Mandena

In Malagasy Mandena means the place where you get wet. This morning we visited Mandena and we did. Very. I had high hopes of seeing the lovely red-collared brown lemur and dared even to hope we might see a southern grey bamboo lemur or a southern avahi (neither of which is probably a valid species). We saw none. We heard barely a bird and we were soaked.

On these sandy soils around Fort Dauphin a unique and beautiful low-nutrient rainforest grows, beautiful even under a downpour. In the edge of a marsh here, where scant nutrients may be obtained from soil or water, we saw, looping through the surrounding vegetation, the sci-fi vines of Nepenthes madagascariensis, a carnivorous pitcher plant.

Mandena: the place where you get wet.

Holiday snaps

Ring-tailed lemur, mother and infant, Berenty

Ring-tailed lemur having a scratch

A marsh tit's nest in Berenty, behind an endemic triangle palm Dypsis decaryi

Big wings

29th October

New in a rough sea off Tolagnaro today

	Mammals
103	humpback whale	Megaptera novaeangliae
	Birds
953	wedge-tailed shearwater	Puffinus pacificus
	Madagascar kelp gull	Larus dominicanus melisandae

2012 Totals

Mammals: 103

Birds: 953

Reptiles: 53

Amphibians: 15

Fish: 11

The king of flying creatures

28^th October

In Madagascar the tale is told that in the first days of the world a great fire threatened to consume all creation. God told the flying creatures that whoever put out the fire would forever be king among them. Having great leathery wings the flying fox succeeded in putting out the blaze and thus in saving the world. The drongo however, being canny and fast of flight, smothered himself in soot and reached God first. He told Him that he had put out the blaze and that the soot on his plumage was proof of his deed. God was pleased and made the drongo, who to this day is blackened with soot, king of the flying creatures.

Some time later the flying fox arrived and told God that he had put out the blaze. God turned him away saying that it was the drongo who had saved the world and had therefore been honoured as king. The flying fox was hurt to have been cheated and resolved no longer to show respect to God. From now onwards he would hang upside down in the trees and show God his bum.

New today in Berenty

	Mammals
102	Madagascar flying fox	Pteropus rufus
	Birds
952	Madagascar sandgrouse	Pterocles personatus
	peregrine	Falco peregrinus radama
	Reptiles
50		Tracheloptychus madagascariensis
51		Trachylepis gravenhorstii
52	spider tortoise	Pyxis arachnoides
53	bark gecko	Blaesodactylus sakalava

2012 Totals

Mammals: 102

Birds: 952

Reptiles: 53

Amphibians: 15

Fish: 11

Berenty

27^th October

As I write tonight a white-footed sportive lemur bounds down the tin roof of my cabin and disappears into the night giving his breathy call. A Torotoroka scops owl hoots, softly, rhythmically, nearby. Today we reached Berenty.

The road was very bad – worse even than last year – and the journey long; but this place has an alchemy of its own and it’s impossible for anyone – clients and tour leaders alike – to arrive here and not forget in five minutes the early start, the incompetence of Air Madagascar, and the coccyx-crunching state of disrepair of Route Nationale 13.

For as soon as you step from your minibus in Berenty you are greeted by ring-tailed lemurs strutting across the red soil of the car park. In the edge of the forest are families of hybrid brown lemurs with little youngsters (these are the gene-jumbled descendents of red-fronted brown and red-collared brown lemurs, neither of which belongs here but which were misguidedly released in the past). A family of Verreaux’s sifakas speeds through the trees and all thoughts of discomfort or of long journeys are forgotten.

This evening we walked in the gallery forest. Almost as soon as we entered it my torch’s beam fell on the bright eyes of a sedate sportive lemur, the first of several we saw. Less sedate were four grey mouse lemurs which pinged through the understorey at speed. Spiny-backed chameleons dozed, white-browed owls sang – wrrroh! – and we felt privileged to have reached this last island of wild habitat in a sisal sea.

