After a long drive back from Mole yesterday, we started off today (2nd April) at Bobiri Butterfly Sanctuary where in three hours we recorded 52 species HERE with a few new trip ticks. Highlights included Narina Trogon, Red-thighed Sparrowhawk, Cassin's Honeybirds, Fire-bellied Woodpeckers, Sharpe's Apalis and Red-billed Helmetshrikes.
Sadly it was then time to head to the airport. It was about a six hour drive back to Accra with a Fufu and Talapia stop on the way. The last part of the journey switched back to the precarious theme of this trip which was brake failure on our vehicle. We had time to stop once for a repair but within another hour or so they failed again. As it was pretty tight getting to the airport, there wasn't time to stop to fix them this time so we headed into the madness of the Accra traffic with no brakes- one light collision (mirror scraping alongside another vehicle) and three near misses later and we arrived in good time for our flight back. Luckily Kojak's dodgy guts from the day before had cleared up (we had to stop five times on the way back yesterday for 'Bush-visits') as the last couple of hours of the drive had everyone on the edge of their seats. We knew it was bad when the driver actually put his seat belt on for the first time this trip.
A great trip. We recorded 321 bird species TRIP REPORT HERE which was okay considering we didn't visit any wetlands and concentrated on target species. In total I had 15 lifers taking my world list to 3586 HERE but the big news was I have now joined the Ghana 500 club with my Ghana list now on 502 (14th place in Ebird rankings) with 30 Ghana ticks this trip.
It's also looking not too bad on my target to get to 1000 species in a single year (not done that before as never tried) with my year list now on 818 HERE. With trips planned this year to Bulgaria and Southern Africa I'm hoping will hit that target (if the jet fuel doesn't run out before).
On the moth front we made 432 observations with 192 species provisionally identified. I-Nat project HERE. Will do a seperate blog post on some of the highlights. In short it was incredible.
The mammal list was also pretty good and some additional herps too. Will work on them and post seperately too.
Already planning next year's trip to Ghana, with the focus on more moth trapping and target birding. Will just focus on the forest zone next year as there was a bit too much driving this time and on reflection in future will either focus on the Savannah zone or the Rain Forest Zone on future trips instead of trying to cover both.
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