Wed, April 17 - Birding Our Way Back to the Rainforest Lodge

We met for breakfast at 5 AM; I had bread and jam as I couldn’t face yet another omelet.   We set off with our luggage back to the park and stopped at the Tall Tree Trail.  We entered a very dense forest and hiked up and down slopes and worked very hard to see several dark, skulking birds in the thick underbrush.  It was just incredibly hot as no breeze could reach us and we drank as much water as poured off us.  We saw the lovely Forest Robin, a small round bird with brilliant orange breast, brown back and white underneath.

We finally left the claustrophobic jungle and started the long drive back to the Rainforest Lodge.  We dozed and bumped along; our guides, James and Andrew, stopped and bought a pile of roasted plantains from a woman carrying them on top of her head along the side of the highway which were delicious, hot right off someone’s griddle! They are always stopping to pick up water and snacks to keep us in good humor!

 

Orange Weaver

 We stopping for lunch at the same hotel that we has stopped at two days ago for good cream of veg and chicken soup, plus chicken and pasta.

Our guides stopped and bought some pineapples from some women as they know we love them so much, for us to have for dessert tonight.  There were also two women walking along with sewing machines on top of their heads, I guess offering quick sewing jobs!

Fruit Vendors

 Ghana is home of thousands of tiny businesses.  Every town is lined with little stores, workshops or wooden stands selling everything imaginable.  There are work shops making coffins, bed frames, upholsterers manufacturing one set of furniture at a time, all lined up in front of their stall! Tiny hardware stores, dress shops, racks of used shoes and, of course, pots of food everywhere - it would be fascinating to wander among these - if we had a little time!

 

Beach Shacks

Adobe Mosque

We pulled off on a side road to Brenu Beach and stopped along the way to look at Pipits, a Harrier hawk and two kinds of waxbills.  It was beginning to get dark so we drove to another location, off in the countryside, passing medical area with a nursing college, a planned parenthood center and an area with high wire fencing with the improbable name of the “Communicable Disease Prison”!

Brenu Beach Area

We pulled off the road and walked a short ways to a stream and started playing a tape of Fraser’s Eagle Owl, and low and behold, it hooted and we were able to shine a spotlight on it to ID it.  We started driving finally to the Rainforest Hotel and stopped to watch a Long-tailed Nightjar, a dark dove-sized bird with a long tail and distinctive white markings sitting on the road.

We finally arrived at the good old Rainforest at 7:30 and got our same #107 room and dashed around to meet for dinner at 8!  Good soup, spaghetti, and our pineapple!    To bed as we’re getting up for breakfast at 4:30 tomorrow!  Sigh!

Tue, April 16 - Birding Ankasa park

Tue, April 16 - Birding Ankasa Park

We got up at 3:40 AM and gathered for breakfast at 4:30 AM for omelets, bread and jam.  Off on the bus at 5 and we drove in the dark north for 1.5 hours reaching cut over and burned hillsides just outside the entry to Ankasa National Park, arriving at 6:15 at the entry kiosk.  We picked up a ranger and drove into the park and a couple of miles more until the road had a muddy wallow and the bus had to stop.  We were supposed to have 4-wheel drive vehicles to transport us but for some reason the local agent, Ashanti Tours, couldn’t supply them. 

So we took off on foot, hiking on the road and passing muddy spots by balancing on the edges.  At one spot I suddenly flipped and landed on my right hip square in the red mud. (Got up OK but am pretty stiff this evening with a grapefruit-sized bruise

Clearing the road

!) 

There were many piles of round hay-bale shaped piles of dung of the rare and very shy Forest Elephants. We also saw Bush Buck on the road, small deer-like animals with vertical white strips.  We continued on finally arriving at a research station where we were originally to have parked.  We walked over to Pond 1 and saw a pair of lovely purple-blue Shining Blue Kingfishers. Unfortunately these have displaced the rarer pale blue Blue-breasted Kingfishers. 

 

Forest Elephant dung

At noon it started to rain and we retired to the station to relax and eat the lunch the hotel had prepared for us: three slices of bread and two segments of Laughing Cow cheese each!!

