@TLD, the indris are already getting boring (at least hearing them), they woke me up with their calls this morning @DDcorvus, the only Agapornis I have seen were 2 males in a cage on a market in Tana, also no vasa parrots yet, I guess they are easier to find in the dry forests in the wet Btw. yesterday I saw my first tenrec!, when heading to the bathroom (yes travellers diarrhea is bit of the Madagascar experience), I heard something moving, so switched on my torch and there was a greater hedgehog tenrec just sitting there. The funny thing is that they not only look like the european hedgehogs, they also really behave like hedgehogs! But all in all he did not really like me and the big light, so he disappeared after 30 seconds.
Madagascar village 'hit by plague' A village in Madagascar has been hit by a deadly outbreak of the bubonic plague, medical experts on the island confirm. Read more: BBC News - Madagascar village 'hit by bubonic plague'
lintworm's real research revealed!!! "Yes, well I smuggled infected fleas in to Madagascar and released them in this village because the goody two-shoes at City Hall in Wageningen wouldn't let me do it in Amsterdam...."
Hmmm that is only about 200 km from where I stay.... And although we do have a rat plague here at the moment (but not for long, vitamine K is on it's way...), Wageningen tends to specialize in malaria and not in plagues, so I fed my infected mosquitoes to my house gecko, because I found out they had already enough malaria infections around here, so my help was not really appreciated nor needed for the research....
Sounds like it's straight from a movie. Another good movie plot would be for the CIA to infect Guatemalans with syphilis, or for the CIA to allow Central American cocaine to flow freely into depressed neighbourhoods of America. Oh wait.....
An update here, I hope he uploads it , I try to update the big year thread to , very hopefull with 3 sreens open now.... I have now been in the Betampona Reserve for about 4 weeks. Most days we go out in the Reserve and look for snails, but because of my research far from always into the primary forest, which is of course nicer than the disturbed forests. Although these disturbed forests still have a higher diversity then most European forests, but that’s normal here in the tropics, that even the dullest place is home to some nice species. As I do have to work, which means looking for snails a lot, I cannot behave as I would usually do in a forest. But on the forest floor and on the way to and from the plots we usually see something nice everyday and even at the research station nice sightings are guaranteed, although not daily. I am not going to describe every day, but just pick out some nice sightings etc. My highlight here at the research station are the bamboo lemurs who tend to visit once in a while. When I was reading some book in my hut, somebody asked me whether I wanted to see some bamboo lemurs, well of course… stupid question. The lemurs were at 10 meters from my hut and from the hut next to mine you have a very nice view from the balcony, including on some bamboo. And for some reason the bamboo lemurs were on the bamboo. It is a group of 5 animals, I presume a pair with offspring. And normally bamboo lemurs are very cute looking, but a baby bamboo lemur is even more cute looking. Some female spectators were not ashamed to confirm this with all kinds of strange noises. It also tends to be worthwhile to go to the toilet at night, apart from the obligatory white-fronted brown lemurs, there are sometimes also other mammals to be seen. The first highlight here was a greater hedgehog tenrec, which behaves exactly like the European hedgehogs, which is kind off weird, as they are in no way closely related, but this convergent evolution is quite successful. But this tenrec clearly did not like the fact that I put a big torch on him and after 15 seconds he ran away, the same way a hedgehog would do. The other mammal species I have encountered here were rufous mouse lemurs. I never realized that they make so much noise, it sounds a bit like the south American monkeys, but much higher. But I like to delay my toilet visits for this kind of stuff. Although a body adapting to a diet of rice and beans 2x a day sometimes thinks otherwise… The biggest mammals here are the indris and they start to be annoying ( I never thought I would say that), it is not that the forest is overcrowded with them, I still only have seen 3. But they compensate for their relatively low number with producing an awful lot of noise. If they produce that noise only between 7 and 7, it would be completely fine. But the start as early as 2:30 AM, which means I have several times be woken up by them. Still better than waking up by rats trying to eat something that is not meant as rat food, but it is as annoying as the Madagascar scops owl uttering his call the whole evening… When walking into the forest, we see quite some nice animals, although not a lot of species daily. The highlight are probably the brown-tailed vontsiras, small Malagasy carnivores. They occur only in NE-Madagascar and the book says that they are “shy and secretive”. But that is not the way I perceived them the 2 times I have seen them. These small mongooselike creatures seemed very relaxed and kept on eating and devastating some dead palm. 90% of all the sightings of this species comes from the Betampona reserve, so maybe here they are less shy, but it may be the best mammal species I have seen so far, in terms of uniqueness and the number of other people who have seen it too… Birding remains very difficult in the dense forest, but some nice species we encounter regularly, like both species of vasa parrots. Which are different from other parrots in terms of their dull colouration, just black-greyish and I