Madagascar Blog Post 4 - Days 15 - 20

I still have images to add


Our birding trip was organised Madagascar Tour Guide (madagascar.tour.guide@gmail.com), who were really well organised. Our guide for most of our the trip was Julian, who was brilliant at digging our the birds as well as sorting things out for us along the way. The company is owned by Andre who came to meet us as we passed through Tena. I would highly recommend them and  the prices were modest.

Day 15 - 19/08/2018

Sunday 19th August 2018 we had breakfast at what had become the usual time of 6 am. However it was 6.20 am at the Cristo Hotel before anything arrived on our table and so it ended up being nearly 7am before we were actually in the forest. There is no point getting stressed about things like this when you are world birding, as there is nothing much you can do apart from starve. I think it was more that there was a large table which arrived after us but were served before us.

So, at 7 am we arrived in Andasibe NP, which is a stunning forest full of birds. As Julian is from this place, he knew the forest really well and where exactly you get particular birds.

The only new bird for the day was Nuthatch Vanga, after a lot of hard work.

Day 16 - 20/08/2018

Monday 20th August 2018 we went to the close-by Mantadia NP, again a forested area.

We spent the whole day there, with new birds being Collared Nightjar, Short-legged, Scaly and Rufous-headed Ground Roller. An amazing 3 Ground Roller day.

Julian had narrowed the Short-legged Ground Roller down to an island in the the forest. So being the hard-core world birders that we are, we took off our boots and socks, waded across a rivered, walked around the leech infested island in our bare feet before finding the bird, watching it for ages before walking back to the river, putting socks back onto our wet feet, getting our boots on and carrying on birding.

Day 17 - 21/08/2018

Tuesday 21st August 2018, we were back at Andasibe NP, birding in the forest. It was a hard day of birding, working hard for everything.

New birds were Red-breasted Coua, which I was gripped off by my parents yesterday, so is always sweet to catch up; Malagasy Turtle Dove, Malagasy Blue Pigeon and Madagascan Owl on a roost site.

In term of Lemur, we saw two amazing new Lemur Indri and Diadamed Sefaqua. There was a large National Geographic tour group watching these animals but they were very quiet compared to the previous forests.

Day 18 - 22/8/2018

Wednesday 22nd August 2018

We did a little birding first thing around lodge but saw nothing worth noting. Then we headed on our long journey north to Tana.

On the way, not far from Andasibe NP. we stopped at Torotorofotsy Marsh which is run by Asity. We spoke to the manager about a net and dead Snipe  which I’m sure he just have known about.

We walked around the wetland area and were really lucky to see Madagascan Snipe and Buttonquall.

From here we carried on north to Tana where we arrived early evening and said goodbye to Julian, who had been the most amazing guide. We were back at the Saka Manga hotel, which was good to be back at.

About the Author

Birdgirl Mya-Rose Craig in Antarctica
Photograph copyright Young Birder Birdgirl Mya-Rose Craig

Mya-Rose Craig is a 16-year-old young British Bangladeshi birder, naturalist, conservationist, environmentalist, activist, writer and speaker. She is based near Bristol and writes the successful Birdgirl Blog, with posts about birding and conservation from around the world. She loved seeing Mountain Gorillas in East Africa and Penguins in Antarctica over Christmas 2015, her 7th continent. She is looking forward to visiting Tanzania, Kenya and Madagascar birding in 2018 and hopes to see her 5000th bird species in the world.

Mya-Rose was a Bristol European Green Capital Ambassador along with Kevin McCloud, Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall, Tony Juniper, Simon King, Miranda Krestovnikoff and Shaun the Sheep! See the full list of Bristol Ambassadors. She has also been listed with the singer-songwriter George Ezra and actress Maisie Williams from Game of Thrones as one of Bristol's most influential young people. She is an Ambassador for World Shorebirds Day, See It Her Way and a Charter Champion for The Charter for Woods, Trees and People. She has given over 50 talks, speaking at conferences such as being on a panel with George Monbiot and Caroline Lucas on Sustainability and the Future of Cities. She has also appeared on TV an dis particularly proud of being in Silent Roars, a short film which was part of Listen to Britain 2017 https://player.bfi.org.uk/free/film/watch-the-silent-roars-2017-online. She organised a conference, Race Equality in Nature, in June 2016 aiming to increase the ethnic diversity in nature and plans to run her fifth Camp Avalon camp in 2018. She has also set up Black2Nature with the aim of working with organisations to increase the access to nature of Black Asian Minority Ethnic people. Please connect with her on LinkedIn (Mya-Rose Birdgirl Craig) so that she can invite you to join the Race Equality in Nature LinkedIn Group and be part of the change. She has been awarded the Bath and West Show Environmental Youth Award 2017 for Bristol for her Black2Nature work EYA 2017. Please also like her Birdgirl Facebook Page and follow her on Birdgirl Twitter.