My second day-trip to Nigeria this year (the first gave me a very good morning’s birding in Abuja in July) took me to the huge coastal city of Lagos. One of Africa’s most densely-populated cities with about 8 million inhabitants Lagos is built on several islands in the Lagos Lagoon - which basically means to get anywhere along the coast - which is exactly where I wanted to go - you (along with everybody else) have to use the main bridges that connect the various parts of the city. This is not something you want to try if you’re in a hurry, because like main roads in major cities all over the world they get gridlocked by about 07:00 and progress then becomes a nerve-shredding stop-start weave through some very heavy traffic amongst drivers who - apparently - don’t seem to mind too much if another dink or dent gets added to their battle-scarred vehicles.

Which all goes to explain why I was standing outside the Sheraton Hotel waiting for a driver (sent by birding friend and South African ex-pat Jo Sievers) in the pitch-dark at just 05:00 after a very short night’s sleep after one of the busiest flights we have anywhere in the world (Nigerians love to spend money, and they love duty-free, and they love buying presents for family and colleagues - which means that the entire flight is characterised by a scrum of passengers throwing GB50 pound notes at the crew as we try to find the item they want from a rapidly diminishing selection of watches and perfumes: exhausting after a few hours!) An early start is absolutely essential. Essential it may be, but to be honest, as much as I was looking forward to the birding I was feeling decidedly weary. As I was due to meet Jo and another birder, UK ex-pat Andy Ashford, in an hour or so this was concerning: I feel really bad yawning and staggering through a morning when someone else has gone to the effort to get up early and go birding with me. It’s just not polite is it?

Fortunately for me, neither Jo nor Andy were too bothered about what sort of state I was in. If I thought my ‘the night before’ had been hard it was apparently nothing compared with the night the two blokes mainlining coffee in Jo’s kitchen had just inflicted upon themselves. I’m hope neither Jo nor Andy will mind if I say that they both looked - er, a little worse for wear. Which I have to admit was quite a relief really. Now before anyone accuses me of schadenfreude, can I just say that the relief was much more of the ‘level playing-fields’ sort of feeling than anything else. At least it meant all three of us were not at our best, which may not sound an ideal way to go birding in a place as ornithologically-challenging as West Africa - and in fact isn’t - but my concerns about slowing the other two down evaporated like alcohol on a warm, tropical night (if you get my drift).

I’m detailing all this as I’m setting the scene for the birding that follows. Not that it wasn’t good because it was, but it wasn’t hurried and several (oh, okay, more than several) birds went unidentified that might otherwise have been named. For those of you who wonder whether I spend my days hurtling from country to country, my mind like a spring-trap, my body finely-tuned and honed to identify birds no matter where I pitch up - wonder no more. Most of the time I’m half-asleep to tell the truth, and when you chuck in the fact that West African birds seem to be impossible to identify most of the time this was no “Charlie master-class”. So, Jo and Andy if you’re reading this I’m normally a bit better birder than I was last weekend, and I just wanted you to know that in case I come back and you’re thinking of “being out” or “somewhere else” on the day I arrive…

Okay, I’ve got that off my chest, onto the birds.

From Lagos we headed straight out to the Murtala Muhammed Memorial Botanical Garden about 50km away. I’ve written about the MMMBG before (a little unkindly perhaps, but it’s not like any Botanical Gardens I’ve been to anywhere else). Set in a huge area of savanna, birding here is what birding in the bush would be like if you were birding in a part of the bush where some of the bush were cleared away and a few paths laid down. Excellent and like - er, birding in the bush. Birds range freely across a huge area of savanna, occasionally coming across the clearing that is MMMBG, stopping to have a look around at the paths and the slightly odd circular flower-beds, and then they fly off again. Accordingly you never know quite what might turn up (like the Cassin’s Honeybird that I couldn’t get the other two onto in time), and what might fly over (we were on the lookout for Long-tailed Hawk, incidentally, but didn’t see one - though both Hooded Vultures and Harrier-hawks appeared from somewhere and drifted on somewhere else).

