Tours
Ghana - 14 Day Tour
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Operator: Ashanti African Tours
Location: Ghana
Duration: 14 days
Anytime of the year
Description:
With over 755 species of birds, Ghana is an ideal birdwatching destination. Ashanti African Tours use highly experienced tour leaders and guides with expert knowledge of Ghana’s birds and their habitats. Our tour leaders have been working and living in and around Ghana’s national parks for over 30 years studying and recording Ghana’s birds. This local knowledge enhances our guest’s chances of a productive and enjoyable birdwatching tour. Ghana covers a variety of habitats from coastal wetland lagoons and saltpans on the Gold Coast, moving inland we find primary Guinea tropical rainforest where the world famous Kakum canopy walkway is found. We arrange early opening of the walkway for a number of mornings during our tours. One of the many highlights of our tour is undoubtedly the visit to a yellow headed picathartes nesting site, getting a glimpse of this remarkable bird is an amazing feeling never forgotten. As we venture inland, we pass through broad leaved Guinea woodland and moving northwards we find sahelian savannah plains. A birdwatching tour of Ghana therefore gives you a thorough coverage of these core West African habitats. These varied habitats make for an extremely impressive quality bird tally, a tally we know will not disappoint!
Why we think you should book with us:
We are a British company (registration number 5548447) based in Ghana and employ Ghana's 3 finest local guides on a full time basis, when they are not leading tours they are in the field researching new areas as we continually aim to improve our itineraries. We visit the Yellow Headed Picathartes nesting site during all our tours, our record of 405 species (390 seen) in 15 days speaks for itself.
Special Target Species:
Itinerary:
Detailed Itinerary Day 1 Our experienced birdwatching tour guides will meet with you on your arrival at the Kotoka International Airport Accra, which is situated on the beautiful gold coast of Western Africa. Look out for the Ashanti African Tours sign board when you leave the main terminal building after passing through customs. Make yourself known to your guides who will be accompanying you for the duration of your time in Ghana and they will take care of you from here. After boarding our air conditioned vehicle, which will be your mode of transport for the duration of your tour, we transfer you to your hotel which is situated in Accra. Once we have checked you in, our experienced guides will offer you Akwaaba (welcome) and brief you on all aspects of your trip. You can enjoy your evening meal at the hotel restaurant whilst acclimatising yourself to Africa. D Day 2 Our first full day with you in Ghana, and an early start to what should be a wonderful 14 day birdwatching tour. Before we head west towards Kakum we visit the nearby Sukumona Lagoon which is only 10 minutes from our hotel. We aim to find black, green backed and grey herons, long tailed cormorant, garganey, black winged stilt, collared pratincole, African spoonbill, ruddy turnstone, black tern, Senegal thicknee and ruff to mention just a few. After some good birding we head west leaving the busy city of Accra behind. Our destination is Cape Coast where we find the amazing Kakum National Park. En route, we will be stopping at a grassland reserve and lagoon. Today, we hope to find siffling, croaking and short winged cisticola, copper sunbird, flappet lark, red winged prinia, yellow shouldered widowbird, black necked weaver, yellow crowned gonolek, orange cheeked waxbill, moustached grass-warbler, displaying black winged bishops, black crowned tchagra and plain backed pipit . Around the lagoon, we aim to see squacco and purple herons, purple swamphen spur-winged lapwing, African pygmy-goose, western reef egrets, yellow bishop, preuss’s, swallows and many more species before our arrival at Hans Cottage, our base for the next 3 nights whilst we visit Kakum National Park. Our hotel is a very comfortable establishment built over a lake, which contains Nile crocodiles and is teeming with birdlife including vieillot, village and orange weavers, night heron, striated heron, African pygmy, pied, giant, woodland and malachite kingfishers. We retire to our air-conditioned rooms after discussing the day’s sightings over