List of Birds of Burkina Faso

Burkina Faso lies within three bioclimatic zones, the Sahelian, the Sudanian, and the Sudano-Guinean, the first two of which may be further divided into different sectors, each with distinct ecological characteristics. The Sahelian zone occupies the northern 25% of the country, north of about 13°N, and comprises the Sahelian and sub-Sahelian sectors.

Burkina Faso is one of the countries in West Africa with huge birding habitats and improved infrastructure; Ouagadougou Classified Forest Situated near the center of Ouagadougou, this site consists of small patches of scrub and tree savanna, Savana woodland, and small riparian forests. It is currently the focus of considerable efforts by the government to establish it as a recreational nature area. The site is worth a visit for those that only have a short time to spend birding in Burkina Faso as well over 200 species have been recorded in the area.

• Abdim’s stork
• Abyssinian ground hornbill
• Abyssinian roller
• African blue flycatcher
• African collared dove
• African crake
• African cuckoo
• African cuckoo-hawk
• African darter
• African dusky flycatcher
• African finfoot
• African fish-eagle
• African golden oriole
• African gray hornbill
• African gray woodpecker
• African green pigeon
• African harrier-hawk
• African hawk-eagle
• African hobby
• African jacana
• African openbill
• African palm-swift
• African paradise flycatcher
• African pied hornbill
• African pied hornbill
• African pied wagtail
• African pygmy goose
• African pygmy kingfisher
• African scops owl
• African shrike flycatcher
• African silverbill
• African skimmer
• African spoonbill
• African spotted creeper
• African swamphen
• African thrush
• African yellow white-eye
• Allen’s gallinule
• Alpine swift
• Arabian bustard
• Ashy flycatcher
• Banded martin
• Banded snake-eagle
• Bank swallow
• Barbary falcon
• Bar-breasted firefinch
• Barn owl
• Barn swallow
• Bar-tailed godwit
• Bat hawk
• Bateleur
• Bearded barbet
• Beaudouin’s snake-eagle
• Beautiful sunbird
• Black coucal
• Black crake
• Black cuckoo
• Black heron
• Black kite
• Black scimitarbill
• Black scrub robin
• Black stork
• Black tern
• Black-bellied bustard
• Black-bellied firefinch
• Black-bellied plover
• Black-billed wood dove
• Blackcap babbler
• Black-crowned crane
• Black-crowned night heron
• Black-crowned sparrow-lark
• Black-crowned tchagra
• Black-eared wheatear
• Black-faced firefinch
• Black-faced quailfinch
• Black-headed gull
• Black-headed heron
• Black-headed lapwing
• Black-headed paradise flycatcher
• Black-headed weaver
• Black-necked cisticola
• Black-necked weaver
• Black-rumped waxbill
• Black-winged bishop
• Black-winged kite
• Black-winged stilt
• Blue quail
• Blue-bellied roller
• Blue-breasted kingfisher
• Blue-cheeked bee-eater
• Blue-napped mouse-bird
• Blue-spotted wood dove
• Bluethroat
• Booted eagle
• Broad-billed roller
• Bronze mannikin
• Bronze-tailed glossy starling
• Bronze-winged courser
• Brown babbler
• Brown snake-eagle
• Brown-backed woodpecker
• Brown-crowned tchagra
• Brown-necked raven
• Brown-rumped bunting
• Brown-throated wattle-eye
• Brubru
• Bruce’s green pigeon
• Bush petronia
• Cabanis’s bunting
• Cardinal woodpecker
• Caspian tern
• Cattle egret
• Chestnut-backed sparrow-lark
• Chestnut-bellied helmet-shrike
• Chestnut-bellied sandgrouse
• Chestnut-bellied starling
• Chestnut-crowned sparrow-weaver
• Collared pratincole
• Collared sunbird
• Common bulbul
• Common chiffchaff
• Common cuckoo
• Common gonolek
• Common greenshank
• Common house-martin
• Common nightingale
• Common ostrich
• Common pochard
• Common quail
• Common redshank
• Common redstart
• Common ringed plover
• Common rock-thrush
• Common sandpiper
• Common snipe
• Common swift
• Compact weaver
• Copper sunbird
• Coqui francolin
• Cream-colored courser
• Crested lark
• Cricket longtail
• Crimson seed-cracker
• Croaking cisticola
• Curlew sandpiper
• Cut-throat
• Dark-chanting goshawk
• Denham’s bustard
• Desert cisticola
• Desert lark
• Desert wheatear
• Dideric cuckoo
• Double-spurred francolin
• Double-toothed barbet
• Dunlin
• Dwarf bittern
• Eastern olivaceous warbler
• Egyptian goose
• Egyptian nightjar
• Egyptian plover
• Egyptian vulture
• Emin’s shrike
• Ethiopian swallow
• Eurasian blackcap
• Eurasian coot
• Eurasian golden-oriole
• Eurasian hobby

