walkway this time, indicating that the disturbance caused by it’s presence and the tourists using it wasn’t completely putting off the larger animals from using the area. We also bumped into Justus, who was doing some work on his project looking at stress in birds at the edge of forest fragments, who had re trapped some of the birds we had ringed earlier in the project, mostly Yellow-whiskered Greenbuls. As for migrants, Barn Swallows were fairly common but little else was detected so we headed for Brenu hoping that Nightingales and Garden Warblers were still present.

Above: A Yellow-whiskered Greenbul re trapped at Kakum from last year.

A Velvet-mantled Drongo seen from the canopy walkway, Kakum.

At Brenu, between February 7-9, we had a refresher course from Justus in blood-sampling and detected a small number of Nightingales and a Garden Warbler in the scrub. The degradation of this habitat was even more marked than on my last visit here with developments springing up all over the place. The grassland held a few Whinchats but no Spotted Flycatchers were seen, fitting in with observations from last year suggesting that most leave this area in mid-winter.
So, with the transects successfully repeated we headed back to Accra to re-group, refresh and study the spatial data on likely habitats for Nightingales and Wood Warblers in order to plan our next few week’s roving. We should be in for some exciting times!

2011 Fieldwork begins: 9-19th January

Chris Orsman writes:

09 Jan
Arrived in Accra late this evening with no delays. We headed for the taxi rank and discovered that the fares had gone up quite a lot since last time (only in December!), from 15 cedis to 20 to get to the city centre. The guy explained that fuel prices had gone up. It turned out to be the first of many price hikes as a direct result of a 30% rise in fuel prices nationwide. We arrived close to midnight at the hotel, where more fun was to be had waking the staff to let us in, and then trying keys in several doors until finally the chap found us rooms that weren’t already occupied! Luckily no-one was actually IN their room when we burst in!


10 Jan
Today was a day for sorting equipment, replenishing or just buying anything we felt was needed, and for Mark to get his visa for Burkina. With the Burkina embassy walking distance from the hotel this was amazingly straightforward. A form to fill in plus 145 cedis (for multiple entry 3 months this is cheaper than getting in the UK), a return later in the afternoon, and all done. Abraham came to pick us up from the hotel after the embassy, and headed to the GWS office and met up with Tina and Nat. The rest of the day was spent running around to get a “green card” for the car (to get it through the border with Burkina), but after being given the run-around, we ended up without one and having to head for Burkina card-less. Well, we survived the border crossing last time without it, so... Less time spent sorting through equipment but we ascertain that all is in order.

The plan for the team this first few weeks is to revisit all of the transects we covered last winter, starting with Nazinga in Burkina (the Oursi transects are being capably re-done once a month right through the winter by Aly and Oumar), and then back down to Ghana to Mole, Kogyae and Kakum/Brenu.

Photo Above: Nat, Tina and Mark surveying from Nasia Bridge

12 Jan
After our early morning departure from Accra yesterday, we got to Tamale last night and stopped at a new (but indifferent) guest house outside of town. Post-breakfast we headed north, stopping on the way at the same spot, over the river at Nasia, as with Juliet in October. The area is a whole lot drier now, and the less interesting for it, although one Willow Warbler was spotted in the bank-side shrubs. Ploughing on, we by-passed the last-time lunch spot at Paga, believing that we needed to head to the border sharpish in case of any delays. This time we had no problems, seeing as we already had our visas, and the lack of a green card for the car didn’t matter either. Thus we were heading into the Burkina Faso border town of Po soon after mid-day. A quick lunch stop here, and with a text from Aly, Oumar and Mohammed that they’d just departed Ouaga on the bus, we headed westwards towards Nazinga.

With no space in the car, we needed to get to the camp, drop off, then back to Po to get the other three, AND then back to camp before dark! No elephant encounters on the way in, then upon arrival our rooms allocated (only just though, after an apparently very tardy booking!), and soon Abraham and I headed the 50km back to Po. Needless to say it was later than we expected by the time we got there, but a quick shop for last minute provisions, and with Aly, Oumar and Mohammed on board, back to camp we went. A little after dark when we got in, but just in time to join Tina, Nat and Mark at the restaurant, and a reminder, to me at least, of the “special” Nazinga restaurant experience, i.e the usual “riz et poulet sauté”!

