Cameroon Birding Tours
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With towering peaks, rolling hills, dry Sahel habitat, and primary forest, Cameroon is awash with some of Africa’s most sought-after single-country and regional endemics. The Cameroon Highlands represent one of Africa’s most endemic-rich areas, and we visit three of these amazing peaks, some of which are active volcanoes. The Cameroon endemic Bannerman’s Turaco, one of the most range-restricted turacos in Africa, can be found in the Bamenda Highlands. The Endangered (IUCN) Banded Wattle-eye is another Cameroon endemic that also lurks here in the Bamenda Highlands. Grey-necked Rockfowl (Red-headed Picathartes), a skulking Central African forest species with only one other member in its family (which inhabits forests on the Bulge of Africa), is endemic to Cameroon and nearby countries. Cameroon is also one of the few places where you can encounter all three species of African trogons. Green Longtail, Mountain Robin-Chat, and various other bird species are largely restricted to Cameroon (and certainly more safely seen in this country than across the border in Nigeria). Quail-plover, Egyptian Plover, Rock Firefinch (which is largely endemic to Nigeria but with some of its range within Cameroon) and Golden Nightjar are tantalizingly currently out of reach in arid northern Cameroon, which we unfortunately don’t consider safe at present (this text was updated on 28 June 2020). More widespread West and Central African bird species such as White-crested Tiger Heron, Brown Twinspot, and a stack of others can also be seen on our birding adventures to Cameroon.
Cameroon is arguably the best country for your equatorial West African birding, as it not only contains the widespread West and Central African bird species but it also has a fine assemblage of country endemics. It thus competes with Gabon, which is more expensive and lacks the country endemics, although it is better-known than Cameroon by general nature enthusiasts (as opposed to more hardcore birders) as a wildlife ecotourism paradise. If you’ve never birded in West Africa before, though, English-speaking Ghana on the bulge of Africa should be seriously considered, as it also contains all the widespread West African bird species as well as its own suite of regional (Upper Guinea Forest) endemics. And the Sahel of Ghana is within safe reach, unlike that of Cameroon (at present, late June 2020).