• Eurasian hoopoe
• Eurasian kestrel
• Eurasian marsh-harrier
• Eurasian moorhen
• Eurasian reed warbler
• Eurasian scops owl
• Eurasian spoonbill
• Eurasian turtle dove
• Eurasian wryneck
• European bee-eater
• European honey buzzard
• European pied flycatcher
• European roller
• Familiar chat
• Fan-tailed widowbird
• Fanti sawwing
• Ferruginous pochard
• Fiery-breasted bush-shrike
• Fine-spotted woodpecker
• Flappet lark
• Forbe’s plover
• Forest scrub-robin
• Four-banded sandgrouse
• Fox kestrel
• Freckled nightjar
• Fulvous chatterer
• Fulvous-whistling duck
• Gabar goshawk
• Gambaga flycatcher
• Garden warbler
• Garganey
• Giant kingfisher
• Glossy ibis
• Glossy-backed drongo
• Golden nightjar
• Golden-breasted bunting
• Golden-tailed woodpecker
• Goliath heron
• Gosling’s bunting
• Grasshopper buzzard
• Gray heron
• Gray kestrel
• Gray-headed bush-shrike
• Gray-headed gull
• Gray-headed kingfisher
• Gray-headed oliveback
• Gray-headed sparrow
• Grayish eagle-owl
• Gray-rumped swallow
• Gray-tit flycatcher
• Great bittern
• Great cormorant
• Great egret
• Great gray shrike
• Great reed warbler
• Great snipe
• Great white pelican
• Greater blue-eared glossy-starling
• Greater honeyguide
• Greater painted snipe
• Greater whitethroat
• Great-spotted cuckoo
• Green bee-eater
• Green hylia
• Green sandpiper
• Green woodhoopoe
• Green-backed camaroptera
• Green-headed sunbird
• Green-winged pytilia
• Green-winged teal
• Gull-billed tern
• Hadada ibis
• Hamerkop
• Helmeted guineafowl
• Heuglin’s masked weaver
• Heuglin’s wheatear
• Hooded vulture
• Imperial eagle
• Intermediate egret
• Isabelline wheatear
• Jack snipe
• Johanna’s sunbird
• Kentish plover
• Kittilitz’s plover
• Klaas’s cuckoo
• Knob-billed duck
• Kordofan lark
• Lanner falcon
• Lappet-faced vulture
• Laughing dove
• Lavender waxbill
• Lesser blue-eared glossy-starling
• Lesser honeyguide
• Lesser jacana
• Lesser kestrel
• Lesser moorhen
• Lesser-striped swallow
• Levaillant’s cuckoo
• Little bee-eater
• Little bittern
• Little crake
• Little egret
• Little grebe
• Little ringed plover
• Little stint
• Little swift
• Little tern
• Little weaver
• Lizard buzzard
• Long-crested eagle
• Long-legged buzzard
• Long-tailed cormorant
• Long-tailed glossy-starling
• Long-tailed nightjar
• Long-tailed paradise whydah
• Magpie mannikin
• Malachite kingfisher
• Many-colored bush-shrike
• Marabou stork
• Marsh owl
• Marsh sandpiper
• Martial eagle
• Melodious warbler
• Mocking cliffchat
• Montagu’s harrier
• Mosque swallow
• Mottled spinetail
• Mottled swift
• Mourning collared dove
• Mouse-brown sunbird
• Moustached grass warbler
• Namaqua dove
• Narina trogon
• Narrow-tailed starling
• Neumann’s starling
• Northern anteater-chat
• Northern carmine bee-eater
• Northern crombec
• Northern fiscal
• Northern paradise whydah
• Northern pintail
• Northern puffback
• Northern shoveler
• Northern wheatear
• Northern white-faced owl
• Northern-black flycatcher
• Orange bishop
• Orange-cheeked waxbill
• Oriole warbler
• Osprey
• Ovambo sparrow-hawk
• Pale flycatcher
• Pallid harrier
• Pallid swift
• Palm-nut vulture
• Parasitic weaver
• Pearl-spotted owlet
• Pel’s fishing owl
• Pennant-winged nightjar
• Peregrine falcon
• Piapiac
• Pied avocet
• Pied crow
• Pied cuckoo
• Pied kingfisher
• Pied-winged swallow
• Pink-backed pelican

