Wildlife to see in Sierra Leone in November
4 spectacles at their peak in Sierra Leone in November, and 2 more still going on. Wild animals only: no zoos, no wildlife parks, no hunting. Open Sierra Leone in November in the interactive calendar for listening times on the day you pick.
At their peak in November
Straw-coloured fruit bats over FreetownThe squabbling, squeaking chorus of a straw-coloured fruit bat roost and the wing-rush of the dusk emergence over a city — one of the great urban wildlife sounds of West Africa, if the colony can be found.
Western Area Peninsula forest — the dawn chorus above FreetownA rainforest dawn chorus 30 minutes from the capital: hornbills, turacos, greenbuls, sooty mangabey whoops, and at night the astonishing screams of tree hyrax and the pant-hoot chorus of Tacugama's 100+ rescued chimpanzees.
Sherbro and the Turtle Islands — terns, waders and turtle beachesTern and wader roosts on white sandbanks between eight Sherbro-speaking fishing islands, surf, and the villages' evening singing; dolphins in the channels.
Sierra Leone River estuary and Yawri Bay — wintering waders on Freetown's doorstepWader and tern roosts on the mudflats of one of West Africa's biggest estuaries, with mangrove crackle, pelicans and the constant boat traffic of Freetown's harbour.
Also going on in November
Tiwai Island — eleven primates and the Moa river dawnOne of the densest primate soundscapes in Africa: Diana monkeys' explosive alarm calls, red colobus chatter, the roar of king colobus, chimps' pant-hoots across the river, hornbills whooshing overhead, and the Moa river's rapids underneath.
Gola Rainforest — picathartes, hornbills and the forest chorusThe Upper Guinea forest at full volume — hornbills, chimps, the bubbling of yellow-bearded greenbul, guineafowl clucking on the trail — and the near-silent arrival of picathartes to their mud nests under a boulder, with only wing-noise and soft croaks.
More: Sierra Leone all year · November along the whole flyway