Wildlife to see in Guinea-Bissau in December

4 spectacles at their peak in Guinea-Bissau in December, and 1 more still going on. Wild animals only: no zoos, no wildlife parks, no hunting. Open Guinea-Bissau in December in the interactive calendar for listening times on the day you pick.

At their peak in December

• Bijagós intertidal flats — the flyway's second great wader wintering groundGuinea-Bissau · Wintering waterfowl · peak 1 Nov–28 FebWhimbrel and godwit flocks calling over enormous intertidal flats with no engine noise for kilometres, tern roosts on the sandbanks, mangrove crackle at low tide, and the islands' own forest and village sounds behind.
• Cacheu mangroves — West Africa's largest continuous mangrove blockGuinea-Bissau · Wintering waterfowl · peak 15 Nov–28 FebThe full mangrove soundscape — fiddler crabs, mudskippers, snapping shrimp under water, herons and kingfishers above — in channels wide enough that no village sound reaches, with crowned cranes on the rice edges.
• Cufada lagoons — wintering ducks and the heron roostGuinea-Bissau · Wintering waterfowl · peak 1 Dec–28 FebWhistling ducks and garganey over the largest freshwater lagoons in the country, fish eagles, and a mixed heron and egret roost that fills the lakeside trees at dusk.
• Saltwater hippos of OrangoGuinea-Bissau · Nocturnal · peak 1 Dec–30 AprHippo grunts and blows from a lagoon inside island forest, then the same animals walking past the village beach at night and surfacing in the sea in the morning — the world's only regularly marine hippos.

Also going on in December

• Chimpanzee dawn chorus in the Cantanhez forestsGuinea-Bissau · Dawn chorus & song · peak 1 Jan–15 AprChimpanzee pant-hoot choruses and drumming carrying through the northernmost primary forest in Africa, colobus roars, hornbills' wingbeats and grey parrots' screeching over the oil-palm villages of the Nalu people.

More: Guinea-Bissau all year · December along the whole flyway