World Trip Reports
Ghana 12/08
Earlier in 2008, I was debating where might be a partner-friendly trip which would involve some good birding, some restricted-range species, good beaches and even (gasp) a civilised hotel with a pool 
.
Initial thoughts included Mauritius/Reunion, the Seychelles and Guadeloupe/Martinique, but then my eye was caught by the possibility of Ghana.
Ghana is at the eastern end of the Upper Guinea forest block, with its associated list of endemics as well as a long list of forest goodies. Couple this with some interesting mammals, a safe and stable infrastructure and some beautiful unspoiled coastline and you have a potential winner. I'm new to African forest birding so there were plenty of wanted species.
Although the north of the country has some exciting birding (Pel's Fishing-Owl, Egyptian Plover) I wanted to concentrate on forest birds. I contacted Ashanti African tours who I cannot recommend enough and between us, we put together an itinerary which would incorporate 10 days birding followed by a week on the coast for relaxation (although birding cold turkey proved difficult for me to resist breaking!)
Ashanti organised all ground arrangements for me - you can find them at http://www.ashantiafricantours.com/ Mark was incredibly helpful and listened carefully to what I wanted to get out of the trip. The trip went incredibly smoothly and accommodation etc was exactly as we wanted. My partner is interested in birds, but not obsessive but still had a great time.
We flew London-Casablanca-Accra with Royal Air Maroc for about £480 each return. The flights were ok although 3 of the 4 legs were delayed and the airline lost any mention of my vegetarian requests. However, other routes are mostly longer - ours took around 3 hours to Casablanca then just over another 4 to Accra. You do, however, land at 3 in the morning...
Forest birding in Africa is notoriously difficult. I spent weeks before leaving trying to learn as many calls and songs as possible, concentrating on potential new birds and those more skulking species. There are good field guides covering the region - I took Borrow/Demey 'Birds of Western Africa' and Sinclair/Ryan 'Birds of Africa South of the Sahara'. An iPod was used where necessary for tape-luring.
Ghana is relatively poorly-known ornithologically and so both guides do contain some indiscrepancies with respect to ranges. No doubt with increased interest, far more will be learnt about distributions in the area.
I struggled to find much of use on the internet other than Kakum National Park, scene of the famous canopy walkway.
We left London on 4/12 on a 17.40 flight (delayed 30 mins). This would have caused serious anxiety if the Casablanca time hadn't been rescheduled by an hour a week earlier - originally we only had 55 mins on the ground before the second flight!
Both flights went smoothly apart from the losing of our (confirmed) food requests. We had been told we were going to stop at Cotonou in Benin before arriving in Accra. There was therefore widespread confusion when we landed at Accra 2 hours earlier than scheduled, with no stop-off. This is the first time I have ever had to confirm with the crew if we needed to get off the plane or not - slightly embarrassing to say the least. Our luggage did made it safely, despite the short change-over time in Morocco, and we were soon through customs into the Ghanaian night.
Mark and his team met us outside the airport, and we were soon on our way west.
The first thing that struck us both was the number of political posters everywhere. We soon realised that we had landed in the middle of the national elections and talk of party progress on both sides was to dominate our time in Ghana. I don't think I have ever seen a more relaxed and inclusive approach to an election - even when we got stuck in the middle of rallies, everyone was happy to see us. In Britain, our elections are not characterised by quite so much dancing (rolling of arms = 'we are changing' = opposition; egyptian-like jabbing of closed hands = 'we are moving forward' = current govt).
Once we had found our way out of the maze of streets in Accra, we drove to the Winneba Plains, an area of mixed grassland and scattered trees for first light. Here we got our first birding...