was also very much surprised by the melodious sounds they have. I thought of parrots as only being able of making very harsh sounds, like macaws, or the annoying screeches of rose-ringed parakeets who have now invaded parts of Europe. The price for most stupid bird in the forest goes to the Madagascar crested ibis. First of all: ibises don’t belong in a forest, they are wetland birds. But a few million years isolation can change pretty much. Although they still look lost on the top of a hill in the middle of a rainforest with no water nearby. The isolation has made them behave like ordinary chickens. Instead of flying away when spotted they just run away on the same path you are walking on. Which means that when you get around the corner, the ibis is just in front of you and starts to run away from you to the next corner. This then continues for several hundred meters sometimes… I do not understand why the Egyptians have chosen an ibis for their god of wisdom, Thoth. Were birding is more difficult, the herpetofauna compensates for it completely. I have now had 4 different gecko species in my hut alone, which is as much lizard species are occurring in the Netherlands in total… Also very nice are the leaf-tailed geckoes of which there are 3 species here. The nicest species, Uroplatus sikorae, I found by surprise, as I was taking a picture and was putting my hand on a tree stem. Then the tree stem started moving and it appeared that I put my hand on a Uroplatus, bloody camouflage! I have heard the same story now from different people, so it seems to happen quite often. Apart from all the wildlife there are also 22 million people living in Madagascar and most of them are voting today, which promises to be quite chaotic. Of course for a third world country, the possible choices are a bit strange. There are 2 candidates left, one is a puppet from the former president, who was in charge until the 2009 coup, the other candidate is logically a puppet from the sitting president, who came in office in 2009. I hope that the situation remains stable afterwards, although in the south it appears to be not, even today already. But I am probably on one of the remotest spots, so also one of the safest spots. Although people here all live in huts, made completely out of wood, which does not keep them from cooking with an open fire in these huts. So the risk is larger that we all burn away, then that there is some civil war up here…. Depending on the weather I will stay here constantly till at least half of January, but when it remains dry I will take a small holiday to a mystery destination ( I do not know what I will do yet ). Although it is the rainy season right now, the wettest part of the country has had no serious rain the past 17 days… So far the rainy season, which is doing a good job in the rest of the country though. But I need the rain for the snails to be active, and they are not now, so I am ending up counting palm trees
Thank you, I enjoyed your report very much! But what is even better, all the little annoyances you have to endure keep me from being envious, as I have planned several times to go to Madagascar and never made it.
Thanks for the update - sounds like you're having an incredible time! I think the shape of the ibis's bill, being crescentic, reminded the Ancient Egyptians of the moon. I'm not sure about other species but with such a small brain I don't imagine that they're particularly intelligent birds.
Did I understand this right? Do you know if there exists any research, that compared the size of the brain of different bird species with their levels of intelligence and found a correlation?
Just a guess. I don't know about any scientific basis for this assumption, it's just my impression from my very limited experience observing several (~20) ibis species in captivity and in the wild.
It is now 8 weeks since I left the Netherlands and 7 weeks ago I arrived here in Betampona. And I begin to like it more and more over here. I have finally settled and I miss home less than in the beginning. I am even trying to learn a bit Malagasy, but that is just really difficult, as it looks like none of the languages that I do speak, although they do use some French words. The village/ research centre where I live is situated on the border of Betampona, so also on the border of the forest. But there are also quite some trees here. Which is good because wildlife comes to me instead that I have to go to the wildlife . The most common are the day geckos (Phelsuma lineata), they are just everywhere. They also claim my laptop if I am charging it and leaving it in the kitchen . In terms of birds we have Madagascar bulbuls and 2 species of sunbirds that are here very often. The sunbirds even made a nest in a palm tree. But a few weeks ago that nest was being destroyed by 2 broad-striped mongoose. One of the guides saw it happen and I was in my hut just 40 meters away when those amazing little carnivores were just there… But you cannot get it all I guess. Another bird species has just started to make some nests and as the creators are Nelicouri weavers, the nests will be very beautiful when finished. At the moment there are 4 nests hanging down a tree right next to my hut. If they could also attract some broad-striped mongooses I would be very happy . So far I have only seen 2 predators here, the brown-tailed vontsira (Salanoia concolor) and the ring-tailed vontsira (Galidia elegans) and some footprints of a fossa. A group of bamboo lemurs visits a bamboo stand about 10 meters from my hut around every week/2 weeks, which gives very nice views. In the forest I have only seen them once until now. For mammal watching walking to the toilet, which is 40 meters away, is very productive. Most often I encounter just the white-fronted brown lemurs, these diurnal lemurs also