Whilst there, we heard from our friends and regular guides, Mama and Sakaro, with whom we hoped to set out on the first transects in the morning. Turns out their boss did not know we were coming, and also the Director of the ranch needs to be informed! A bit of a spanner in the works, but what we decided was simply to postpone transects until the 14th with no great loss of time. All felt that a day of familiarisation of the terrain and of the birds would be beneficial before work started anyway. This was all dependent on the director allowing us to go ahead!

13 Jan
This first morning at Nazinga we endeavoured to track down the Director of the camp. We arrived at his office at 0700, as instructed, but as he wasn’t there his deputy set out to find him. A short while later he drove up, and a brief meeting convened, during which the now properly informed man-in-charge gave authorisation for us to continue, happily including the assistance of Mama and Sakaro.

Above: The team at Nazinga Camp Observatory

Above: ...and the view from the Observatory!

 

Not surprisingly, the ranch was looking a little sorry for itself. Much had been recently burnt, later in the season than previously (as there had been more rain than usual, so grasses staying greener later). Still, this also meant that the lakes and “barrages” held more water than even in December of 2009, making birding pretty fruitful. As usual, lots of Bush Petronias were just about everywhere, and it seemed there were more Pygmy Sunbirds around than previously (almost as many as Scarlet Chested). Long-tailed Glossy, Purple Glossy and Lesser Blue-eared Starlings were noisily abundant near the water, and Orange-cheeked Waxbills, Red-billed Fire-finches and Yellow-fronted Canaries hopped busily on any open ground.

Above: The team looking for migrants from one of the barrages at Nazinga

Above: Black-headed Plover, Nazinga

Above: Aly taking notes at Nazinga

Pied Kingfishers piped overhead, as Squacco, Grey and Green-backed Herons lurked on the lake shore. Here too were several Swamp Flycatchers, sallying from shrubby overhangs. Larger trees held Bearded Barbet, Grey Woodpecker and Northern Puffback, with distant Fork-tailed Drongo and Northern Black Flycatcher providing a bit of a test of identification skills (the translated French name for the latter is, I believe, Drongo Flycatcher!). In the drier patches of wood, especially of Anogeissus, Pied Flycatchers were readily spotted and heard. It felt as if these trees were in fact greener than at the same time last winter, so would we see more Pied Flycatchers on the transects?

We were to do two transects per morning, so they would be done in half the time, with Mark recording the birds for one “team”, me the other. Over the five days, Aly, Mohammed, Nat, Oumar and Tina sorted out all the habitat and vegetation recording across the two groups, with Mama and Sakaro providing the trusty security.

Above: The team at the picnic site at Nazinga, a site that held Pied Flycatchers

14 Jan
Breakfast was a head-torched gathering in the pre-dawn gloom, round at Tina’s, then all in the car for the short drive into the village zone outside the ranch. As expected all the crops were already harvested, with the usual scattering of low-intensity stubbles of millet, maize, sorghum, ground nut, sesame and cotton. Usual suspects ,too, on the bird front. Senegal Eremomelas twittering occasionally, a Brubru “wheezing” here and there, and seemingly plenty of wing-clapping Flappet Larks. Not always the usual migrants, however. A few Whinchats, 2 Woodchat Shrikes and a Northern Wheatear were not such a surprise, but the flushing of 3 Eurasian Wrynecks was, as we’d not seen any at Nazinga before.


15 Jan-18 Jan
Four further days of surveys this time sampling the mix of habitats to be found within the ranch. With the extent of the burning, I was most surprised at the lack of Hueglin’s Wheatears. Last season they appeared to enjoy the very worst-burnt zones. Maybe this year we were a little too early? Bush Petronias everywhere, of course, Pale Flycatchers and White-winged Black Tits seen now and then in the wooded savannah, the occasional Bateleur overhead, and on one transect along a river, a couple of Woolly-necked Storks took flight from a tree along with 3 Grey Herons, 2 Hadada Ibis, and a Hamerkop. Migrant-wise, however, a Black Stork was pretty good too, and also a few Green, Common and Wood Sandpipers were noted near water. The few migrant passerines noted over the 4 days included just 2 Pied Flycatchers, a Whinchat, a solitary, but singing, Willow Warbler, Yellow Wagtails and Barn Swallows.

