Researchers Document Ghana Cuckooshrike in Taï Forest After 13-Year Gap

TAÏ NATIONAL PARK, Côte d'Ivoire - On a wooden footbridge inside one of West Africa's last large blocks of primary rainforest, field researchers Stephanie Bartlett and Paulo Ditzel of the International Bird Conservation Partnership photographed and filmed a Ghana cuckooshrike in June 2026, the first documented record of the species in 13 years, according to Search for Lost Birds and an account published by the partnership.

The bird, Lobotos lobatus, also known as the Western Wattled Cuckooshrike, is listed as Vulnerable by the IUCN Red List. It lives in the canopy of Upper Guinea lowland forest from Sierra Leone and Guinea through Liberia and Côte d'Ivoire to Ghana. The last verified photographs were taken in 2013 at Atewa Forest in Ghana. Search for Lost Birds, a partnership of the American Bird Conservancy, Re:wild and BirdLife International, had listed the species among birds lacking confirmed documentation for a decade or more.

Bartlett and Ditzel were near the end of a six-month West African survey when they reached an ecological research station in Taï National Park on the afternoon of 19 June 2026, Mongabay reported, citing the researchers. Minutes into a walk, as they crossed a small bridge, movement in the canopy resolved into the bird's yellow, orange and black plumage. "Cuckooshrike, cuckooshrike, cuckooshrike!" Bartlett called, according to Search for Lost Birds. She made a series of photographs and a short video before the bird vanished, documentation the partnership described as the first confirmed record since 2013 and likely the first video of the species.

John Mittermeier, director of Search for Lost Birds at the American Bird Conservancy, told Mongabay the team had captured "probably the best photos ever taken of this bird." The cuckooshrike was moving with a mixed-species flock that included chestnut-capped flycatchers and a white-breasted nigrita, Mongabay reported. It later reappeared long enough to seize a caterpillar, then disappeared again. A 15-kilometer hike the next day did not yield another sighting.

Taï National Park anchors what remains of the Upper Guinea rainforest in southwestern Côte d'Ivoire. Logging and agriculture have fragmented that forest across the region, and even inside the park, rangers contend with artisanal gold mining and illegal hunting, Mongabay and the IBCP account said. Yendoubouam Kourdjouak, IBCP's West Africa project manager and a member of the expedition, told Mongabay the rediscovery shows the bird is not extinct and is "a positive sign for local biodiversity and offers hope for conservation efforts within Taï National Park."

The June find closed a regional chapter for Search for Lost Birds. After the rediscovery of the rusty lark in Chad in February 2026 and the Togo yellow-billed barbet in January 2022, the partnership said all of the birds then listed as lost in West Africa had been found. Nico Arcilla, IBCP's president and research director, told Mongabay the Ghana cuckooshrike remains "very, very threatened" with its forests, yet "it's there for the finding" and "it can still be saved."

Saint Guillaume Odoukpe, an ornithologist at Université Félix Houphouët-Boigny who organized the Ivorian leg of the expedition, told Mongabay that Taï is "a treasure for biodiversity conservation in Côte d'Ivoire and indeed throughout West Africa" and that "there is plenty more to discover in this forest." Bartlett and Ditzel have said they plan further fieldwork in the region. One verified bird on a bridge does not rewrite the species' Vulnerable status. It does show that careful surveys in protected Upper Guinea forest can still return a canopy specialist that science had gone more than a decade without documenting.