Wildlife to see in Nigeria in February
9 spectacles at their peak in Nigeria in February, and 1 more still going on. Wild animals only: no zoos, no wildlife parks, no hunting. Open Nigeria in February in the interactive calendar for listening times on the day you pick.
At their peak in February
The Afi Mountain barn swallow roostA rising hiss of millions of wings and contact calls as the swallows swirl and drop into the grass on the mountain's western slopes, falcons stooping through the flock, and then the extraordinary, very quiet murmur of a settled roost after dark.
Gashaka Gumti: chimpanzees and the Kwano forestPant-hoot choruses and drumming from the Kwano forest — the Nigeria-Cameroon chimpanzee's main study population — putty-nosed monkeys' pyow calls, hornbills over the Gamgam river and a night of tree hyrax and nightjars.
Hadejia-Nguru wetlands: Sahelian floodplain waterfowlWhistling-duck choruses overhead at dusk, the massed wing-noise of garganey and pintail flushing off a pool, ruff flocks, ibis and herons in the flooded acacia and the Sahel wind in typha and doum palms.
Kainji Lake: hippos and savanna nights on the Oli riverHippo choruses on the Oli river pools at dusk, hyena and nightjars around the camp, baboon barks, and the wide Guinea-savanna dawn of francolins, hornbills and doves.
Obudu Plateau and Becheve: montane forest song of the Cameroon highlandsA cool, high-altitude chorus at 1,600 m — montane greenbuls, robin-chats and babblers from the forest patches, weavers on the edges — with cattle bells on the grassland and, on clear mornings, almost nothing else.
Okomu: the white-throated monkey's forest and a 43-metre tree house at dawnA lowland forest dawn from above the canopy: hornbills whooshing past at eye level, the chatter and 'pyow' alarm of white-throated and putty-nosed monkeys, mangabey whoops, grey parrots screaming to the fig trees, cicadas rising with the light; at night from the stilt chalets, tree hyrax, owls and, with luck, the crash of elephants in the swamp forest.
Omo Forest: forest elephants and a lowland-forest dawnA lowland rainforest dawn an hour and a half from Lagos — hornbills, turacos, chattering mangabeys — and at night the breaking branches, rumbles and occasional trumpet of elephants moving past the camp.
Yankari: elephants on the Gaji river and Wikki nightsElephants at the Gaji river pools, baboon troops around Wikki camp, a savanna dawn of francolins, doves and hornbills, and at night the warm-spring valley's bats, nightjars and owls.
Lekki Conservation Centre: mona monkeys and swamp-forest birds in LagosMona monkeys' calls and crashes in the swamp forest, weavers and kingfishers along the boardwalk, and the Lekki–Epe expressway as a constant bed. A place to test rigs and get a first Nigerian forest recording, not a wilderness.
Also going on in February
Amurum Forest and the Jos Plateau: rock-fig dawn and wet-season songA plateau soundscape at 1,200 m: rock firefinches and indigobirds among the boulders, sunbirds in the gallery forest, cisticolas over the grassland, with Jos's mosques and traffic far below on still mornings.