In search of the Pacathartes
This was the big day as far as Sarah was concerned, the Yellow-headed Picathartes was the reason she picked Ghana, so today she was really excited about seeing it but also worried. After talking to a few people about how difficult the bird(s) would be to see, one person saw them in almost pitch dark for only seconds, whilst Victor had told us about the smaller back-up cave that when the birds haven’t turned up at the prime sight, he had used that as a fall back for a torchlight view, good news was that he had never failed to catch up with at least one bird. She was also worried about whether the last uphill section was going to be more of a climb than a walk.
However first we had the little matter of our last planned visit to Kakum (more on that later), where we were still missing a large number of birds that we were really hoping for. We arrive early to make the most of our time in the Aboabo / Abrufo areas and go deeper into the forest in search of some some birds we missed last time and at Ankasa, main targets were Hornbills, Chocolate Backed-Kingfisher and the Turaco that Sarah had missed.
First new bird of the morning was
Grey-headed Bristlebill, then it was familiar birds like
Blue-billed Malimbe, Yellow-mantled Weaver, Grey,crowned Negrofinch, Green Pigeon and
Naked Faced Barbet, Chestnut-Capped and Red-bellied paradise flycatcher amongst other species but no sign off Tessman’s flycatcher although from photos and notes we did get a
Cassin’s Flycatcher at Ankasa which I forgot to mention.
It was while watching a tree with the Barbet that we heard the Kingfisher, it was quite distant and in some really thick scrubby growth, so I put the lens cap back on the camera to protect it (you can guess what is about to happen) and then for 10 or 15 minutes we scrambled through the growth some of it really thorny before Victor could feel the bird close, a little bit of playback and suddenly the bird was sitting on what was a bare branch, Sarah was looking at it and Victor was pointing but I couldn’t see it, this just doesn’t happen usually I’m first on the bird with Sarah struggling, anyway after Victor used a laser pen I finally got on the bird
Chocolate-backed Kingfisher exactly matched its title. Having looked at the bird well I went for the record shot, damn it, lens cap on, took it off focused and fired away but all I got were a couple of perfectly focused shots of a bare branch. I need to do better this afternoon I thought if we get the Picathartes in view. Still I didn’t stew on it for long a couple of very large hornbills flew over and we were off back to the main track to get one of the
Black-casqued Hornbills in the scope. This bird and one other then flew in and out of view for the next 15 minutes but at no time did it come totally out into the open, then into the same tree came a
Yellow-billed Turaco and while it was partially obscured Sarah was now happy to tick it off having both a flight view and a look at the head. The rest of the morning was nice without being spectactular with the birds including
Slender-billed Greenbul, Little Grey Greenbul, Little Grey Flycatcher, Forest Wood-hoopoe and
Forest Penduline Tit. It was soon time to head to Bokro via a lunch stop at a strange place called Hollywood (it was fitted out like an Indian Palace) and we tried and enjoyed some of the local food.
It was around 14.30 when we arrived at Bokro and plan was to be at the Picatharthes site before 16.00. When you go up you take a guide from both local villages with you, but only one came with us (Rasta-man) the second joined us at the top. Before going into the forest. The forest round here is good and with a guesthouse now within an hours drive it would certainly be worth getting here for a mornings birding. Top bird apart from the obvious is probably Wattled Golden Cuckoo- Shrike which Victor has only seen here (we didn’t see it) but we did see
Fire-bellied Woodpecker, White-crested Hornbill and Yellow-bearded Greenbul on the way up. It is also meant to be good for Owls although we didn’t stick around to try.
We were there by 15.30 walking slowly with Sarah thinking that we still had the last bit of the climb to do when we arrived, so not too bad at all, although in the rain I’m sure it would be much slippier. It was pretty overcast and humid today but when we sat on the benches the sun suddenly broke through and for a few minutes illuminated one of the two areas where Victor said the birds were likely to appear. Come on out birds we thought, no such luck they were not going to come out early today, after about an hour Rasta-man pointed behind us into the forest – there on the ground was a
Yellow-headed Picathartes but it was terribly obscured by all the vegetation and we couldn’t see the head, Sarah said that’s not countable, then about 15 minutes later one showed briefly to the left of the cliffs, again not acceptable. Despite being just after 5 it was getting really dark and Victor thought it might rain – bad thoughts started to enter my head (Sarah told me later she was convinced that she was going to miss a good view) when out of trees on the left came a superb
Yellow-headed Picathartes a much more apt name IMO than White-necked Rockfowl. Light was not great as you can see from the video clip on Flickr (
https://www.flickr.com/photos/126796979@N05/16539411169/), almost completely dark but with a very high ISO 12800 and long shutter speed, I think I got some reasonable record shots of this bird and another that emerged from the right onto the rocks and the branches near the nest cliff, a third bird also showed up and we enjoyed their antics for half an hour. Victor said it is definitely going to rain so being well satisfied with our views we headed back down to the village. I don’t think we saw a single bird as we drifted back down. We had no sooner got on the bus than the heavens opened and it rained heavily all the way to Kumasi – so our luck had held.
When we got to Kumasi at after 9 – we found the Royal Basin hotel deserted, they had sent the kitchen staff home due to the rain, but they were able to fetch us a couple of beers and we had some cereal bars for dinner. Victor and Appiah went somewhere else to find some food but we were happy. When compiling our most wanted Sarah had the Picathartes as #1, whilst it wasn’t in my top 5 - I thought it was too easy and bit of a tarts tick
(Sarah just punched me when I wrote that) but now it was certainly in my top trip birds too