Today was the last day of the first phase of our itinerary. From our base in Andasibe, we set off at 04:00 in the morning and drove the four hours to Antananarivo from where we would get an internal flight around lunchtime. The drive actually took four hours, which is expected without any delays, which should also have been expected but helpfully failed to materialise.
This meant that we had time to visit a wetland park near the airport, the Parc de Tsarasaotra, which is a popular stop among birders due to its high concentration of waterbirds. But even with that in mind, we were not prepared for the sheer numbers of wildfowl on offer here. The pond was covered in Red-billed Teal, with large numbers of White-faced Whistling-Duck also present. Among the rafts we picked out a few Blue-billed Teal, Comb Duck and the Madagascar endemic Meller’s Duck, which was the species we came to the site to find.
We were also impressed with the huge numbers of herons on offer, with the heronry present containing hundreds of common egret species, as well as Black Heron, Black-crowned Night Heron, Squacco Heron, and our other target with Malagasy Pond Heron, of which there were a few individuals dressed in their fantastic white summer plumes. In the end, we spent an hour enjoying the birdlife on offer, before we headed to the airport.
The flight to Morondava was, without question, the worst flight of my entire life. Not only was the turbulence horrendous, but the aeroplane was so hot I spent the entire flight sweating and there was even a screaming baby next to me for good measure. Once we arrived in Morondava itself, we were in for more bad news in that our driver was sick, and had sent a replacement who did not speak English. The car was battered and making all kinds of strange noises, and we were not sure if it would manage the journey to the Tsingy National Park.
But still we headed on our way. After passing through the iconic ‘valley of the Boababs’ we arrived at our destination, the Kirindy Forest Reserve, with its lodge situated deep in the dry woodland. We arrived just in time to do a night walk for two hours and had a phenomenal time with Red-tailed Sportive Lemur, the very smart Pale Fork-marked Lemur and the very abundant Grey Mouse Lemur. The Mouse Lemurs were even in the eves of the restaurant, running around while we ate our dinner. Truly a brilliant place to spend the night.
Parc de Tsarasaotra: White-faced Whistling Duck, Knob-billed Duck, Blue-billed Teal, Meller's Duck, Red-billed Teal, Malagasy Coucal, Common Moorhen, Black-crowned Night Heron, Black Heron, Dimorphic Egret, Squacco Heron, Malagasy Pond Heron, Western Cattle Egret, Great Egret, Yellow-billed Kite, Malagasy Kingfisher, Malagasy Kestrel, Mascarene Martin, Malagasy White-eye,
Kirindy Forest Reserve: Banded Kestrel, Greater Vasa Parrot, Pied Crow, Madagascar Cisticola,
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