dinner. B, L, D Day 3-4 Early start as we head for early opening of the world famous canopy walkway at Kakum National Park. Over the next two early mornings, we will be spending the most critical bird viewing hours 40 meters above the forest floor on the canopy walkway, which platforms are large enough to support Telescopes. The 607 km² Kakum National Park protects critically endangered primary guinea tropical rainforest and the species we hope to see from the canopy includes green hylia, violet backed hyliota, yellow bellied crombec, little grey flycatcher, grey headed, white breasted and chestnut breasted negrofinch, grey longbill, white headed and forest woodhoopee, West African batis, western bluebills, blue cuckoo shrike, chestnut bellied helmetshrike, large billed puffback, sharpes apalis, rufous-crowned eremomela, brown cheeked, black and white casqued, piping, yellow casqued and black dwarf hornbill, beautiful preuss’s golden-backed weaver, red headed and red vented malimbes, rosy bee eater, yellow spotted and hairy breasted barbet, red fronted, brown necked, and grey parrots, velvet mantled drongos. The raptors we aim to see include red necked buzzard, palm nut vulture, African cuckoo hawk, congo serpent eagle, cassins hawk-eagle to mention just a few. During the heat of mid afternoon, we have the option of birding around the forest of our hotel, resting around the hotel pool and bar or you could choose to go on a cultural excursion to Cape Coast visiting Cape Coast and Elmina castles. We visit the Antikwaa section of Kakum National Park for late afternoon and early evening birding hoping to see little, rosy and black bee-eater’s, blue throated roller, piping and white crested hornbills, red and yellow rumped tinkerbird’s, kemps and grey longbill’s, ussher’s and fraser’s forest flycatchers and if we are lucky white-spotted flufftail. Our evenings will be spent at Han's restaurant and bar discussing the day’s sightings, adding to our checklist and enjoying the atmosphere of our surroundings. B, L, D In the afternoon we trek deeper into the rainforest searching for the more secretive species, returning to the canopy walkway in the early evening hoping to find brown nightjar, black casqued and brown cheeked hornbills and if we are lucky congo serpent eagle. We return to our hotel in the evening to relax in preparation for the following day. B, L, D Day 6 Our final day at Kakum and an early start, we head towards Aboabo on the north east boarder of the park. We arrive before first light and hope to find brown, plain and long tailed nightjars on the road leading up to the camp. We will spend all morning trying to add any species we may have missed previously. After lunch we set off for a remote village in the Ashanti region of Ghana for what should be the highlight of our birdwatching tour. On our arrival we trek into the forest our destination is a nesting site for yellow headed picathartes. There are around 30 nests at this location and catching a glimpse of this remarkable bird is an amazing feeling, we transfer to Kumasi, check into our hotel and reflect on a wonderful day’s birdwatching. B, L, D Day 7 We leave Kumasi early after breakfast heading north towards Mole National Park. We can expect to see different bird species en route as we gradually enter the Sahelian Savannah plains of northern Ghana. On our arrival at Mole National Park, we check into the Mole hotel, which is the only accommodation in the area. Situated on a 250 metre high escarpment over looking this 4840km² park, it offers breathtaking views. It is an amazing feeling to be sitting around the pool on the hotel terrace watching African savannah elephants bathing in the two nearby watering holes which are inhabited by crocodiles. After our evening meal, we shall set off for an evening of birding around the Mole Airstrip where we hope to see displaying standard winged and freckled nightjars, the airstrip is also productive for owls. B, L, D Day 8-9-10 We awake early and move to the hotel terrace, which is an excellent spot to set up our Telescopes and watch the dawn activity where we hope to see chestnut-crowned sparrow weaver, lavender and orange cheeked waxbill, red throated bee eater, grey woodpecker, red billed and bared breasted firefinch, Senegal batis, stone partridge, beautiful and pygmy sunbirds, abyssinian ground-hornbill. The watering hole attracts Senegal thick