I’m in Ghana for a month, staying at the Library of Africa and the African Diaspora, and each day my dawn chorus is unfamiliar: the sounds of cocks, chickens, goats, dogs, crickets, motorcycles and human cries intermingle to make up the early morning sounds of Accra. Birdsong too; one particular bird starts its day before dawn and it sounds like it’s asking itself a question then answering itself, impatiently.
Through the gauze of a mosquito screen, I look down on to a small canopy of cassava plants that are vibrantly green, in a garden with maize, chillies, yams and plantain. Butterflies abound. I hear a bird with a falling cadence like a tree pipit, sparrow-like chirrups, and a cluck resembling a blackbird alarm call, but they’re each not quite the birds I know.
