Alefa!

 17^th October

I love Madagascar. I thought I’d better get that straight from the start as I’m planning to wax lyrical for the next few weeks. I mean, seriously, it’s got everything a right-thinking naturalist could want. It’s got dozens of endemic primates (exact number unsure as some haven’t yet been named and – see yesterday’s post for details of my fascinating conversation with Steve Goodman – it turns out from recent genetic studies that many of those already described aren’t in fact species). What’s more it’s got lots of jazzy birds that do funky things. Like funky? Well look no further than the chameleons. Chameleons are way funky and if you dig chameleons Madagascar is definitely going to be your thang.

And did I mention the endemic family of carnivores, the three endemic subfamilies of insectivore, the fifty species of bat (many of them recently discovered by the aforementioned Steve Goodman and eighty per cent of them endemic) and the fact that two genera of hippos arrived separately across the ocean and lived here successfully until people tipped up around 2,300 years ago and ate them all?

And the whales? Yup, Madagascar has whales too.

So read on people: this Madagascar adventure is gonna be worth the entry fee.

Today’s first Madagascan addition to my list was exactly what I thought it would be: a flock of greenish reddish loudly chipping Madagascan fodies at breakfast. A Madagascar hoopoe put in an appearance too and I reflected over fruit salad what a marvellous place this is.

Our first visit was to a lake in the centre of the city, called Tsarasoatra. I liked Tsarasoatra when I first visited it last year and today I really liked it. There are crazy numbers of ducks here. Most of them are vociferous white-faced whistling ducks and quiet red-billed teal. Here and there are dinky hottentot teal and hunkering in the shade are a few comb ducks. (People who come to comb ducks from a background in African birding are likely to want to call these knob-billed ducks. There’s no accounting for taste.) In the middle of all this duckage there is an island whose papyrus beds are throbbing with breeding herons. Most are squacco herons in immaculately tasteful breeding plumage and the white phase of the dimorphic egret (which is basically just a little egret but let’s not quibble over taxonomy). Among them, though, are great egrets, black egrets and a couple of exquisite Madagascar pond herons (shining white, electric blue bill, loopy crest: what’s not to love?). Overhead are Mascarene martins and Madagascar black swifts. Madagascar brush warblers dive through the undergrowth, a Madagascar swamp warbler tends its nest in a stand of Typha, and the morning is just about perfect.

And then it is perfect. Still chuffed from finding a jewel chameleon – our first chameleon of the tour – I raise my binoculars to the lake and among the hundreds and hundreds of red-billed teal they fall on a pair of Meller’s ducks. Meller’s duck: it’s rare, it’s endemic to Madagascar (though introduced to Mauritius), it’s increasingly hard to track down, it’s subtly beautiful, I dreamed of seeing it as a child, and it’s my thousandth species of vertebrate in 2012.

A thousand species.

Two Madagascar green sunbirds and a second jewel chameleon visited us over lunch in the centre of the city and in the afternoon we travelled through rice-paddies and agricultural terraces to the city of Antsirabe, adding Madagascar bushlark and Madagascar wagtail to our list.

There were so many other highlights today but I have a tour to lead and I need my beauty sleep.

To sleep. Perchance to dream of Meller’s ducks.

New today in Antananarivo and on the road to Antsirabe

	Birds
857	Madagascar fody	Foudia madagascariensis
858	Madagascar hoopoe	Upupa marginata
859	Mascarene martin	Phedina borbonica
860	squacco heron	Ardeola ralloides
861	dimorphic egret	Egretta dimorpha
862	white-faced whistling-duck	Dendrocygna viduata
863	red-billed teal	Anas erythrorhyncha
864	black egret	Egretta ardesiaca
865	Madagascar coucal	Centropus toulou
866	Madagascar white-eye	Zosterops maderaspatanus
867	hottentot teal	Anas hottentota
868	Madagascar squacco heron	Ardeola idae
869	Madagascar malachite kingfisher	Corythornis vintsioides
870	Madagascar brush warbler	Nesillas typica
871	Madagascar swamp warbler	Acrocephalus newtoni
872	Madagascar kestrel	Falco newtoni
873	yellow-billed kite	Milvus aegyptius
874	Madagascar black swift	Apus balstoni
875	Meller’s duck	Anas melleri
876	comb duck	Sarkidiornis melanotos
877	Madagascar green sunbird	Nectarinia notata
878	Madagascar bushlark	Mirafra hova
879	Madagascar wagtail	Motacilla flaviventris
	Reptiles
21	jewel chameleon	Furcifer lateralis

2012 Totals

Mammals: 85

Birds: 879

Reptiles: 21

Amphibians: 8

Fish: 11