Between showers we walked down a path from the station into a lovely and magical forest of mature bamboo arranged in large clumps like giant bunch grass called the Bamboo Cathedral, appropriately enough`.  A little stream ran through the grove and we sat and enjoyed the view, although no birds appeared.  We hiked some more until it rained again; Glenda and I took some time off and relaxed while the others forged on!

 

The Bamboo Cathedral

We finally started back to the bus at 4 reaching it at 5 and birded at a bridge with beautiful views of the hills and reflections of the clouds in the stream.
We got back to the Gracia Hotel at 7:10.  I taught RR how to take a shower here:  A light stream comes out of the shower head, enough to soap yourself up and then there is a lower faucet with much better water pressure and a plastic mug with which you can use to rinse yourself off!  A strange but effective system!

We met at 8 for a delicious dinner of avocado salad, fried chicken, palava, a spicy bean dish, and rice.  More of the incredibly sweet pineapple for dessert.

Mon, April 15 - Birding Our Way West to the Ivory Coast

Scrambled eggs and toast for breakfast and then we set off from the Rainforest Lodge and turned off on the “Stingless Bee” track near an institute investigating this matter.  We drove through Andrew’s village and saw women stirring large cauldrons of porridge over fires in their front yards and birded along the way.  Overhead in the early morning light we got great views of the Rosy Bee Eater, a hummingbird-like bird with a deep rosy breast, easily visible in the dawn light!

Vieillot's Black Weaver on nest

We drove to the Abrafo Forest Preserve nearby and walked into the woods and saw several new birds including the Naked Faced Barbet, one of a family of stocky forest birds with very large bills.  The naked faced one has a very cute goatee hanging off his bill!

We finally took off west towards the Ivory Coast border and drove and drove and drove!  We went through palm oil plantations, messy little towns, fields and rubber tree plantations.  We hit the coastal town of Sekondi which has a large Dutch fort (which we didn’t see) and many two- and three- story wooden buildings dating back to the British era, late 1800s, with shutter-covered windows- unique in the country as far as I can see. There we stopped at a fancy hotel for a good lunch buffet: fish/squash/corn soup, and then the usual chicken and fish dishes.

Fishing Boats taking off

Our stalwart driver took us off again for several hours more of driving.  We stopped occasionally to check out birds; in one pond we saw some lovely Little Grebes, small diving birds with chestnut heads.  At 5:30 we finally arrived at the town of Half Assini which is at the tip of a peninsula of land that goes into the Ivory Coast at the ocean’s edge.  We checked into the Gracia Hotel which is supposed to be pretty basic, and it is, but it’s also a pleasant enough place.  Our room has a king-size bed, two desks, a full bath, although you have to use a bucket of water to flush the john, and you have to switch on the hot water ahead of time to get any!

We arrived at the dining room at 7 and Bob and I each got our usual 21 oz. Club Beers and went into the small dining room which consists of a buffet table and a table for us.  Around the top of the room was festooned white cloth streamers with pink plastic flowers and ribbons entwined!  All ready for a fancy wedding!  We had a good dinner of fish and manioc stew, fried chicken, rice and beans and then a platter of the sweetest pineapple I’ve ever eaten!    To bed as tomorrow promises to be a long and arduous day.  Breakfast at 4

Kids playing in a river

Festively decorated dining room!!

Dinner!

Sun, Apr 14 - Birding the Antikwa section of the Park

Today being Sunday, we got pancakes with jam for breakfast!  We set off at 5:30 AM and saw a lovely sun streaked with clouds rising over the jungle.   We drove around the park and through several tiny villages of thatched houses made of adobe brick and finally stopped at a little clearing where we took off on foot.  It was slightly cooler today which was very nice.

 We could hear chain saws in the distance and then women walked by carrying huge piles of small logs on their heads!  They pleasantly greeted us as if they were carrying only a small bundles of laundry. We walked about one mile (which took three hours - standard birding speed!), ducking into a small clearing with a pool of water where we stood for 15 minutes while Phil and James called in a rare Fluff Tail, a little reddish rail, that walked briefly by.