knee and greater painted snipe, saddle billed and wolly necked storks and hadada ibis. Raptors are common in Mole and we hope to add to our list white headed, hooded, and white backed vulture, African hawk eagle, Ayres’s hawk eagle, bateleur, short toed and brown snake eagle, lizzard buzzard, African hobby, lannar falcon and several species of harrier. We will take guided walks into the woodland that surrounds the waterhole in the cooler early morning and late afternoons. We will expect to encounter bruces green pigeon, purple and long tailed glossy starlings, white shouldered black tit, Senegal eremomela, oriole warbler, violet turaco, golden tailed and grey woodpecker, blackcap and brown babbler, snowy crowned robin chat, yellow breasted apalis, spotted creeper, northern puffback, rufus cisticola, swamp and lead coloured flycatchers and yellow fronted tinkerbird. During the heat of the afternoon, we have the option of a cultural excursion to nearby Larabanga and the 14th century mud and stick mosque or birding around the hotel grounds. Alternatively we could relax on the terrace around the pool. In the afternoon and early evenings we will search for the amazing Pel’s fishing owl. B, L, D Day 11 After a hearty breakfast, we set off for Kumasi retracing our journey of a few days earlier. En route we will stop for lunch and to stretch our legs before we set off on our final leg to Kumasi, we hope to spot some different species during our journey. If time permits on our arrival in Kumasi we will visit the Owabi reservoir for early evening birding before transferring to our hotel to relax and enjoy our evening meal. B, L, D Day 12 We wake early to visit Bobiri Forest Reserve which is actually a butterfly sanctuary. Upon our arrival, we will search this lush forest for swamp palm greenbul, bronze naped pigeon, red chested cuckoos, green headed sunbirds, red billed dwarf and white crested hornbills, white headed, woodhoopee, brown illadopsis, western nicator and some of the many raptors present include, cassins hawk eagle, red thighed sparrowhawks, African cuckoo hawk, long tailed hawk to mention just a few. After breakfast we set off for Atewa, we arrive in the afternoon, enjoy our lunch before we set off for afternoon birding, after which we will transfer to our hotel for our evening meal and to relax. B, L, D Day 13 An early start this morning as we return to the Atewa Range, this is the only site in Ghana where we can see the blue headed bee eater. Other specialities include the endangered rufous-winged illadopsis, narina trogon, great blue turaco, dusky crested and olivaceous flycatchers. We will set off for Accra after lunch and revisit the Sakumona lagoon on our arrival. Once we arrive at the lagoon, we search for African spoonbill, white fronted plover, black headed heron, western reef egret, yellow throated longclaw, several species of kingfisher and African quailfinch. After a wonderful days birding, we check into our hotel to relax. B, L, D Day 14 Sadly our final day with you in Ghana, the day starts early as we visit the nearby Shai Hills reserve, an expanse of Savannah, grassland and woodland. The bird viewing here is excellent and we hope to find grey hornbill, African hobby, violet and green turacos, mocking cliff chat, Senegal parrot, croaking cisticola, white crowned robin chat and many more species. Depending on your flight departure time, we will visit a nearby local restaurant to relax and enjoy an early evening meal before your departure and flight home after an unforgettable 14 day birdwatching tour of Ghana. B, L, D
Day 5
Another early start this morning, we will be concentrating our attention on the many trails within and surrounding the park, which should prove to be very productive. We can aim to find fire crested alethe, common and grey headed bristlebills, collared and olive bellied sunbirds, blue headed wood dove, red rumped tinkerbird, black dwarf and red billed dwarf hornbills, black headed paradise flycatcher, finches flycatcher, blue shouldered robin chat, olive long tailed cuckoo, pale breasted illadopsis, forest robin, red chested goshawk, yellow billed and guinea turacoś, long tailed hawk, fire bellied and gabon woodpeckers, black throated coucal, western black headed oriole, African finfoot and if we are lucky we may spot congo serpent eagle, African pitta, forest francolin forest scrub robin and spotted honeyguide.