West African forest bird unseen since 2013 photographed in Côte d'Ivoire
Two researchers from the International Bird Conservation Partnership (IBCP) photographed the Ghana cuckooshrike (Lobotos lobatus), a canopy bird of West Africa's rainforest with no record since 2013, in Taï National Park in June. IBCP has shared its photos with us. The find was announced in the summer; it is not a studied population, but proof the bird is still there.
Stephanie Bartlett was crossing a small bridge in Taï National Park, in south-western Côte d’Ivoire, when she spotted the bird high in the canopy. “Cuckooshrike, cuckooshrike, cuckooshrike!” she shouted, according to Search for Lost Birds. Her photos and short video clip are the first documented record of the Ghana cuckooshrike (Lobotos lobatus) in 13 years.
The sighting happened in June 2026 and was announced in the summer. Until then, the last evidence was a photo taken in 2013 in Ghana’s Atewa Forest. The species was on the list of Search for Lost Birds, which tracks birds with no record for at least a decade.
A bird of the treetops
The Ghana cuckooshrike lives only in West Africa’s lowland rainforest, from Sierra Leone and Guinea to Côte d’Ivoire and Ghana, and almost always in the canopy, which makes it very hard to see. The IUCN Red List classes it as Vulnerable.
Bartlett and Paulo Ditzel, researchers with the International Bird Conservation Partnership (IBCP), spent six months travelling through four countries in the region to scout places for future research and to work with local scientists and communities. In Côte d’Ivoire the expedition was organised and accompanied by Saint Guillaume Odoukpe, an ornithologist at Université Félix Houphouët-Boigny, Mongabay reports.
Another of the photos of the Ghana cuckooshrike in Taï. Photo: Stephanie Bartlett / IBCP.
“It can still be saved”
“This rediscovery proves that the bird is not extinct,” Yendoubouam Kourdjouak, IBCP’s West Africa project manager, told Mongabay. With this find, according to Search for Lost Birds, every bird listed as lost in West Africa has now been found again.
The caveat lies in the forest itself: logging and farming have broken the Upper Guinean rainforest into fragments, and inside Taï rangers are up against artisanal gold mining and illegal hunting. “It’s there for the finding. It’s there for the discovery, and it can still be saved,” said Nico Arcilla, IBCP’s president.
The team in Taï National Park. In front, Paulo Ditzel and Stephanie Bartlett; behind, from left, Saint Guillaume Odoukpe, Yendoubouam Kourdjouak, Evariste and Lin-Ernni Kaboumba. Photo: Paulo Ditzel / IBCP.
