Wildlife spectacles in Cabo Verde
4 spectacles through the year, ordered by when they peak. Open Cabo Verde in the interactive calendar for the map and listening times.
Gongon — Cape Verde petrels calling at night over the Fogo caldera and the Santo Antão plateauxSteeply descending moans, one to two seconds long, a third ending in a rising squeak, wing-whistles with Doppler shifts and occasional claps as birds beat along the caldera walls 500 m above you. Up to 20 calls a minute at the best São Nicolau pinnacles. Not loud — but one of the rarest night sounds in the Atlantic, with crickets, distant dogs and the volcano's silence under it.
Humpback whales breeding in Sal Rei bay, Boa VistaThe only place on the flyway to put a hydrophone on singing North Atlantic humpbacks: long structured songs that carry kilometres through the bay, plus the slap and crack of breaches and pectoral slaps on calm mornings. Above water it is wind, surf and the outboard.
Raso and Branco — Cape Verde shearwater islets and the Raso larkA Macaronesian petrel night in the tropics: thousands of Cape Verde shearwaters wailing and cackling as they come in off the sea, the rush of wings down the canyons close overhead, geckos chirping into the small hours, tropicbird screams by day. No people, no engines, no lights.
Loggerhead turtles nesting on Boa Vista, Sal and MaioMostly a visual and tactile night: the rasp and thump of a 100 kg female digging, sand flung against her shell, the long sighing breaths as she lays, then the surf. Hatchling nights add a faint rustle as a hundred animals break the surface together. The beaches are dark, empty and wind-blown.