We came upon a palm wine production area - a small clearing in the woods that contained a still, buckets of palm wine and  pools of wine brandy.  Andrew, our other guide and butterfly expert, poured some wine from a rather grubby pail into a plastic mug and passed it around!  Bob didn’t take any, and so can act as our control if we all get sick!  It was rather pleasant and sweetish.  Nearby was a palm oil palm tree that had been felled and several outer layers of the trunk peeled back to reveal a little trough that someone had cut into it.  The sap collects in the trough and that is made into the wine.  It looked like a primitive illegal still of Prohibition, but Andrew says it is a legal, and taxed, distillery.

Palm wine production

 We proceeded on to a river crossing and walked by a very smoky small palm oil
business.  Mounds of palm fruits were on the ground and workers were grinding some up and extracting oil and burning the remaining vegetation.  As Glenda pointed out, that material could be used as heating or cooking fuel and save a few trees, but oh, well.   We saw lovely, azure White-throated Blue Swallows flying over the sand-colored water and watched men paddling small dugout canoes.

Palm Oil production

We started driving back to the hotel for lunch and passed many church parishioners going home after services.  Many of the women and quite a few men were wearing clothes made of brilliantly colored, wildly patterned material!
I hope to find where they obtain it and how it is made.  The women wear elaborately designed dresses and the men’s’ is generally fashioned into pajama-like garment.  The kids often wear matching outfits. You can see this everyday, but on Sunday it is quite a show!

We got back at 12:30 (seven hours of birding!) and had a restorative lunch of hard boiled eggs in a veggie stew and a beef stew with boiled manioc slices.
We had a break until 3:30 and then were to go out again, walking along a park road and into the evening to see some owls.

 At 3:30 I decided that after going up and down the stone staircase yesterday which left my knees not happy, and not sleeping well last night that I needed an afternoon off!   And as this is probably the nicest hotel we will stay in, it only made sense to stay home, which I did, happily.  It’s now past 7 PM and they are all still out, hot and sweaty, exhausted, and bouncing around in the bus!   I took a shower, washed my hair and spend a couple of hours getting a blog post out with two measly photos and organized our gear for leaving early tomorrow.  Then I went over to the bar and now am happily drinking a large “Stone Strong Lager” which actually is rather weak, but does the trick awaiting the brave birders.
The group arrived at 7:30 and we had a good dinner of spaghetti with spicy tomato sauce.

Sat, April 13 - Birding the Canopy Walkway

Emerald Cuckoo

We met at 5 AM for breakfast: omelets and better porridge, and premixed coffee and tea so we couldn’t use our decaf. Also we were joined by poor Martha who had her original flight cancelled and then the new one delayed and arrived last night at 1 AM!

  At 5:30 we got on the bus - Phil divided us up into two groups: the Rock Fowl and the Egyptian Plovers.  The groups alternate as to first pick of the bus seats - an excellent plan as I’ve seen people almost come to blows over perceived unfairness in bus seating.  Today was the Plovers turn so Bob and I got seats Not over the dreaded wheel well!

We only had to drive about 20 minutes to get to the entry gate of Kakum National Park.  It was lovely to get into dense rainforest again even though most of the park is second growth with a few huge original trees remaining, but it provides habitat for about 300 bird species and several mammals.   We climbed a steep, roughly paved trail up to the entry way of the canopy walk.  The walk consists of rope and board walkway suspended between seven large trees and allows one a walk of about 1000’ long and 100’ high.  It sways dramatically which I thought was lots of fun, but everyone else did it only to see the birds!  Each tree has a small platform around it and we stood on the first platform for several hours checking birds.  I found it very difficult as you are surrounded by green trees, branches, and vines and descriptions of where the bird is are usually “on the horizontal branch above the large “y” on the bright green tree with fine leaves”…good for some people, particularly ones with sharp eyes which I don’t have!  At one point someone pointed a brilliant green bird which I finally located nearby and it was spectacular!  Emerald green scales on top with bright yellow below and blue feet:  an African Emerald Cuckoo.  It not only sat quietly while we photographed it but came back several times!  At nine, the park opens and it being Saturday, lots of people, mostly groups of uniformed school and religious organization teens, came charging over the canopy walk.  They didn’t scare off the birds, who must be used to the noise, but disturbed us!

