Top Banner Photo: Widespread Forester
Winged Wonders of Ghana
with Dean and Sally Jue
YouTube recording of this presentation: https://youtu.be/xjytxbKsUqk
The West African country of Ghana is a nature lover’s delight. With a stable government, peaceful society, and amazing biodiversity, it is a popular destination for birders. Ghana also harbors some of the most beautiful butterflies in the world. After a friend shared his spectacular photographs of Ghanaian butterflies with us, we decided to visit the country ourselves! It was three years before we could go, but in April 2022 we flew to Accra (the capital) and spent 20 days birding and butterfly watching with our excellent guide and driver from Ashanti African Tours. Our program will introduce you to a sample of the fabulous creatures that inhabit the rainforests of southern Ghana.
African Emerald Cuckoo
Bamboo Charaxes
Dean and Sally Jue
Dean and Sally Jue have watched birds together ever since they met 49 years ago as Zoology graduate students at the University of Michigan. After moving to Tallahassee in 1987, they became active in Apalachee Audubon and the Florida Ornithological Society (FOS), serving as officers and committee members of both. In 2002, while attending an FOS meeting in Corkscrew Swamp Sanctuary, their friends Linda and Buck Cooper introduced them to butterfly watching. Since then, Dean and Sally have spent as much time as possible photographing and studying butterflies where ever they go. After retiring in 2016 from FSU’s Institute of Science and Public Affairs and the Florida Natural Areas Inventory, they have enjoyed traveling to faraway places. Still avid birders, on these foreign trips Dean and Sally strive to experience as much biodiversity of the new country as possible. This past year took them in December to the Amazon rainforest of Peru and in April to the African country of Ghana.
