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| Mother and baby Verraux's Sifaka Lemur |
We got up at 4:30, dressed,and ate some of the breakfast that the kind waiter had delivered last night, and met at the bus at 5:30 as we are going to drive back west to Zombitse National Park that we passed yesterday. As it was so early with little traffic we made it in 75 minutes.
Some local guides were waiting for us and led us into this unique park of 86,000 acres containing unusual birds and animals that appear nowhere else. Some international organization should buy up the surrounding pasture land and let it return to its natural state.
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| Burning grassland with fire-resistant Baobabs |
Our guides were thoroughly familiar with everything in this park and led us to the roost for a White-browed Owl which usually would only be seen at night, but can be much better observed during the day when it’s on its roost.
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| White-browed Owl |
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| Zombitse Sportive Lemur |
They then led us to to a Zombitse Sportive Lemur, a nocturnal medium-sized lemur- as are all Sportive Lemurs - which snuggles into a hollow in a tree to rest before cavorting around in the trees at night. We ended up seeing three individuals crammed into tree hollows.
There were several birds species here that we would not see elsewhere; our guides managed to locate and guide a few individuals towards us.
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| Torotoroka Scops Owl |
We saw the Giant Coua, a lovely bird with a blue and red eye patch who ran back and forth across the trail.
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| Giant Coua |
Earlier we saw Coquerel’s Coua, a smaller bird with a plain blue eye patch, thus we have seen all ten species of Couas in Madagascar, and in the world!
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| Oustalet's Chameleon |
We walked along a trail and spotted a Verreaux’s Sifaka, a large diurnal lemur with thick white fur, black face and chestnut patch on the shoulders. She had a very young baby on her back, but still
managed a bounding leap to another tree. We later saw a tree festooned with Verreaux’s, hanging on branches, munching on leaves, and leaping from tree to tree!
It was an amazing morning, and we settled into a pretty picnic area to eat the chicken and rice dishes Fano had arranged to be delivered. I had just opened my container and started eating the delicious curry rice, when a cry went out that Appert’s Tetraka had been located. This was the last specialty bird of the area left to see, so we immediately set off - a short ways, I hoped - but we raced on for almost 0.4 mile - and a nice young lady guide stepped forward and pointed out the tiny bird on the ground which I actually didn’t have too much troubled finding in my binoculars: a pretty, little chunky bird, and very rare.
We returned and finished our lunch and loaded onto the bus for the trip back to our lovely hotel. We passed sapphire excavation sites with crowds of people digging in hope of striking it rich, and then over a river where people were washing their diggings and panning for finds, and then past the sapphire dealers with their fancy cars.
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| Relais de la Reine pool |
We got back at 2:30 and were told we could visit Isalo National Park across the highway from our hotel at 4:30, if we wanted to. It’s not a birding site but famous for great stone formations. We relaxed a bit and then walked over to the parking lot at 4:26...no one there! Somehow Bob and I both heard 4:30 when David must have said 4:15, as the bus had left!! Too bad as we both really wanted to see the park for an hour or so. So we walked to the back of the hotel and along a small river to a marshy area backed by quite spectacular rock cliffs. And Bob saw a Madagascar Pond Heron, a new bird for him and for the group - so not a total loss!
We went to the bar at six, joined David, and ordered Cuba Libres. Nancy and Dave joined us and we went to dinner for another inventive meal of warm camembert cheese, followed by Parrot fish and “Queen” cake, a frozen whipped cake confection. Tomorrow we have a long drive of 8 hours back to the rain forest.
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| Hotel bar floral decoration |
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