Bob on the walkway

We left the walk way about 11:30 and returned back at the hotel, cleaned up and met for fried chicken,  rice and a delicious dish of red-red, a popular and tasty dish of beans and rice cooked in a lot of red palm oil.
We were given time off until 3:30 and a couple of us discovered that the hotel lobby actually has wifi!  I managed to get on and alerted my sister, Hilary, that I was actually OK even though the Blog has never appeared.

At 3:30 we reassembled at the bus with flashlights added to our gear and returned to the canopy walkway.  As we approached, we heard a roar similar to that of a European football stadium and found the walk full of very noisy teens having a very good time.  They finally left as the park closes at 4 PM (we have special permission as the professional birding groups provide so much business for the park).  We sat on platform #3 for 2 ½ hours; it was pretty slow birding, but we did see great views of the Copper-tailed  Glossy Starling and observed a group of Yellow-mantled Weavers, lovely birds with black backs, chestnut bellies, and yellow collars who build hanging woven nests in communal groups.  We observed pairs locking feet and spiraling down to the lower canopy of treetops.

Giant Squirrel

We finally left as it got dark, using our flashlights to  bounce across the walkway once more.  Just as we got off Bob saw a shape swoop through the sky, and James, our expert local guide, spotted a Pell’s Anomalure, like a large flying squirrel, clinging to a bare tree trunk!  He had black fur with a white underside and tail - a new family of animals for us!  

We got back to the bus and Phil told us we had one more short walk into the woods. We staggered after Phil and James for a bit.  James heard a call and quickly illuminated an adorable Demidoff’s Galago -Africa’s tiniest primate - a little Bush Baby with a 5” long body and head, with very large eyes in a round face!
We retuned to the Rainforest Lodge at 8 PM and immediately went into dinner - onion soup, chicken curry, pasta and rice with very sweet pineapple for dessert.  Then to bed!

Fri, April 12 - Birding Our Way to Cape Coast

We got up at 4 AM, packed, put our luggage outside our door, and went down for omelets with green peppers and tomatoes and a large bowl of porridge!

Shai Hills Orchid

We met at the bus at 5:30 and set off north for a few miles until we turned into the Shai Hills Park and found ourselves in a lovely unspoiled area of rolling grasslands with a steep stony escarpment in the middle.  We walked into the park and almost at once saw ahead on the road a rollicking family of Gambian  mongooses playing in the early morning light!  The bus caught up with us and  we boarded and, stopping here and there, and saw some nice birds: Senegal Parrot, Blue-bellied Roller, Green Wood Hoopoe.  We also saw a lovely family of Kob, an antelope, the male with long spiraling horns lying almost flat along his back.
The park was particularly lovely to us as there was no litter of plastic bags, the bane of Ghana, which seems to cover every area of habitation we have seen.
We reluctantly left the park and saw a troop of Olive Baboons along with their babies running along the side of the highway!!

Olive Baboon

We returned briefly to the Alexis and then headed into Accra dreading the traffic jams ahead, but for some reason we made good time and emerged into the coastal plain towards the city of Cape Coast.  We stopped in the town of Winneba which has an idyllic stretch of tropical beach with crashing surf and clusters of coconut palms lining the shore.  We birded the lagoon behind the beach and then stopped at a restaurant with a series of outdoor pavilions, in one of which a couple of men were standing on four tables stacked up to the ceiling so they could work on the lighting - talk about Health & Safety!
We were provided with a buffet of fried fish, fried rice and cooked cabbage with papaya for dessert.

Many of the tiny stalls that line the highways, selling everything from concrete blocks, carved wooden bedsteads, ornate iron gates, fruit and sundries have religious names, such as “The Rock of Ages Beauty Salon” and “Jesus Loves You Tire Repair”.  We also passed a bill board warning “Say ‘NO’ to Hell!”

After lunch we drove to the Winneba Plain, a baking hot open area of stony soil covered with scrubby bunch grasses.  There were no livestock or people around and we saw quite a few birds, including the Green Turaco, a large crested bird, olive green but with brilliant red and blue pattern on its wings when it flew.  We spent several hours walking around this area which was exhausting but profitable.  By this time it was past three and we started west, stopping at the Mankessim Pond which in addition to birds contained several men and boys walking and swimming around while throwing nets out.  They seemed to be having a very good time, but I don’t know many fish they were catching!   I was really exhausted by that time and dozed most of the way past Cape Coast until we reached the Rainforest Lodge on the way to Kakum National Park which we will explore tomorrow.

