Hi all, somehow I ended up in Lagos, Nigeria early in March this year. As usual, when visiting a new country or city I did some research about the potential for birding. Lagos is not the safest city in the world, so the thought of rummaging the streets with an expensive camera and binoculars was not much appealing. However; some conservancy effort is even going on in Lagos and I managed to find a place called Lekki Conservation Center. I managed to schedule a few trips to this little fenced off and secure oasis. This is what I discovered:

Day 1: March 3, Lekki Conservation Center

We arrived at the conservation center way to late. We had an early morning start (06:00), but still only managed to be there just before (09:00). The traffic was actually light for Lagos, but the lack of any kind of street signs did not help our efforts in locating the place. Anyway, once entering the gate, the noise of Lagos was soon forgotten. This place is actually an oasis consisting of a forest, plenty of water and a savanna section. Most of it is accessed on a wooden walk way. Once entering the forest and not being familiar with the bird sounds it became very frustrating. The first bird I spotted was a White-throated Bee-eater (picture lifer for me), closely followed by some Red-eyed Doves. We walked towards a junction and choose the left path. This turned out to be a mistake, since the path was heavily  overgrown and it was hard to actually follow the path. At one point I flashed a Nightjar without having the slightest clue what species it was. After quite some time, we finally managed to enter the Savanna section. I did not manage to spot a single bird in the forest although I heard bird song all the way :-(. Once in the Savanna section, it started to get a little easier. The first bird on the scene was a Common Bulbul. There were 3 Yellow-billed Kites playing low over the Savanna section. The next bird I managed to get in the lens was a Black-necked Weaver and then a pair of Vieillot´s Weavers. A little bit further we came into Bee-eater territory. Plenty of White-fronted and Little Bee-eaters. The Kites were nicely perched and I spotted 2 thick-knees that turned out to be Senegal Thick-knee. I also got fleeting glimpses of a Yellow-billed Turaco scampering around in a tree, but unfortunately no pictures. A Tawny-flanked Prinia entertained us for a while before we entered the forest again. We soon came back to the junction and choose the opposite path this time. We quickly came to a gigantic tree that had steps leading up it´s enormous trunk. We climbed to the first level and from there and up there was a ladder to a little hut on top. I climbed to the very top and was at the level of the foliage. I had a female Carmelite Sunbird right in front of me. Then a Village Weaver and an unidentified Kingfisher. I also had a Falcon doing a fly-bye and a few Village Weavers. My friend was waiting at the first level, so I did not stay up there too long. Once back down, we had to move on in order to avoid the traffic. On the way back to the car, I heard some babbling noises in a tree and discovered several Swamp Palm Bulbuls. I failed to mention that the temperature in the forest and especially on the Savanna section was a little to high for a Norwegian coming straight from the cold northern weather, so when we arrived at the car there were not a single dry spot to find on my clothing.

Pictures of some of the birds we saw on day 1