Mini-Update: Nuts about Nuthatches

Belated mini-update from last weekend's quick trip down to Durham to visit my brother. This was actually my first time in North Carolina, and one of very few trips to the South. It was a highly enjoyable time in a quintessential college town, and I even got to do a little early morning birding. For whatever reason, suburban Durham has a surprising number and diversity of birds (I wracked up 29 state birds in two days despite not visiting any real "hotspots"), including an unusual number of Brown Thrashers, and some good looks at a Yellow-billed Cuckoo*. However, the highlight was undoubtedly my lifer Brown-headed Nuthatch. These adorable little birds are very common south and east of DC (i.e. on the Eastern Shore), but almost impossible to find within a reasonable drive of me. However, I spotted one within ten minutes of my first morning, chattering away in a pine tree by the small reservoir near my brother's house. With the White-breasted Nuthatch (one of my very first lifers, more than 10 years ago, and seen hundreds of times since) and Pygmy Nuthatch (saw several in the mountains of California), that leaves only my nemesis bird, the Red-breasted Nuthatch to round out my ABA area Nuthatch list. And with a major southern irruption reported this fall, I think this may be my year!

North Carolina Life List: 29
US Life List: 361
World Life List: 899

* Don't think I'll bother in this instance of listing all the Mockingbirds, Cardinals, House Sparrows etc. - the others are pretty much what you would expect to see in any East Coast birdy suburb.

    

Ghana - Greater Accra, Cape Coast and the North

As mentioned in my first post, I've just wrapped up a two week work trip to Ghana. I always keep a sharp eye  out for birds on these trips, even if it's just out a car window or in my hotel's garden, but this turned into my most productive such trip by far, with 49 species sighted, including 26 (!!!) lifers. I attribute this to a few factors:

1. A slightly longer trip than usual, including a full weekend that allowed time to visit the University of Ghana Botanical Gardens and Sakumuno Lagoon in Greater Accra. 
2. More extensive travel around the country (visiting my organization's projects and meeting various partners) - I'm very often trapped in the megalopolis capitals of Asia and Africa, with very little access to natural areas. 
3. The very safe and hospitable environment in Ghana. My last trip was to Dhaka, Bangladesh, where there were heavily armed soldiers on every corner, and constant talks of terrorist attacks. Needless to say, I didn't venture too far beyond my hotel (though there was a very nice park across the street where I saw some good birds). On the other hand, I found Ghana to be an unusual safe country - I felt no discomfort walking around with my expensive binoculars (and cheap camera - need to work on that one) in public, even in the slightly sketchy environs of the Lagoon (more on that below). 
4. My growing experience with Old World species, including African birds. My first trips to Africa (Ethiopia, Kenya, Uganda) were overwhelming; I often had no idea where to start when looking in my bird guide. But I'm starting to get a handle on the major families in sub-Saharan Africa (some of which overlap with tropical Asia, where I have a lot more experience). So I'm reaching the point where I can at least (usually) immediately narrow down a sighting, leaving fewer question marks on my list. I will say that cisticolas continue to be utterly baffling to me, but I don't think I'm alone on that score.  

Pied Crows

Anyway, let's get into the trip list! After a soul-crushing IAD->ATL->JFK->ACC (don't ask) 20 hour+ flight, was greeted in Accra airport by my old friend, the Pied Crow, a typical urban birds in sub-Saharan Africa. Accra is a huge, modern city, not exactly charming, but more efficient and certainly much safer than many places I've visited. My hotel was in the relatively tony East Legon district, where I quickly added Laughing Dove (by far the most common bird in Ghana judging by my sightings), Woodland Kingfisher (chattering away on the telephone lines) and Ethiopian Swallow (several on the lines as well).
Walking to our nearby office the next day, I added the Common Bulbul, seen in many of the gardens in the neighborhood.

African Pied Wagtails

Later that day, we started our road trip along Route N1 towards Cape Coast, passing through Greater Accra and into the Central Region. Highway birding is actually one of my favorite kinds, and I was not disappointed. Road trip birds included Little Swift (distinguished from the African Palm-Swift by their white rump and shorter tail); Cattle Egret (also later seen in vast numbers at the Botanical Garden); Black Kite (a literal trash bird); Rock Pigeon (surprisingly rare, but I saw a few); Pied Kingfisher; Black-winged Bishop (a stunner - my excitement over this lifer tipped off my co-workers about my nerdy hobby, much to their amusement); African Gray Hornbill (several hanging out on telephone lines along the highway); Black Heron (like a Snowy Egret dipped in ink); African Pied Wagtail; and Northern Gray-headed Sparrow. At our hotel in Cape Coast, I also added Variable Sunbird (a dull female unfortunately) and Village Weaver hanging around the gardens. After some great project visits on the coast (and a very sobering visit to Elmina Castle, a former slave shipping outpost), we made our way back to Accra, where on the way back I added Bronze Mannikin (a small flock hanging out at the restaurant we stopped at for lunch) and Piapiac (one of my new all-time favorite birds, a bizarre and aberrant member of the Corvidae).

Senegal Coucal

A few days later, with a weekend to myself, I decided to tour a couple of Accra's more notable hotspots (in both senses of the word, but I'll restrict myself to the birding ones here). On Saturday, I went for the University of Ghana's Botanical Gardens. As is my wont, I decided to walk there (?!) from my hotel, a dusty and very hot decision, but one that did net me a Senegal Coucal and African Thrush en-route. After reaching what I thought initially were the botanical gardens, I stumbled into a strange squatter-filled grassy area, what I later realized eBird calls the Legon Waterworks. Not the most pleasant of places, but the savanna habitat did net me Black-billed Wood-Dove; Long-tailed Cormorant (overhead flight); Shikra (several riding the thermals overhead); Rose-ringed Parakeet; Yellow-billed Shrike (which took me a very long time to figure out even what family they were - not only the odd yellow bill, but also very social and chatty for a shrike); Brown Babbler (one of my few close up photos); and Northern Red Bishop.

