Birding Weekly 20140420

White-crowned Robin-chat (Cossypha albicapilla) searching
the leaf litter for food

After a week of birding the suburbs of Cotonou, I eventually headed up north to Burkina Faso and spent a few days there before making my way down to Korhogo in Côte d'Ivoire. The birding was great, spending time within the Sahel-savanna ecosystem to finishing on the transitioning zone between Rain Forest and Savanna. The birding was 100 times better than the 

streets of Cotonou.

Birding around on a small farm South of Ouagadougou I was able to find a wide variety of interesting birds. I had been to this place before and so had a good idea what I would find. Being in the dry season now it did show a slight change in bird patterns, no weavers in breeding plumage. However nothing new stood out. Speckle-fronted weaver (Sporopipes frontalis), African Silverbill (Euodice cantan), Lavender Waxbill (Estrilda caerulescens), Black-rumped Waxbill (Estrilda troglodytes), Orange-cheeked Waxbills (Estrilda melpoda) and Red-cheeked Cordonblue (Uraeginthus bengalus), the dryer climates being ideal for small seed eaters.

Speckle-fronted weaver (Sporopipes frontalis): A species that enjoys the more arid regions in West Africa although occurs across to Ethiopia. A pleasant little bird to look out for, further South in West Africa this species is absent and so one needs to head north to find them. They construct grassy nest a bit smaller than the Chestnut-backed Sparrow-weaver (Plocepasser donaldson) which I saw more of last year at the same place than I did on this trip. 

White-crowned Robin-chat (Cossypha albicapilla): This species has an interesting distribution across West Africa. I have only been able to find it at a friends house in Korhogo, yet I am sure it occurs elsewhere. Its range skims the Rain Forest edge of West Africa as it transitions into forest yet is found in forest patches or dense woodland.

Other species: Beautiful Sunbird (Cinnyris pulchellus)

Long-tailed starling (Lamprotornis mevesii)

Green Sandpiper (Tringa ochropus)

White-billed Buffalo-weaver (Bubalornis albirostris)

Yellow-fronted Canary (Serinus flaviventris)