New today in Berenty and on our journey here

	Mammals
100	white-footed sportive lemur	Lepilemur leucopus
101	grey mouse lemur	Microcebus murinus
	Birds
950	giant coua	Coua gigas
951	Torotoroka scops owl	Otus madagascariensis
	Reptiles
47	Madagascar lined snake	Bibilava lateralis
48	changeable day gecko	Phelsuma mutabilis
49		Lygodactylus tuberosus

2012 Totals

Mammals: 101

Birds: 951

Reptiles: 49

Amphibians: 15

Fish: 11

Toliara

26^th October

Today, having come by boat from Anakao, we wait for five hours in Tulear. Nothing for it: on a whim Air Madagascar rescheduled our morning flight for the evening. It is hot but we are in the shade. My clients are drinking beer and in the hotel garden’s palms is another new species of Phelsuma day gecko. Life could be worse.

New today in Toliara

	Reptiles
46		Phelsuma leiogaster

2012 Totals

Mammals: 99

Birds: 949

Reptiles: 46

Amphibians: 15

Fish: 11

Vorona

25^th October

I wonder whether the littoral rock thrush is so called because it lives by the sea or because it has no grasp of irony. Either way it is a lovely bird and Anakao is a lovely place. To sea is Nosy Ve, a small coral island, eight metres above sea level at its highest point and dotted with Euphorbia bushes. Under these are nesting red-tailed tropicbirds, some of them adults in rosy breeding colours, in the pink so to speak. Others are chicks in various states of downiness. This is the only place in Madagascar where they are known to breed and against the hot blue sky they are celestial.

On a tinier island still, no more than a sandbar, are a dozen crab plovers and a huddle of terns. Most are greater crested, which I last saw in Sri Lanka in March. With them are a few lesser crested, new to my list, and some roseates, new too since I missed them this summer in Norfolk. They bring the tern species I’ve seen this year to eighteen.

In the gilded light of evening we stroll through the spiny dunes. Subdesert brush warblers tick loudly all around and buttonquail scurry past. A spiny-backed chameleon treads deliberately across our path and pressed flat against the railings of Claude’s cabin is a short-headed day gecko. This is one of the least flashy of the Phelsuma geckos – the others we’ve seen have all been psychedelically colourful – but it’s very restricted in range and not often seen. We’re happy to add it to my group’s list and to mine.

Tomorrow to Tulear by boat and to Tana by plane. Thence, the day after, to Berenty in the island’s south east. White-footed sportive lemur and giant coua here I come.

New today around Anakao and Nosy Ve

	Birds
943	white-fronted plover	Charadrius marginatus
944	littoral rock thrush	Monticola imerinus
945	red-tailed tropicbird	Phaethon rubricaudus
946	crab plover	Dromas ardeola
947	lesser crested tern	Sterna bengalensis
948	roseate tern	Sterna dougallii
949	subdesert brush warbler	Nesillas lantzii
	Reptiles
45	short-headed day gecko	Phelsuma breviceps

2012 Totals

Mammals: 99

Birds: 949

Reptiles: 45

Amphibians: 15

Fish: 11

Voronjaza sy toloranto

24^th October

As I write, on a sun-seared sand dune in south Madagascar, a female magpie robin, a bee-eater and a crested drongo visit me. This has been a morning of birds. At dawn we were trudging through sand in the Reniala spiny forest reserve, past Adansonia rubrostipa baobabs, the chipping of common newtonias in our ears.  Among them a different song – short, rising, cheerful – from a newtonia with a reddish throat and breast. This was Archbold’s newtonia, one of the specialities of the spiny forest we had come to see.

A subdesert mesite clung to an Alluaudia octopus tree, hoping, despite the bright morning light and her own intricately beautiful plumage, that by freezing she would remain unseen (maybe not the best defence strategy against a group of birdwatchers). Our grail though was a subtle yet startling long-tailed ground-roller, gently walked to a spiny clearing by the forest’s spotters; this disturbance to the bird’s routine a price well worth paying for the preservation of a too-rare patch of its dusty habitat. Without tourists paying to see these birds the forest, as everywhere around the reserve, would already have been lost.

A Lafresnaye’s vanga chimed, five sickle-billed vangas mewed, and at the reserve’s gates a scarce Antimena chameleon trundled through a bush. We padded home, through the sand and the mounting heat, content.