Winneba Beach

Our room has AC, two towels, an enclosed shower and seems quite luxurious compared  to the Alexis.  We both showered and met the others in the dining room for large beers, tomato soup and spaghetti and tomato sauce.  Then to bed!

Note:  Sorry for  the 10 day delay...internet access is really difficult to find and birding from 6 AM - 6 PM makes difficult to find a cafe!

Thu, April 11 - Day One of Birding

We slept surprisingly well considering our exhaustion and time zone changes and both got up at six and joined the others for what seems to be the standard breakfast: two egg omelets, baked beans and toast.  We brought some fancy decaf from Whole Foods which isn’t too bad as the only coffee available is Nescafe and no decaf.

At seven we gathered outside the hotel in the humid heat - even at that early hour,

I hoisted my camera, binoculars, bird guide and pack for the first of many times - I wish I could find a comfortable way to carry all the stuff I need particularly in this heat!  We walked around the scrubby land surrounding the hotel: trash-filled bunch grass, goats, roosters and friendly kids setting off to school.  We saw quite a few beautiful birds including the Broad-billed Roller, about the size of a robin with a chestnut back, lilac breast, thick yellow bill and azure blue under the tail!  Really lovely in the early morning light!

At nine Phil told us we were free until noon, giving us a chance to organize our gear and actually relax!  Very rare on a birding trip, but this is really a bonus day as the tour doesn’t officially begin until this afternoon when our last member arrives.  (8PM note - her plane was cancelled; she doesn’t come in until tomorrow.)

I asked at the front desk and found there is a gizmo that plugs into a computer to connect it to the internet!  It’s called AirTran; I plugged it in and ran two virus checks which passed, but when I had downloaded it and started it up, AVG closed it down!  So…no blog sent!

Our group birding the hotel exterior

At noon we gathered in the dinning room for our lunch.  RR and I ordered vegetable soup which was very good, but very large and when our mains came - Red Red - Ghanian beef stew - very spicy- with a 4 cup molded helping of rice each, we were a little overwhelmed!!  I’m afraid we didn’t do it justice, but no food goes to waste here so I’m sure someone enjoyed it.

We had another break until 2 PM, as it is SO hot at midday in Ghana, and Bob and I both napped, joining the others at the bus at the appointed time.  The Alexis Hotel is located on the north edge of Tema, the main port city of Ghana, so we had to drive about 12 miles through the entire city to get to the coast which took us an hour with the heavy traffic.

We passed some enormous storage containers of cacao beans - turns out Ghana is the world’s largest producer of cacao - and huge 3- and 4- high stacks of shipping containers ready to be loaded onto the caravan of large freighters lined up to get into port.  Apparently this port serves Ghana and the surrounding countries and is a major industry here.  We drove along the coast with surf crashing on one side and the large Sakumono Lagoon on the other.  We pulled off and got out the telescopes and Bob got his target bird, the Western Reef Egret, right off.  It was quite picturesque with men mending fishing nets and women balancing piles of fruit and other foods on their head as they walked along the highway.  We turned inland and drove up the lagoon to a lovely park with tennis courts, swimming pool (empty) and some murals of the famous mud huts with conical roofs from up north.  We walked out on the mud flats and saw swarms of duck and other shore birds.  A large cattle herd of mostly young bulls with large horns suddenly appeared and we moved out of their way although they seemed quite docile.  We returned through grassland and saw Brown Babblers and Senegal Thick-knees, a shore bird, 40 cm high with a thick yellow bill and knobby knees.

We got back to the bus at 5 PM and set off home.  We drove across a bridge with a sign “ Weak Bridge - No Parking”!    We turned inland and hit the Tema Rush Hour!  We came to a large traffic circle and traffic stopped!  We sat there for over an hour as traffic, big trucks, taxis, and sedans jockeyed for space.  Finally our driver just took off circling around honking trucks and made it to the circle.  But it still took quite a while to get to the Alexis - at 7 PM- in the dark….and the hotel was completely dark!

