Pity Poor Richard. He was behind the wheel for eleven hours on Sunday and he will have to drive us more than 500 KM back on Wednesday. But for now he is ferrying us around Mole National Park, Ghana’s largest. No more humid rain forest, Mole is mostly dry, hot woodland savannah. Elephants and antelope, not birds, are the main attraction—we have seen a dozen or so of the park’s 700 pachyderms already, some from the Mole Safari Lodge restaurant which overlooks a couple of water holes. And some from much nearer.
Even though Richard is driving us around, we’re required to have an armed Park Ranger with us. Seidu is a nice guy and we feel safe especially since his ever-present rifle isn’t loaded. Unlike in parks with predators, here in Mole we can walk around in the bush. On our first walks we thought that James, who has a phobia about flies, would die from apoplexy when we climbed out of the Toyota into a swarm of tsetse flies. As annoying as they were they didn’t bite us. Maybe it was our Tesco roll-on insect repellent. The park rangers have been setting controlled burns to get rid of the old vegetation and encourage the growth of new grass. It’s great for the animals but hell on khaki cargo pants. I am sure the soot will wash out—eventually.
It is much easier to see the birds in the open savannah than in the forest but to be honest, there aren’t that many birds if you discount the colorful sunbirds, We have seen over one hundred species here—eight of Connie’s targets—but generally the birding has been slow. Some of the target species that we saw are Exclamatory Paradise Whydah and its cousin, the Togo Paradise Whydah, the Greater Painted Snipe, Brown-rumped Bunting, Emin’s Shrike and Force’s Plover. We have added the other photos just because we like them.