• Pin-tailed whydah
• Plain martin
• Plain nightjar
• Plain-backed pipit
• Preuss’s swallow
• Purple glossy-starling
• Purple heron
• Pygmy sunbird
• Quail plover
• Quailfinch
• Red-billed firefinch
• Red-billed quelea
• Red-bishop
• Red-cheeked cordon-bleu
• Red-chested cuckoo
• Red-chested flufftail
• Red-chested goshawk
• Red-chested swallow
• Red-eyed dove
• Red-faced cisticola
• Red-faced pytilia
• Red-footed falcon
• Red-headed quelea
• Red-headed weaver
• Red-necked buzzard
• Red-necked falcon
• Red-necked nightjar
• Red-rumped swallow
• Red-shouldered cuckoo-shrike
• Red-thighed sparrow-hawk
• Red-throated bee-eater
• Red-throated pipit
• Red-vented malimbe
• Red-winged prinia
• Red-winged pytilia
• Rock martin
• Rock pigeon
• Rock-loving cisticola
• Rose-ringed parakeet
• Ruddy turnstone
• Ruff
• Rufous cisticola
• Rufous-chested swallow
• Rufous-crowned roller
• Rufous-rumped lark
• Rufous-tailed scrub-robin
• Ruppell’s griffon
• Sacred ibis
• Saddle-billed stork
• Savile’s bustard
• Scarlet-chested sunbird
• Scissor-tailed kite
• Secretary bird
• Sedge warbler
• Senegal batis
• Senegal coucal
• Senegal eremomela
• Senegal parrot
• Senegal thick-knee
• Sennar penduline-tit
• Shikra
• Shinning blue kingfisher
• Shinning drongo
• Short-toed snake-eagle
• Siffling cisticola
• Singing bush-lark
• Singing cisticola
• Small buttonquail
• Snowy-crowned robin-chat
• Speckled pigeon
• Speckle-fronted weaver
• Splendid sunbird
• Spotted eagle-owl
• Spotted flycatcher
• Spotted redshank
• Spotted thick-knee
• Spur-winged goose
• Spur-winged lapwing
• Squacco egret
• Standard-winged nightjar
• Stone partridge
• Striated heron
• Striped kingfisher
• Sub-alpine warbler
• Sudan golden-sparrow
• Sulphur-breasted bush-shrike
• Sun lark
• Swallow-tailed bee-eater
• Swamp flycatcher
• Tawny eagle
• Tawny pipit
• Tawny-flanked prinia
• Temmnick’s courser
• Temmnick’s stint
• Thick-billed cuckoo
• Togo paradise whydah
• Tree pipit
• Verreaux’s eagle-owl
• Vieillot’s barbet
• Village indigobird
• Village weaver
• Vinaceous dove
• Violet turaco
• Violet-backed starling
• Vitelline masked weaver
• Wahlberg’s eagle
• Water thick-knee
• Wattled lapwing
• West African seedeater
• Western bonelli’s warbler
• Western nicator
• Western olivaceous warbler
• Western orphean warbler
• Western plantain-eater
• Western red-billed hornbill
• Western reef heron
• Western square-tailed drongo
• Western violet-backed sunbird
• Western yellow wagtail
• Whimbrel
• Whinchat
• Whiskered tern
• Whistling cisticola
• White helmet shrike
• White stork
• White-backed duck
• White-backed night heron
• White-backed vulture
• White-bellied bustard
• White-billed buffalo-weaver
• White-breasted cuckoo-shrike
• White-crowned robin-chat
• White-faced whistling duck
• White-fronted black chat
• White-fronted plover
• White-headed lapwing
• White-headed vulture
• White-rumped seedeater
• White-rumped swift
• White-shouldered black-tit
• White-throated bee-eater
• White-throated francolin
• White-wagtail
• White-winged tern
• Willow warbler
• Winding cisticola
• Wire-tailed swallow
• Wood sandpiper
• Wood warbler
• Woodchat shrike
• Woodland kingfisher
• Woolly-necked stork
• Yellow penduline tit
• Yellow-bellied eremomela
• Yellow-bellied hyliota
• Yellow-billed ox-pecker
• Yellow-billed shrike
• Yellow-billed stork
• Yellow-breasted apalis
• Yellow-breasted barbet
• Yellow-crowned bishop
• Yellow-fronted canary
• Yellow-mantled widowbird
• Yellow-throated greenbul
• Yellow-throated longclaw
• Zebra waxbill
• Zitting cisticola

Best time for birding in Burkina Faso

The best time to visit Burkina Faso is from late October to December when the searing climate turns down, just a notch, to “very hot”. During these months, post-summer rains, the landscape is refreshed and although harmattan winds bring dust from the Sahara, it keeps the temperatures more manageable and the heat drier.