Ghana Day 10: Offinso - Mole NP

Early this morning we found ourselves at Offinso Forest, which turned out to be a very good couple of hours birding before the long trek north to Mole National Park. It was very busy with lots of bird activity and we began with displaying Pin-tailed Whydahs, African Grey Woodpecker and Whistling Cisticola perched and in the scope before leaving the parking area. The habitat here is much drier than we’d been used to, with more open forest and secondary growth, subsequently there was a much different suite of birds here. A pair of African Hobbies sat in a large tree looked rather nice through the scopes, whilst a reasonably showy Puvel’s Illadopsis was seen by everyone this time. We followed a wide track further into the forest seeing African Pygmy Kingfisher, Orange-cheeked Waxbill, African Firefinch, Broad-billed Roller, a pair of Black-and-white Flycatchers, Klaas’s Cuckoo and Pied Flycatcher, as well as more commoner species. Then as we rounded a corner an African Civet was walking along in front of us. Unfortunately it had an injured leg and that’s why we had such good views but it was a beautiful animal to watch for a few minutes before it slipped away into the grassland.

African Civet

At 10am we turned around and headed back to the coach and boy was it hot with the sun beating down on us from a cloudless blue sky. Yet we weren’t finished as we heard the skulky Capuchin Babbler call nearby and after a bit of manoeuvring some of us had a reasonable view. Once they had disappeared we carried on walking with only a Blue-bellied Roller of note before reaching the sanctuary of our air-conditioned coach.

It was a long, tedious drive as we travelled north towards Mole National Park, but also interesting to see how the habitat changes from the wetter forest to more open, bush country the further north we drove. And there were some good birds seen along the road including Black-headed Heron, Bruce’s Green-Pigeon, Abyssinian Roller, Lizard Buzzard, Dark Chanting Goshawk, Grasshopper Buzzard and Long-tailed Glossy Starling to name a few. 

Grasshopper Buzzard

At a marshy area we found Yellow-crowned Bishop, Black Crake, flocks of Red-billed Quelea and some cracking African Pygmy Geese. And it was just getting dark as we reached our lodge so we’ll have to wait until the morning to see what the view is like.