 

Above: A male Bataleur soars above Transect 6

Although it seemed at first the field teams were a bit on the large side, with four or five at a time, it worked brilliantly and efficiently, and everyone gained from the shared experience and exchange of ideas.

19th Jan Our final morning at Nazinga, and a day to test and train those bird-ringing skills. Having prepared the site and set the nets last night, the full team (of 10!) arrived at about 06:30 to open up. This was the same site that Tim Walker, Aly and Mohammed (with Sakaro and Daniel) ringed at last year, on the very last day of the work programme in March. That day they were very busy with 130 birds, almost all in the first net-round (mostly sunbirds!). This time would be different, wouldn’t it? 6 nets opened, and another 2 put up on arrival. The team did amazingly with over 150 birds caught – 70 of them Scarlet-chested Sunbirds, with a few Beautiful and Pygmy Sunbirds too. Also caught were Red-billed, Bar-breasted and Black-faced Firefinches, Northern Red Bishops and Yellow-mantled Widowbirds, a few Brown Babblers, and the recapture of two Red-throated Bee-eaters from last year. The highlight perhaps was the sole migrant caught – Western Olivaceous Warbler. The first I had seen at Nazinga (at least, confirmed. I thought I saw one very late on during the March spell last year). An excellent morning of team-work – very well done to all. Thanks especially to non-ringers Abraham, Mama and Sakaro for the extra pairs of hands!

Above: Mohammed takes down the data during the Nazinga ringing session

Above: Olivaceous Warbler - the only migrant caught at Nazinga

With the sun getting too strong to continue, we packed up at 10:30 and made our may back to camp to prepare to leave Nazinga after lunch.

Before parting company, Aly and Oumar first handed over their data from Oursi so far (3 visits to 8 transects, and multiple ringing sessions). A sterling job by them, in particular in their modification of the ringing sites (so much water at Oursi meant 3 of last year’s 4 ringing sites were under water!), and in their determination to reach the most distant ringing site several kilometres over the dunes to the North. With a very few nets they have caught 561 birds to the end of December, including 118 migrants. These have been mostly Common Redstarts, Whitethroats and Chiffchaffs, Western Olivaceous, Western Bonelli’s, Melodious and Subalpine Warblers, and also a few Garden Warblers in early November. New birds to be caught have included Tree Pipit, Sedge Warbler and Blackcap. Also interestingly they have retrapped a few Whitethroats from last winter, all of them at the “Oursi North” site.

Above: One of the Oursi ringing sites - under water

Above: Oursi captures: Grey-headed Kingfisher...

Above: ... and female Blackcap

A check of the transect data sheets and everything looked immaculately presented. A few queries ironed out and the Oursi guys were all set to get the next round under way upon their return home. Some quick goodbyes in English, French and a mix of the two, and the three Burkinabes piled into the car, with Abraham chauffeuring them back to their Ouagadougou-bound bus at Po.


3 hours later Abraham returned, then more goodbyes to the ranch staff followed by our hasty escape, in an effort to get out and south across the border before its alledged closure at 1800hrs. We arrive at 17:30, and are through into Ghana at 18:00 exactly! We return to the CEDEC guesthouse at Navrongo, ready to revisit the Tono Dam area the following day.

26th November - mid December

After work in Bia NP on the morning of 26th November, the team moved north and set up camp in the zone where grassy savanna gives way to forest. It very quickly became apparent that this area of thickets and scattered trees within an agricultural landscape was excellent for Nightingales (about 40 located within 2km of the camp) and Melodious Warblers in particular, with reasonable numbers of Spotted Flycatchers and Whinchats too as well as some Pied Flycatchers and Willow Warblers. Only numbers of Garden Warblers were a little disappointing but we managed to tape lure two on our final morning of ringing here. We visited the site where a British-ringed Whinchat was recovered (with a catapult….) a few years ago, discovering a large maize field – with 2-3 Whinchats foraging within it!

