After a five-mile walk in the Bobiri Butterfly Sanctuary where we saw few butterflies and even fewer birds—only Tessman’s Flycatcher was new, we continued on to the tiny town of New Tafo on Thursday where we spent two nights. There are two hotels in town, both owned by the same folks, and James booked us into the newer one. At first glance it was gorgeous with a shower that rivals anything we saw in Japan. After further review, it had no internet and the beds, while spacious, were basically plywood covered with a thin piece of foam. So we transferred to the old place, not nearly as nice and the internet was terrible but the beds are soft and the air-con sometimes works.
This is the part of the trip we have been both looking forward to and dreading. As far as the birding goes, the tiny bit of primary forest in Atewa holds many of Connie’s target species. A good day here will make the trip worthwhile—sort of our Birding Black Friday. The part I, at least, have been dreading is the five-mile uphill trek to the forest—an elevation gain of 500 meters. And that was before I realized that I had a stomach bug. After all our time in developing countries we should know better than to eat the salad! With few exceptions, though the quantities are huge, the food has been pretty blah and a salad with tuna sounded wonderful.
Not only is the Atewa forest endangered, no one seems to care. Illegal gold mining takes place right out in the open; James is sure more than a few ceti change hands—wink, wink. Adding insult to injury, the miners—some with mining pans, others carrying pumps or gas cans for fuel—and all wearing oversized gum boots passed us like we were standing still. I guess it seemed that way to them, too.
The farther we went the worse I felt and birding was the last thing on my mind. I finally told Connie and James to go on for a bit while I laid down. Even the downhill walk was killing me and after four miles James took pity and called Richard who arranged for a moto-cart driver to pick us up. It’s up for grabs whether it was a good idea—the ride was so bouncy all three of us got bruised and battered. At least it took my mind off the stomach cramps.
I stayed at the hotel this morning while Connie and James went out at six AM for that one last bird. In fact I didn’t get out of bed until after ten. Showering and packing took whatever energy I had left and I slept most of the way back to the airport at Accra.
The trip totals in thirteen days of birding, according to what Connie and James posted on e-Bird are 350 total species, 79 “LIfers.” Richard drove over a thousand miles and we walked another 75. I took hundreds of photos, maybe 500 that made the archives. The old Sigma 600 mm zoom lens finally bit the dust and Connie took the last photo of the last new bird, Puvel's Illadopsis, using our weenie 300 mm lens.
