Wildlife to see in Côte d'Ivoire in December
6 spectacles at their peak in Côte d'Ivoire in December, and 1 more still going on. Wild animals only: no zoos, no wildlife parks, no hunting. Open Côte d'Ivoire in December in the interactive calendar for listening times on the day you pick.
At their peak in December
Habituated chimpanzees and the Taï forest dawnPant-hoot choruses and buttress drumming rolling through primary rainforest, the crashing and screaming of a Diana colobus troop, hornbills' wingbeats over the canopy, cicadas and, at night, tree hyrax and Demidoff's galago.
The Plateau fruit bats of Abidjan — a city-centre roost flying out to the Banco forestA shrieking, squabbling wall of sound from the big trees of the Plateau administrative district, wing-slaps and jostling, then the rush of the evening emergence over the avenues and the lagoon bridges. The return at first light is quieter and more musical — thousands of bats settling and arguing over branches above the empty Sunday streets.
Azagny: manatees, Palearctic waders and the lagoon canalA quiet lagoon soundscape: whimbrel and greenshank calls across the flats, herons and darters from the mangroves, kingfishers along the canal and, if you are lucky, the soft blow of a manatee surfacing at dusk.
Banco forest dawn chorus inside AbidjanA relict rainforest chorus — greenbuls, cuckoos, hornbills and monkeys — with the Abidjan motorway as a constant low bed. Useful as a first morning in the country and as a way of understanding what the forest belt sounded like.
Îles Ehotilé: fruit bats, waterbirds and mangrove lagoonFruit bats chattering on the roost islands and rushing out over the water at dusk, egret colonies bickering as they settle, terns and whimbrel over the flats, and dugout paddles in a mangrove-lined lagoon.
Sea turtles nesting at Grand-BérébyMostly a sight, but the sound is worth having: the heavy breathing and sand-throwing of a leatherback digging, flippers slapping wet sand, and the surf of the Gulf of Guinea behind it.
Also going on in December
Comoé: elephants, hippos and the savanna-forest mosaicHippos bellowing on the Comoé at dusk, elephants at the river pools, lions are not to be expected but spotted hyena whoop; the ground hornbill's booming duet at dawn and the harmattan wind in the gallery forest.
More: Côte d'Ivoire all year · December along the whole flyway