News

We are pleased to inform you that a new FREE birding App BIRDS of AFRICA is available to download from both the Google Play Store and Apple Store.  This first version of the App includes all 972 bird species on the checklists of Nigeria, Benin, Togo and Ghana.

The App contains a wealth of detail including photographs, songs and calls, text and maps. It is primarily a field identification guide which includes the capability to record and upload sightings to a central database as well as allowing the user to maintain personal checklists. 

White-headed Robin Chat is an African endangered bird, known only from two sites worldwide: one site is in the Democratic Republic of Congo and the other is near the community of Kinjila in northern Angola. Although the first nest of this special bird was found by Pedro Vaz Pinto and Ian Sinclair in 2005, there was no documentation of the nest. This nest, found by Arnon Dattner, was protected by a group of local birdwatching guides who act to conserve the forests and the birds around the community of Kinjila.

Françoise Dowsett-Lemaire and Robert J. Dowsett have kindly provided 10 ornithological reports for use on this website. These reports are summaries of their travels to Benin and Togo and can be found at Benin/references and Togo/references. You will find a wealth of detail relating to habitats, locations, sightings and checklists. The reports are written in French, and some in English with a French summary.

On the small island of Príncipe in the Gulf of Guinea, a community beekeeping project is empowering communities to obtain honey in a way that doesn't risk their lives. This initiative is already restoring forests and enriching livelihoods.

Traditionally, honey collectors on Príncipe Island extracted honey from wild colonies found in the forest by burning their nests. Not only does this method kill most of the bees and risk starting forest fires, but it is also dangerous for the honey collectors themselves, who must scale tall trees with minimal safety equipment.