Yellow-billed Shrike

  At this point hot, tired, and thoroughly confused, I almost gave up, but pressing on a few more blocks, I stumbled upon the rather stunning Botanical Gardens. A mixture of semi-formal gardens, marsh habitat, and some forest, this is a fantastic birding site, and one I will certainly return to if I make it back to Ghana. Given my limited remaining reserves and the intensifying late morning heat, I didn't stay long, but did manage to add the Guinea Turaco (a stunning bird - wish I had managed to photograph it); Western Plaintain-eater; Eurasian Moorhen; Black-crowned Night-Heron (mixed in with the huge colonies of Cattle Egrets); Senegal Parrot; and Splendid Starling. 

Brown Babbler

The next day, I decided to venture a bit further afield, to the Sakumono Lagoon, a coastal wetlands Ramsar Site about 25 km south of central Accra. My feeling is that this is a location you should probably visit with an experienced guide. Google Maps and whatever Uber uses were utterly useless at finding this location, and after much trial and error with my patient driver, I was dropped off on a desolate stretch of coastal highway overlooking the (mostly dry) lagoon. I'm not sure if there is a proper boardwalk/center or what somewhere else, but it certainly wasn't here. At this location, the site was garbage-strewn and generally unpleasant. I managed a modest checklist (far less than some others I'd seen on eBird, which convinces me there is a better entry point to this site somewhere else), but did add Wattled Lapwing; Spur-winged Lapwing (incredibly territorial, one in particular repeatedly dive-bombed me); Senegal Thick-knee; Black-winged Stilt; African Jacana; Common Sandpiper; Black Tern (a species I've been futilely looking for in the US for years and then found in 5 minutes here, go figure); Great Egret; Intermediate Egret; Little Egret (some nice view together with Cattle Egrets where you could easily see the differences in size and shape); and a Yellow-throated Longclaw (a dead-ringer for our Meadowlarks). The trip back to Accra was somewhat harrowing, with me walking along a baking highway with no water until I finally flagged down a taxi. Again, I can't say I recommend this spot except with a guided tour.

Black-winged Stilt. This poor guy is living in garbage. 

This is going quite long, so a quick wrap-up of Northern Ghana, where I flew up to Tamale for some other project visits and meetings. The landscape is entirely different, vast open savanna landscape, much dryer, and with a different suite of bird species. Mole National Park in the north is perhaps the top birding spot in Ghana, but alas there was little time left in my last leg of the journey. What birding there was was from the car window between meetings, but to my delight I did add the Long-tailed Glossy Starling; Speckled Pigeon; and Northern Red-billed Hornbill 

Northern Red-billed Hornbill

And that's a wrap on my first trip report! Fingers crossed for another trip to Ghana, ideally with a national park visit in there. But I think I got a pretty representative taste of West Africa's amazing biodiversity. Below is a complete checklist (lifers marked with a *). Here's a link to my complete photo gallery as well.

Ghana Life List: 49
World Life List: 898

Complete List
Rock Pigeon
Speckled Pigeon
Laughing Dove*
Black-billed Wood-Dove*
Guinea Turaco*
Western Plantain-eater*
Senegal Coucal*
Little Swift*
African Palm-Swift
Eurasian Moorhen
Senegal Thick-knee*
Black-winged Stilt
Spur-winged Lapwing*
Wattled Lapwing*
African Jacana
Common Sandpiper
Black Tern*
Long-tailed Cormorant
Great Egret
Intermediate Egret
Little Egret
Black Heron*
Cattle Egret
Black-crowned Night-Heron
Shikra
Black Kite
African Gray Hornbill*
Northern Red-billed Hornbill*
Woodland Kingfisher
Pied Kingfisher
Rose-ringed Parakeet
Senegal Parrot*
Yellow-billed Shrike*
Piapiac*
Pied Crow
Ethiopian Swallow*
Common Bulbul
Brown Babbler*
African Thrush
Long-tailed Glossy Starling*
Splendid Starling*
Variable Sunbird*
African Pied Wagtail
Yellow-throated Longclaw*
Northern Gray-headed Sparrow*
Village Weaver*
Northern Red Bishop
Black-winged Bishop*
Bronze Mannikin*

The Development Birder!

After mulling over the idea for a while, I've decided to start an occasional blog, focused on trip reports, but perhaps with occasional other birding topics when the mood strikes me. My reasoning:

1. I have a really cool job that lets me travel around the world (in international development - hence the blog title), and, as a perk, see lots of great birds. It will be nice to document these sightings somewhere besides Facebook (where I am getting the distinct feeling most of my friends and family have gotten more than their fill of my birding posts :) )

2. When I'm researching birding spots for an upcoming trip, I always appreciate finding trip reports. I figure, why not pay it forward? Hopefully this can be useful to someone. 

3. I always like meeting other birders, both in my area (Washington DC/Maryland), and globally. I'm a member of various ID groups, but this seems like an other avenue.

The focus of this blog will be on birds seen during international travel, but if I have a particularly spectacular birding day in the US, I'll probably post it here too. My first proper post will be on my just-wrapping up trip to Ghana (actually I'm writing this in Accra). After that, I'll post as news warrants it. That's all for now, looking forward to my first trip report in the next few days!