show nocturnal activity. But apart from a hedgehog tenrec and rufous mouse lemurs, which I have seen a few weeks ago, the highlight for this year are definitely the woolly lemurs (avahi). During spotlighting on my way to the toilet I found 3 just sitting 5 meters away. Avahis are Indridae, so related to Indri & Sifaka. And the move and behave like that to. They are just a lot smaller and nocturnal. The funny thing is that they are the only nocturnal lemurs that forage in groups. The avahi’s did not really mind my torch and they were in fact quite curious and one even sat on a stem just 1 meter away from me, before deciding I was apparently a not very threatening human being . Last night I even got the first proper bat recording since I arrived here. It is one of a pipistrelle bat, of which 3 species are thought to occur on the island (of which I can eliminate the kuhls pipistrelle, as the sound is different). I hope I can find someone who can identify the species, as bat surveys are still missing in large parts of the country and there is relatively little knowledge. Most of the foreign researchers focus on the lemurs, so I am quite an exception with my snails . The snail research is really going well and we are finding a lot of interesting things, but specific determination is different, but I suspect that we already have found new species, at least we have found many new species for the reserve. But that is no surprise as we are the first that also look for microsnails (so not only the large species that are bigger than 1 cm). I am now almost on 50% of my stay here in the reserve, so that means that my holiday is coming closer, although doing field work here is also some kind of holiday, as haste is a forbidden word here and it is impossible to do a lot over here, except the research and reading books. But that is also good. I only hope that we do not get to much cyclones that take away the calmness here. The last week 2 cyclones have hit the island, but luckily not even close to here. The only thing we see is a lot of rain. I will give an update about my first big discovery here quite soon, and it has nothing to do with snails…
Also from me, thanks for sharing and keep us informed ! Came just back from Mexico and didn't see a single snail
Thanks for the update lintworm it is very nice to read reports such as yours you can feel as if you are actually there in a funny rat free way.
@TLD, unfortunately not, the Galidia sightings were to brief, and when I wanted to take a picture of a Salanoia foraging 2 meters away, the battery died... On new years day a cyclone hit Madagascar’s east coast in the north. I was staying in Tamatave (Toamasina), which is also situated on the east coast. But the only thing we got from the cyclone were some heavy rains. It actually rained most of the day and I was sitting in my hotel room, but I wanted to go the market to do some shopping. I killed the day with skyping with my girl friend, I thought I would just mention as people here seem really interested in whether zoochatters have a relation or not . I was just looking out of my window whether it was dry already (which it obviously was not), when I saw that there were 2 house crows sitting next to my window. So I mentioned on skype that I just saw a new bird species. But by then I did not realize it was not only a lifer, but a species new for the country. I vaguely remembered that in my field guide there was no mention of house crows in Madagascar, but only from the Mascarene islands. But that information was probably old, but my friend google also did not find any results for “house crows Madagascar” or “house crows Toamasina” and other similar search terms. The only hit I got was that house crows were expected in Madagascar and that any information could be e-mailed to an expert. I e-mailed this expert and got a reaction very soon that this was the first time he heard of a house crow sigthing in Madagascar. E-mails to the author of the field guide and to the African Bird Club yielded the same results. So apparently I have discovered a new species of Madagascar. Unfortunately the house crows did not like my appearance and fled when they saw me standing at the window. So I got no pictures of them. The next day I walked a few blocks to get close to the harbor as I fought I may find them there, but the only sighting except the obligatory mynahs and house sparrows was a Madagascar kestrel. When I returned to my hotel and sat in the restaurant with my laptop, I heard some crows… Apparently I could have spared myself the walk, because the house crows seemed to have settled in the trees just next to the hotel. I now was able to get some pictures and I suspect that there are at least three of them. Which seems to suggest that they have been overlooked for a while… And as I will return to this hotel at least 3 times in the coming months, I have found myself a small new research project. This will ultimately result in a small publication together with one of the e-mailed experts. For me it is nice to have found a new species and it is an important find. Although it is not good news, as house crows are an invasive species that uses ships to disperse across the globe. In the Netherlands they will now finally be eliminated, after they even made it to court… Although my humble opinion is that with such species one should take no risk and eliminate them as fast as possible, when the population is still small. I certainly hope their stay in Madagascar won’t be permanent. But I do not know how much harm they can do to the indigeneous (so endemic) fauna, as they are no forest species and the vast majority of the endemic species are. And the common mynahs already have replaced everything in the eastern heavily degraded habitats. Maybe except from the bulbuls, foudias and coucals…
