We assembled in the dining area for a snack of crackers, cheese and bananas at 6 AM, and took off back to Parc Mosa, and their beautiful Baobabs. We were on a mission to see a few birds unique to this area and so walked at quite a clip through soft sand, not easy for me to keep up!
The Long-tailed Ground-Roller is only found in this area. It doesn’t respond to taped calls, so the only way to locate it is by following its tracks in the sand! The young men who work as guides in this preserve know how to track it and were soon circling around and finally flushed it into an area right in front of us so we all got good views.
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| Long-tailed Ground-roller |
By this time it was getting quite hot and David decided that we (and he) needed some time off. We returned to our hotel and sat on the terrace for breakfast. We then had time off until 3:30, although we did gather for lunch at 1 PM.
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| Madagascar Bee-eater |
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| Pied Crow |
I wanted to walk down the beach, but unfortunately there was a large crowd of locals selling wooden carvings and Lamba Hoany, colorful ~4’x4’ of cloth used as sarongs, baby carriers, shawls, etc. I would have liked to buy some but as soon as you show interest, a noisy crowd surrounds one with everyone competing to sell you something. It is very disconcerting and unfortunate. If the goods could be displayed on a table so one could inspect them it would be great, and more profitable for the sellers.
Anyway we rested and loaded back on our bus at 3:30. We drove a few miles south past salt water marshes with flocks of flamingos to a fresh water area called Belalanda where we managed to call out Baillon’s Crake, a shy, very pretty bird that peeks out of rushes, gray with a russet back.
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| Coastal Village |
It was getting dark so we returned to the Dunes, showered, had rum and cokes and a good dinner of Teriyaki shrimp and a fish cake on a bed of spinach- excellent!
Tomorrow we leave here for a boat trip with our luggage to an island and then to our new hotel.
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