Richard had another long day of driving. We broke the five hour, 150-mile trip along the Gold Coast with a stop to look (unsuccessfully) for the West African Crested Tern but were rewarded with distant views of UNESCO World Heritage Elmina Castle. Built by the Portuguese in 1482 as a trading settlement, Elmina became a major stop for the Atlantic slave trade.
We were more successful at our second birding stop somewhere along the road to Ankasa—after miles of driving through rubber tree plantations we completely lost track of where we were. But James knew where a Mangrove Sunbird could be found hiding in the mangroves.
We transferred from Richard’s Toyota to Joseph's battered Ankasa Reserve Land Rover Defender for the muddy six-kilometer drive to the spectacular Ankasa Reserve Guesthouse. It was built and is managed by Ashanti Tours and our only criticism is the wifi works only in the common area. Poor us!
Birding in Ankasa Reserve was a bit disappointing, though. There just didn’t seem to be as many birds as a rainforest reserve should have. The one road was a muddy, rutted, potholed and often flooded mess. Joseph never got out of second gear and sometimes we weren’t sure he could coax the old Landy through the mud. And it rained. It rained every afternoon—tree shaking thunderstorms with heavy downpours. I am glad James insisted we wear rubber boots even though my feet still ache.
We missed several of Connie’s targeted species and it was too dark in the forest for decent photos of some others. On our first night we found a roosting Nikulengu Rail just inside the Reserve gate and an Akun Eagle Owl. During lulls in the rain yesterday we watched nesting Blue-Billed Malimbes at a small pond and hiked though the mud searching for the Rufous-Sided Broadbill.
It wasn’t all mud, though. Some of the forest trails were as fantastic as birding in the dense vegetation was frustrating. There was some climbing, a lot of bushwhacking (and not a little whinging) but we scored photos of a Yellow-Bearded Greenbul, White-Tailed Alethe and an Olive Long-Tailed Cuckoo.
In two full days of birding we saw only about 80 of the Reserves 200 species and added eleven new birds for our Life List. Paul Theroux says that only a fool blames his bad holiday on the weather but we can blame the poor birding on the weather, right?