The lights did come on as we pulled up.  Phil told us to meet for dinner at 8 and we hurried upstairs to clean up, but when Bob turned on the bathroom light, the entire room’s electricity went off as well as our friends next door.  I dashed in and with a flashlight, took quick shower as the repairmen appeared.  They managed to change the bathroom light which had made a loud bang while I was trying to rinse off.  Now the bathroom light is permanently ON!

I went down to dinner and got one of the large beers (21 oz) and was soon joined by the others.  Bob and I decided to split a meal and got a dish of chicken curry and fried rice.  After that another dish of veg soup came which, along with all the beer we drank, made us feel quite re-hydrated!  After dinner we did the “List”, a ritual of birding trips in which the leader recites all the birds seen that day and we mark them off on our lists.  As this trip is going to be so busy, I have elected to write the blog during the list as I can always refer to Bob’s list later.

We got dishes of strawberry ice-cream for dessert and then retired to our rooms to pack as we are going to meet for breakfast at 5 AM, ready to go!

Tues-Wed April 9-10 Off to Ghana & Amsterdam

If you've followed this blog at all you will see I just managed to delete my one and only post!   We're in Ghana, traveled here via Amsterdam where we plan to return after 2 weeks here in Ghana- on an intensive birding trip with Phil Gregory of Field Guides.
The internet is Very spotty and I'm trying to grab this opportunity to send out a bit.

 (Note:  May 1 - back home and returned the maps to the blog!)

Tue-Wed, Apr 9-10 Flying to Amsterdam
We packed Maddie off to the Cat House Hotel on Monday afternoon and she settled into her usual Junior Suite.  Tuesday morning we got up at six, ate up most of the leftovers, put the rest in our worm bins, and set off in our rental car at 8:20 AM for LAX.  KNX said the traffic was bad on 101, so we took the coast route, as did many others so we crawled into Santa Monica, and managed to get to the Budget office just before 11.  We were delayed there a bit as the Budget official found a tiny nick in the windshield that I’m sure was there when we picked up the car…so who knows what that will cost??

We got into the line at KLM and wound around very slowly, finally checking in our bags to Accra an hour later.  Bob got through the body scan with his money belt on and didn’t have to strip!

We got on our modified-for-cargo/passengers 747 and got our wonderful Economy Comfort seats: five across with three by the window and two next to a wall which we got. So great with extra leg room and a foot between me and the wall for “stuff”.  Settled in, stretched out, ate some delicious pasta with tomato & olive sauce, watched “Amour”, not the best choice as I sat there weeping into my wine, but then dropped off to sleep for quite a few hours.  Awoke at 7 AM for breakfast and landed in the fog at Schiphol Airport.  This is supposed to be one of the nicest airports in Europe and it certainly is!   Lots of nice restaurants, quiet lounges, a library, and a small branch of the Rijks Museum with about twenty paintings.  With a six hour layover we decided to splurge on a one-day pass in the KLM lounge and so settled into the peace and calm and comfort of great chairs, open bar and deli & internet!

At three we took off in a KLM Airbus A330 (full!) in dense cold fog and flew due south for seven hours.  The sky suddenly cleared over very southern France and northern Spain and I could see Dali’s coastal house that we had visited with Hilary a few years ago. Mallorca passed by looking like a promising place to visit in the future.  We cruised over Algeria and into the Sahara for a couple of hours.  At first everything was quite green in the stream beds, and then the wide washes were full of scattered palm trees.  But finally all greenery petered out and we crossed beautiful sculptured dunes, and later bright pinks ones.  It hazed up and we didn’t see anything until the lights of Accra appeared.  (Bob said his GPS indicated that we circled around Mali).
We disembarked  down a rickety ladder into the warm tropical night and worked our way through the crowds to enter the country and claim our bags.
Surprisingly Phil Gregory, our guide, was there to greet us along with five of our birding companions.  We took off in a nice bus that will be our transportation for the next two weeks and drove for over an hour to the Alexis Hotel in the suburb of Tema.  The rooms are named for fruit rather than being numbered - we’re living in “Melon” which turned out to be a large, A/Ch’d room with peeling paint and only one towel, but with a desk to sit at and a balcony (no lock on the door).  We are going to meet at 6:30 for breakfast and then bird the grounds as we have one more companion to pick up at the airport tomorrow.