There are of course some regular species here that are difficult to find elsewhere in the savanna - not because they’re rare particularly but because it’s not especially advisable to go wandering off into the bush without a) knowing who owns the land, and b) because wandering off into the bush anywhere isn’t especially advisable (especially if you’re carrying expensive stuff with you, and the locals aren’t).

Anyway, we’d no sooner pulled onto the road down to the MMMBG when we found our first “goodie” of the day - a White-fronted Black Chat sat on a pile of logs. You”ll have to take my word for this as the photos I took in the near-darkness (it was still quite early and the sky was full of threatening thunder- clouds) show little more than an all-dark bird with a white forehead - which is how the bird looks anyway, so I may as well post a poor photo anyway thinking about it…

It’s entirely possible that there better pictures of
White-fronted Black Chat available on the internet…

At least White-fronted Black Chat looks like it should. As I mentioned earlier many of the birds in this part of Africa seem to present some real challenges. For example, have a look at the two weavers in the photo below. Which is Dark-necked Weaver and which is Veillot’s Black Weaver?

Give up? Okay, the almost all-yellow bird with the yellow neck is a female Black-necked Weaver, and the chestnut and black birds are the Viellot’s: yes, the male Black-necked has a black throat but not a black ‘neck’ (and in other parts of the range a dark back) and the Viellot’s here are not the all-dark birds they’re supposed to be, but the distinctive race castaneofuscus which are rather lovely but not illustrated in the guide I use (Ryan and Sinclair’s “Birds of Africa south of the Sahara”). And don’t get me started on the females of the Viellot’s, because they’re yellow and streaky and look as if they’re another species altogether…

Male Black-necked Weaver, Ploceus nigricollis ssp brachypterus

Male Viellot’s Black Weaver Ploceus nigerrimus

This lovely little dove is - of course - a Blue-spotted Wood Dove because it has…well, a few tiny blue-spots on the wings…

Blue-spotted Wood Dove Turtur afer

And what the heck is a Western Nicator called after? If I had a photo of this quite uncommon large, yellow-ish, spotted bulbul-like bird you could perhaps spend a day or two trying to work it out as well, but I haven’t and you’ve better things to do anyway. Suffice to say we saw two, and that the MMMBG is one of the easier places in Nigeria (and other parts of West Africa?) to see the species.

As well as the aforementioned weavers etc it’s also a great place to see other species I rarely see like Speckled Tinkerbird, Orange-cheeked Waxbill, Grey-headed Nigrita, Lizard Buzzard, Little Bulbul, Swamp Palm Bulbul, and both African Pied and Piping Hornbills, as well as getting good views of the almost tame western form of Plain-backed Pipits that are always here.

African Pied Hornbill Tockus fasciatus

Juvenile Little Bulbul

Lizard Buzzard Kaupifalco monogrammicus

Plain-backed Pipit

Not a bad little selection eh? But which of those is the “cracker” referred to in the title of this post? Actually, none of them, as - in a piece of inspired punning worthy of any leading sub-editor, or even Shakespeare himself possibly - that honour goes to the almost eponymously named Back-bellied Seedcracker, a lifer for me and an absolutely gorgeous little finch with crimson and black plumage, a stout grey-blue bill (used to crack seeds obviously), and a narrow white eye-ring which just seems to highlight the startlingly bright colours of the rest of the head. You can see all that in the photo below, but I thought I may as well wax lyrical anyway…

Male Black-bellied Seedcracker Pyrenestes ostrinus - yes, a real cracker…

I must admit I stumbled past this bird (and it’s slightly more toned-down mate) before being shown it by Andy: fortunately his “night before” seemed to have worn off a lot faster than mine, and we got some great views in between the heavy showers that really were piling in by now…What a beautiful little bird though, and one that really helped me forget the tiredness that was beginning to weigh rather heavily…