Above: Tina (GWS) surveys migrants at the site where a British-ringed Whinchat was recently recovered.

Our next stop, on 4th December in the hills north of Kumasi that form a relatively sharp boundary between the forest to the south and west and the savannas in their rain shadow to the north-east, was intended primarily as a search for sites where the likes of Garden Warbler were more apparent. Garden Warblers were certainly easier to find than to the west – they could often be found feeding around the flowers of the towering leafless Bombax trees, in the company of sunbirds and bulbuls. On one occasion, a single tree held a party of six.
Our next mission was a dash north to check out the Whinchat population of the Daka floodplain, close to the old merchant town of Salaga. This entailed a trip across the Volta in a ferry that had no timetable or guaranteed sailings, a frustrating state of affairs that lead to an overnight stay in the port of Yeji waiting for a chance to cross. When we did reach Salaga we found a slightly strange and run-down place with a cheery sign saying ‘Welcome to Salaga Slave Market!’ next to the baobab tree that slaves were once tied to before being sold on to coastal traders, and a guesthouse called ‘Prison’ – we, however, opted for the alternative ‘Home At Last’. At the floodplain we counted about 50 Whinchats from the road that crosses it. There were also good numbers of waders, especially Wood Sandpipers but also some Common Snipe, Greenshank and one Painted Snipe. We were mesmerised by the brilliant Carmine Bee-eaters that roamed in flocks and lined bushes, trees and overhead cables and enthralled by the diverse avifauna of the surrounding savanna woodlands that provided such treats as White-shouldered Black Tit, African Hobby, African Blue Flycatcher and African Darter.

Time, however, was running short and it was soon time to head south again, our plans to colour-ring Whinchats having been thwarted by a lack of bait for our spring traps. Despite arriving in what should have been plenty of time, we arrived at the port of Makanga on the north side of the Volta to see the ferry leaving the quay on its way back to Yeji! Horrified but wishing to be free of its erratic sailings, we turned straight round and began to the long drive round to Kumasi via Tamale and arrived at our next destination around the middle of the next day (12th December). Here we found an excellent mix of migrants by surveying both forest remnants amongst the farmland and more open habitats and recorded totals of 11 Nightingales, 8 Garden Warblers, 7 Willow Warblers, 5 Melodious Warblers, 5 Spotted Flycatchers, 4 Whinchats and1 Pied Flycatcher in a morning’s surveying.

Keen to make best use of our last four remaining days we then headed to the southern end of the Mampongtin Range to check out a relatively small area that had produced no less than 5 recoveries of BTO-ringed Garden Warblers over the years. The area had high human population density and correspondingly small amounts of semi-natural habitat remnants in the landscape so we were not surprised that the area proved a little disappointing over all but were amazed at the migrants that were sometimes crammed into the tiny patches that remained. The sight of 6 Willow Warblers that could be found throughout an entire morning in a single medium-sized flowering tree was quite enthralling, especially as the birds seemed to be having such a productive time there, hanging from flower clusters, clinging to the bark of the trunk and giving occasional bursts of song.

Moving west towards the forest zone we surveyed both the lowlands and the hill forests before heading to Winneba on the coast for our final morning of work before the Christmas break. A quick look at the lagoon, a RAMSAR site designated for its tern accumulations, in the evening produced good numbers of waders (especially Greenshanks) and terns, the highlight being a Terek Sandpiper – a very scarce visitor to Ghana and West Africa. The team headed back to Accra on 16th December after finding some Nightingales, Whinchats and Melodious Warblers in the scrub and grasslands behind the lagoon next morning and began preparations for our return home.

Above: The ‘Magic Tree’ that held six Willow Warblers and a Spotted Flycatcher.

Above: One of the Bombax trees that towered above the forest im places, covered in reddish flowers but without leaves. These attracted Garden Warblers and Willow Warblers amongst the sunbirds and bulbuls.