Hotspots

Few birdwatchers have been to Guinea and as a result, many areas of the country are under recorded. With a list of around 600 species in a country of similar size to Britain, birding can be done anywhere. The Important Bird Areas mentioned in Section 3 would be good places to visit but many of these do not have lists and have not been visited by ornithologists in recent years. Any section of the coast would almost certainly be worth watching including coastal sites around the capital, Conakry.

A visit to the town of Dalaba by Mary Crickmore in February 2004, for which the trip report is referenced in the visiting section, produced an interesting species list in the vicinity of the hotel. This included the following Palearctic migrants: European Bee-eater Merops apiaster, Common House Martin Delichon urbicum, Tree Pipit Anthus trivialis, Common Nightingale Luscinia megarhynchos, Willow Warbler Phylloscopus trochilus and Pied Flycatcher Ficedula hypoleuca.

Of more interest, perhaps, for European birders were Stone Partridge Ptilopachus petrosus, Vieillot’s Barbet Lybius vieilloti, Golden-tailed Woodpecker Campethera abingoni, Fanti Saw-wing Psalidoprocne obscura, Red-shouldered Cuckoo-Shrike Campephaga phoenicea, Snowy-crowned Robin-Chat Cossypha niveicapilla; Turati’s Boubou Laniarius turatii, Heuglin’s Masked Weaver Ploceus heuglini and Lavender Waxbill Estrilda caerulescens.