At lunchtime today my vertebrate list stands at a satisfying 1111 species. Ninety-nine of these have been mammals. What will be the hundredth? My money is on white-footed sportive lemur in Berenty, though I can’t rule out a humpback whale offshore today or a lesser hedgehog tenrec in the spiny forest tonight (either would be most welcome). For almost ten months we’ve been at this list, you kindly reading and a marsh tit watching vertebrates and recording them here. It’s been a rich and happy experience and I’m looking forward to that hundredth mammal, to the race to a thousand bird species, and to whatever else crosses my wildlife-watching path before the year and with it my list come to their end.

New at dawn in Reniala spiny forest

	Birds
931	stripe-throated jery	Neomixis striatigula
932	running coua	Coua cursor
933	Archbold’s newtonia	Newtonia archboldi
934	subdesert mesite	Monias benschi
935	lesser vasa parrot	Coracopsis nigra
936	long-tailed ground-roller	Uratelornis chimaera
937	Madagascar harrier-hawk	Polyboroides radiatus
938	Lafresnaye’s vanga	Xenopirostris xenopirostris
939	sickle-billed vanga	Falculea palliata
940	Madagascar spine-tailed swift	Zoonavena grandidieri
	Reptiles
44	Antimena chameleon	Furcifer antimena

New this afternoon in a sandstorm

	Birds
941	three-banded plover	Charadrius tricollaris
942	Madagascar plover	Charadrius thoracicus

2012 Totals

Mammals: 99

Birds: 942

Reptiles: 44

Amphibians: 15

Fish: 11

To the spiny forest

23^rd October

Every day with two new primates on my list is a good day. Today was long. Today was hot. Today was exhausting. But today was good. Early this morning we reached Zombitse, a deciduous forest national park marooned in a horizonless landscape of anthropogenic grasslands. We missed our avian target here, Appert’s tetraka which may be found nowhere else, but saw our mammalian target, a snoozing Hubbard’s sportive lemur, which likewise lives nowhere else. (For the taxonomically minded, however, it’s worth knowing that recent genetic research indicates that, unlike the Microcebus mouse lemurs which are bona fide species, the many newly described Lepilemur sportive lemurs are probably regional forms of very few species. The same, incidentally, is true of the Avahi woolly lemurs of which we saw the form currently known as Peyrieras’ in Ranomafana.)

Our second new primate was grey-brown mouse lemur. These spiny forest favourites were dozing at the arboretum outside Tulear: hunkering in the hollow of a snapped tree, curled in a fluffy ball in a spiky Euphorbia, and nestling in the folded leaf of a Bismarckia palm. A green-capped coua trotted through the sandy undergrowth and in the dust sat a Madagascar nightjar, protecting her eggs from the shocking heat of the afternoon.

As we bumped along the unmade road to Ifaty a Kittlitz’s plover stood by a brackish pool, two curlew sandpipers (last seen by my eyes at Cley) probed the seaside mud, and a pair of Madagascar buttonquail trundled across the road, rounding their backs, lowering their heads, and hoping that a bus full of naturalists would not spot them.

New this morning in Zombitse

	Mammals
98	Hubbard’s sportive lemur	Lepilemur hubbardorum
	Birds
918	Madagascar green pigeon	Treron australis
919	crested coua	Coua cristata
920	alpine swift	Apus melba
921	white-browed owl	Ninox superciliaris
922	Frances’s sparrowhawk	Accipiter francesiae
923	Coquerel’s coua	Coua coquereli
924	rufous vanga	Schetba rufa
925	Madagascar cuckoo-hawk	Aviceda madagascariensis
	Reptiles
39	Standing’s day gecko	Phelsuma standingi
40	three-eyed lizard	Chalerodon madagascariensis

New this afternoon in the Tulear arboretum and in marshes near Ifaty

	Mammals
99	grey-brown mouse lemur	Microcebus griseorufus
	Birds
926	Sakalava weaver	Ploceus sakalava
927	Madagascar nightjar	Caprimulgus madagascariensis
928	green-capped coua	Coua olivaceiceps
929	Kittlitz’s plover	Charadrius pecuarius
930	Madagascar buttonquail	Turnix nigricollis
	Reptiles
41		Tracheloptychus petersi
42	spiny-backed chameleon	Furcifer verrucosus
43		Trachylepis aureopunctata

2012 Totals

Mammals: 99

Birds: 930

Reptiles: 43

Amphibians: 15

Fish: 11