The Ghana cuckooshrike, unseen for 13 years, is photographed in Côte d'Ivoire's Taï National Park

A small orange bird with black-and-yellow wings has been photographed in Côte d'Ivoire's Taï National Park, the first verified record of the Ghana cuckooshrike in 13 years, Mongabay reported. The sighting came in June 2026, during six months of bird surveys across four West African countries. The last confirmed record was in Ghana's Atewa Forest in 2013.

The photo came before the sighting

Stephanie Bartlett, a field research fellow with the International Bird Conservation Partnership (IBCP), got the identifying picture before she had properly seen the bird, while fellow researcher Paulo Ditzel called out its movements. “They're scared of you,” Bartlett said of the birds, which is why cameras often do the identifying. The team saw one bird briefly, saw it once more, and did not find it again the next day.

Saint Guillaume Odoukpe, an ornithologist at Université Félix Houphouët-Boigny, organized and accompanied the expedition in Côte d'Ivoire. “To say they were vital for this project is an understatement,” Ditzel said of the local team.

114 species without a record in a decade

Scientists could not say whether the Ghana cuckooshrike (Lobotos lobatus) was extinct, extremely rare or just hard to spot in the canopy. It is listed by the Search for Lost Birds, a program started in 2021 that tracks species missing from the scientific record for more than 10 years. As of September 2026, 114 of more than 11,000 known bird species fit that description, and about 70 of those have never been photographed.

“You can't really make an effective conservation plan for a species that nobody's seen in 10 years.” — John Mittermeier, American Bird Conservancy, director of the Search for Lost Birds

One bird, in a threatened forest

One photographed bird says little about how many are left. The species is thought to range from Guinea to Ghana, but logging and farming have split its likely habitat into isolated patches, and Taï itself faces artisanal gold mining and illegal hunting. Bartlett and Ditzel plan to return for more fieldwork within the next year. More bird stories are collected under birds.