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Senegal Coucal Centropus senegalensis
Abuja, Nigeria. July 2008
Coucals are large members of the cuckoo family, with eleven representatives in Africa. The Senegal Coucal Centropus senegalensis ranges right across Africa from the Gambia to northern Sudan, with a separate population spread over a wide area of southern Africa. It’s a bird of grassy habitats with trees, such [...]

Ethiopian Swallow Hirundo aethiopica
Abuja, Nigeria. July 2008

The Ethiopian Swallow is widespread and common in a wide variety of open habitats across much of Africa (from Senegal to Somalia). Obviously closely-related to other Hirundo swallows, it generally resembles (and behaves) much like a Barn Swallow and in flight at a distance appears similar: close views though [...]

Oriole Warbler Hypergerus atriceps
Abuja, Nigeria. July 2008

A West African endemic Oriole Warblers breed from southern Senegal to Cameroon and north Zaire (Benin; Burkina Faso; Cameroon; Central African Republic; Chad; Congo, The Democratic Republic of the; Côte d’Ivoire; Gambia; Ghana; Guinea; Guinea-Bissau; Liberia; Mali; Niger; Nigeria; Senegal; Sierra Leone; Togo http://www.iucnredlist.org/search/details.php/52393/all). The Oriole Warbler Hypergerus atriceps [...]

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 [...]

A friend of mine, Jo Sievers, has just sent me two photos of an unusual Cattle Egret which he took near Lagos, Nigeria the day after I’d been there birding with him (more about which soon). Taken along a coastal road east of Lagos, the photos show what looks very like a Cattle Egret Bubulcus [...]

Pale Flycatcher Bradornis pallidus
Abuja, Nigeria. July 2008

The Pale Flycatcher (once also known as Mouse-coloured Flycatcher) is a widespread and locally common bird found from West to South Africa in many moist wooded habitats. A typical Bradornis the Pale Flycatcher can appear somewhat chat-like and often feeds by hunting from an open perch and dropping to [...]

Pretty well, thanks for asking (and, yes, that is the best line I can come up with after just thirty minutes sleep and six hours wandering around a park in Nigeria, sorry).

I have to say I was really looking forward to this trip. My Year List has been idling rather than surging ahead (Graham has [...]

Lagos, Nigeria
29 September 2006

The entrance to the Lagos Botanic Gardens…

A very interesting morning spent with ex-pat Jo Sievers in the (rather odd, it has to be said) Lagos Botanic Gardens - a ramshackle, vanity project hacked out of the bush some 100km east of Lagos in memory of Murtala Muhammed and now slowly and inevitably [...]

Protecting roosting swallows in West Africa: Pierfrancesco Micheloni and Ebbaken-Boje
 

 
Anyone who keeps a blog will spend a great deal of time online - sometimes just messing about “researching” (comparing your writing with other bloggers, wondering how you can present your photos a little better, joining Yahoo groups), and sometimes reading as many websites as [...]

Abuja, Nigeria
15 August 2006
 
A historical note (which may - or may not - be of interest):
I imagine anyone with a radio, tv, or with internet access will know of the ‘alleged’ bomb threat that has ground the UK’s major airports to a standstill this past week, and I guess anyone reading this might expect me [...]

African Thrush Turdus pelios
Abuja, Nigeria. 15 August 2006

The African Thrush Turdus pelios is a highly variable and taxonomically contentious species found right across central Africa, with perhaps future splits in the offing. Nigerian birds are extremely plain: Clement and Hathaway (in Thrushes Helm, 2000) recognise six races, and the one in central Nigeria would appear [...]

The White-browed Forest-flycatcher Fraseria cinerascens is a locally common West and Central African endemic (found in Angola, Benin, Cameroon, Central African Republic, Republic of the Congo, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Ivory Coast, Equatorial Guinea, Gabon, Ghana, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Liberia, Nigeria, Senegal, and Sierra Leone). It’s a species of dense undergrowth, found in the forest [...]

 
Lekki Conservation Center, Lagos, Nigeria
18 June 2005.

Lagos is the largest city in Nigeria and, with its population of 13.4 million (2000), one of the largest in Africa (second only to Cairo, Egypt) - the population is expected to reach 24 million people by 2020, which would make it the third largest city in the world. [...]

Cattle Egret Bubulcus ibis
Lagos, Nigeria. December 2004
 
The Cattle Egret Bubulcus ibis is a very widepsread species found from southern Europe (increasingly it looks like it may be well on its way to permanently colonising Britain) to Japan, throughout most of Africa, is increasingly rapidly thoughout Canada and the US (from its initial foray into the [...]

Abuja, Nigeria
11 December 2004.
 
At about 1200′ above sea-level, Abuja officially replaced Lagos as the capital of Nigeria in December 1991 after 15 years of planning and construction.
The city is located in a scenic valley of rolling grasslands in a relatively [sic] undeveloped, ethnically neutral area. Thus, planners hoped to create a national city [...]

Lagos, Nigeria
29 February 2004.
 
Lagos is the largest city in Nigeria and, with its population of 13.4 million (2000), one of the largest in Africa (second only to Cairo, Egypt) - the population is expected to reach 24 million people by 2020, which would make it the third largest city in the world. Lagos was the [...]