By now it was getting on for mid-morning and we had to make some sort of decision whether to stay or go somewhere else (we’d already been round the Gardens twice and nipped off in between for a quick search of the neighbouring savanna by car which hadn’t resulted in too much because of the rain). Jo knew of a few decent sites we could visit on the way back to Lagos, and with the chances of both him and Andy seeing anything new at the MMMBG being quite low, I agreed we ought to move on…

Now I hate to finish a post in mid-story like this, but to be very honest I want to get this online now, and maybe finish up later (and - to be even more honest - we didn’t see very much on the way back because I fell into a rather deep sleep in the back of the car and Jo decided to keep going towards the hotel rather than struggle with two drooping birders and the building rain. And who can blame him…)

Before I finish, though, how about two insects and a traveller’s tip similar to the one I issued at the bottom of July’s Abuja trip re wasps?

Male Rhyothemis fenestrina*

The traveller’s tip concerns ants with huge jaws and finger-tips. I hardly need say this folks, but if you’re in Nigeria and see a large ant don’t pose for a photo like this this unless you’re very brave and called Andy, because I’m very, very sure that this thing would HURT if it got you…

Trip List (includes other sites; new for the year underlined):
Black-headed Heron Ardea melanocephala 1; Cattle Egret Bubulcus ibis 30+; Hooded Vulture Necrosyrtes monachus c)10; African Harrier-hawk Polyboroides typus 6-8; Lizard Buzzard Kaupifalco monogrammicus 4-5; Common Kestrel Falco tinnunculus 1; Grey Kestrel Falco ardosiaceus 1; Red-eyed Dove Streptopelia semitorquata c)10; Blue-spotted Wood-dove Turtur afer 10+; African Green Pigeon Treron calvus 1; Diederik Cuckoo Chrysococcyx caprius 1; Senegal Coucal Centropus senegalensis 3-4; African Pygmy Kingfisher Ispidina picta 1; Woodland Kingfisher Halcyon senegalensis 2; Little Bee-eater Merops pusillus 3; African Pied Hornbill Tockus fasciatus 5-6; Piping Hornbill Ceratogymna fistulator 3; Speckled Tinkerbird Pogoniulus scolopaceus 2-3; Yellow-rumped Tinkerbird Pogoniulus bilineatus 1; Cassin’s Honeybird Prodotiscus insignis 1; Ethiopian Swallow Hirundo aethiopica 20+; Plain-backed Pipit Anthus leucophrys 3; Common Bulbul Pycnonotus barbatus 20+; Little Greenbul Prodotiscus insignis 3-4; Swamp Palm Bulbul Thescelocichla leucopleura 10+; Western Nicator Nicator chloris 2; African Thrush Turdus pelios 1; White-fronted Black Chat Myrmecocichla albifrons 1; Tawny-flanked Prinia Prinia subflava 1+; Green-backed Camaroptera Camaroptera brachyura c)10; Brown-throated Wattle-eye Platysteira cyanea 1; Collared Sunbird Anthreptes collaris 4-5; Green-headed Sunbird Nectarinia verticalis 2-3; Olive-bellied Sunbird Cinnyris chloropygia 4-5; Pied Crow Corvus albus 5-6; Splendid Glossy Starling Lamprotornis splendidus 5-6; Northern Grey-headed Sparrow Passer griseus 3; Black-necked Weaver Ploceus nigricollis 5-6; Vieillot’s Black Weaver Ploceus nigerrimus c)20; Village Weaver Ploceus cucullatus 5-6; Blue-billed Malimbe Malimbus nitens 1; Grey-headed Nigrita Nigrita canicapilla 1; Black-bellied Seedcracker Pyrenestes ostrinus 2; Orange-cheeked Waxbill Estrilda melpoda 2; Bronze Mannikin Lonchura cucullata 30+; Black-and-white Mannikin Lonchura bicolor 2; Pin-tailed Whydah Vidua macroura 2

*: Thanks to Steve Covey for the identification of the dragonfly above. See Steve’s photos at

• http://www.wiltshiredragonflies.org.uk
• http://www.wildlife-galleries.co.uk/easyphotostore/index.php