Mon, Aug 26 - Birding Amber Mountain

We met for breakfast at 6 AM: pineapple, papaya, and yogurt for me and fried eggs, broiled tomatoes and cheese for RRZ.   We set off towards the park at 6:45 and, after the rough half hour drive, set off on a trail to a waterfall.   Angelum, our local guide, has amazing eyes and spotted almost invisible

Madagascar Blue Pigeon

chameleons. It started to rain lightly as we climbed up a hillside, trying not to stumble on rocks and roots or slip on the wet mud.

A female Sanford’s Brown Lemur sat on a branch and, as we watched her, she climbed down and watched us!  The mammals we’re seeing aren’t tame but don’t flee as they would elsewhere.  I think hunting is not that common and habitat loss accounts for most small numbers of each species.  The light rain continued off and on all morning, and with the constant winds and thick foliage on the high trees, we were pretty wet!  

As we were approaching the vans, Bob said he spotted a red squirrel, which made David shout out: “Ring-tailed Mongoose”!! 

There was a lovely very red fox-like mammal with a large stripped tail!  It sauntered around before disappearing.  A new mammal for all of us, even David!

We returned at 11 for beer, of course, and all ordered hamburgers from the kids’s menu which were quite good.  We had a break until 3:30 as we’ll be out after dark looking for nocturnal species.  The hotel computer was so weak that I couldn’t even open my mail so blogging was impossible.

We loaded into our 4-wheel drive vehicles in partial sun and took off once again over the rutted road into the park and turned off onto a new branch that took us up to a high point of the park overlooking a crater lake.   There was a viewing stand with a lovely vista all the way to Diego Suarez and the ocean and of a beautiful aqua-colored water-filled caldera blow us.

As it grew dark, we slowly drove down stopping at spots where Angelum managed to find wonderful chameleons, lemurs, sleeping butterflies!

Leaf-tailed Gecko

  He couldn’t get us onto a Mouse Lemur, but we saw wonderful critters all the same!

We returned at 8 PM for dinner, expecting to get up early tomorrow to catch the 9:30 flight back to Tana, but Fano said that our flight had been moved to 4:30 PM instead!  Not sure how this will affect our plans, but we’ll see.  We all had fish with leek sauce and a bottle of South African Cabernet.