26th October 2015. Berenty, Madagascar.
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Sakalava weavers and their hanging nests (there is only one bird visible but there are others inside the nests).
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White man’s burden? Ringtailed lemur sitting on wooden sculpture.
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Plants from the desert garden near the cabins.
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… and also, a chameleon….
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More dancing sifakas, this one coming straight towards me.
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… and finally, one on a roof.
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25th October 2015. Berenty, Madagascar.
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We are in the middle of a nature reserve and the ring-tailed lemurs came right up to out cabin verandah in the morning.
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The little one’s now the right way around.
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An interesting flower in the desert garden near our room. No doubt endemic and local. Focus-bracketing from multiple images.
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Sportive lemur. There are 24 species. This is probably a white footed sportive lemur.
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A tiny scorpion on the side of my shoe. Focus not the best but it shows you the scale.
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… And here he is, in more detail.
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Back to the ring tails….
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… and their young….
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Verraux’s sifakas, now.
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A red-fronted brown lemur with five baby Aldabra tortoises.
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There were two giant tortoise species in Madagascar prior to the arrival of humans but both species are now extinct. Giant Aldabra tortoises, from Aldabra Atoll in the nearby Seychelles, were recently introduced to take up some of the ecological roles of the extinct species, including dispersing baobab seeds.
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Yellow-billed Kite.
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Pied crows.
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Nile crocodile. It was in a pit; you really don’t want to stroke one. They are native to the west coast of Madagascar as well as much of Africa and have the strongest bite of any animal.
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Madagascan fruit bats, endemic to Madagascar. Here in numbers but still rated as vulnerable.
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Verraux’s sifakas.
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Red-fronted brown lemur.
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White-footed (?) sportive lemur.
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24th October 2015. Berenty, Madagascar.
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The images in this post are from an early morning walk before breakfast, between 7am and 8am.
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Verraux’s Sifaka is listed as vulnerable due to habitat loss from land clearing. Its main natural predator is the Fosa, though I presume there are no fosas here.
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They live in groups of many males and females from 8 to 14 members. Their mating period is January and February, which is the only time they display aggression. They bear single young.
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Here we see one feeding off leaves of a very spiky stem of a tree in the spiny forest. The spiny forest covers a large semi-desert area in the south of Madagascar and we are on the edge of it here.
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They are well adapted for drought conditions and can if necessary gain sufficient moisture from succulent leaves and dew.
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This is a characteristic early morning poise, sitting back and soaking in the sun.
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Note the extra eye below.
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Young one leaping from branch to branch.
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A closeup of one of the spiny trees. Not so easy for a human to climb with bare hands and feet.
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A chick of an unknown bird species.
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24th October 2015. Berenty, Madagascar.
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Here we see the amazing dancing sifakas of Berenty. They are Verraux’s Sifakas and well adapted to life in the trees but not so well adapted to walking on the ground so they leap sideways in a graceful balletic dance.
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Berenty has been a privately owned nature reserve since the 1930s, an island of forest and wildlife now surrounded by agricultural land.
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As well as the Sifakas, Berenty also has ring-tailed lemurs. This one has an obscured young one hanging on underneath.
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Just in case there’s any doubt, there are multiple ring tailed lemurs here, rather than a single individual with many heads and tails.
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The young ones are often the most curious….
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I don’t know what they’re licking up on those branches but there’s something they find tasty there.
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A family in the trees.
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… And thereby hangs a tail.
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Here’s looking at you, kid.
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19th October 2015. Kirindy, Madagascar.
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It was our last morning in Kirindy but we still had an hour or so to spare. There were some small birds hopping around the camp. This is a female Madagascar Magpie Robin.
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This one is the male Madagascar Magpie Robin.
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And there were some Verreaux’s Sifakas in the trees not far away…
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… including some young. The young were often more interested in these strange primates wandering around on the ground than their parents.
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Nice fine warm weather, lots of good leaves….
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Murray Foote 