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MADAGASCAR HIGHLIGHTS NOVEMBER 6–21, 2019 and AMPIJOROA-BETSIBOKA PRE-TRIP NOVEMBER 2–8, 2019

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MADAGASCAR HIGHLIGHTS NOVEMBER 6–21, 2019 and AMPIJOROA-BETSIBOKA PRE-TRIP NOVEMBER 2–8, 2019 MADAGASCAR HIGHLIGHTS NOVEMBER 6–21, 2019 and AMPIJOROA-BETSIBOKA PRE-TRIP NOVEMBER 2–8, 2019 Long-tailed Ground-Roller LEADER: DION HOBCROFT LIST COMPILED BY: DION HOBCROFT VICTOR EMANUEL NATURE TOURS, INC. 2525 WALLINGWOOD DRIVE, SUITE 1003 AUSTIN, TEXAS 78746 WWW.VENTBIRD.COM AMPIJOROA-BETSIBOKA PRE-TRIP NOVEMBER 2–8, 2019 No one will forget our encounter with the extraordinary male Schlegel’s Asity at Ampijoroa. Victor Emanuel Nature Tours 2 Madagascar Highlights and Ampijoroa-Betsiboka Pre-trip, 2019 It is apparent, after leading seven tours, that Madagascar is becoming increasingly popular as a tourist venue. More flights are arriving than ever before. This is a good thing for this relatively impoverished and isolated island nation, often called the eighth continent. More tourist dollars can bring vital income. There are more new hotels, and many aspects of tourism have improved, including the food. White-backed Duck is a threatened species in Madagascar. Like previous tours, we all convened in Antananarivo and set up in a delightful hotel, L’Aubois Vert, close to the Ivato Airport. Road works in downtown Tana had exacerbated the usual traffic chaos, so beyond an optional city tour we did our best to evade the carmageddon. The hotel is a perfect location for shaking off the jetlag and taking in a bunch of the more eco-tolerant endemic birds. Madagascar Nightjar with a chick, abundant Red Fodies, skulking Madagascar Brush-Warblers, Madagascar Bulbuls feeding fledglings, Madagascar Magpie-Robin, Souimanga Sunbird, and Madagascar Munia were all temptations on offer. One thing that has not changed is the erratic schedule of Air Madagascar, and this time it sort of Victor Emanuel Nature Tours 3 Madagascar Highlights and Ampijoroa-Betsiboka Pre-trip, 2019 worked to our advantage, allowing us to fly both ways to Mahjunga and avoid a fairly long and largely birdless drive. Van Dam’s Vanga is found only in northwestern Madagascar where it is both scarce and inconspicuous. It still did not allow us to evade a shaky start to the tour, as a mechanical issue with our plane led to a delay on our flight to Mahjunga. After an hour, a replacement plane was arranged, but the clock was definitely ticking. We had a boat booked to take us up the Betsiboka River to a series of mangrove islands. Once we arrived, we literally jumped in the bus, drove to the beach, and embarked on the boat. The tide was high, the wind was blowing, the sun was hot, and a minor miracle was needed! Our fortune changed when I spotted a pair of Victor Emanuel Nature Tours 4 Madagascar Highlights and Ampijoroa-Betsiboka Pre-trip, 2019 Bernier’s Teals loafing in the shade of a mangrove tree, the high tide working to our advantage, and we could get quite close to these rare endemic ducks. Then a single Madagascar Sacred Ibis showed up, and it was to be our only one. With both key targets under our belts, I could breathe a little bit more easily. The boat trip proved to be a good one with some thirty immature Lesser Flamingos, nine species of shorebirds including good numbers of Terek Sandpipers and Greater Sand-Plovers, a small flock of Saunders’s Terns, a display-flying Madagascar Harrier-Hawk, and a skulking White-throated Rail. At the lovely hotel, Fano had pre-ordered lunch and delivered the bags to the rooms. We could relax. Only one pair of Madagascar Fish-Eagles is relatively easily publicly accessible. It is a key species on the pre-tour. Luckily they successfully produced a chick this year. Victor Emanuel Nature Tours 5 Madagascar Highlights and Ampijoroa-Betsiboka Pre-trip, 2019 After a good siesta we visited a wetland that held remarkably diverse aquatic vegetation including superb water lilies. This is a disappearing habitat of our next key bird—the unique Madagascar Jacana. This species has been increasingly difficult to find in recent years, but this location proved a winner with a very healthy population. Great to see and even better to hear that the wetland is being protected by the local people. Hooray for this! Amazingly, we found five White- backed Ducks—here represented by an endemic subspecies insularis . The views were fantastic of this often shy, crepuscular duck that hides in thick vegetation. We also found a single male African Pygmy-Goose amongst good numbers of White-faced Whistling-Ducks, and a good cross-section of herons including several superb Madagascar Pond-Herons. Madagascar Jacana is another special bird on the pre-tour where a small population is flourishing on a wetland now protected by the local farmers. We left early for Ankaranfantsika National Park the following morning, making a stop for a bonus pale morph Eleonora’s Falcon that gave a great view, and then for a pair of Glossy Ibis—quite scarce in Madagascar. By late morning we had Victor Emanuel Nature Tours 6 Madagascar Highlights and Ampijoroa-Betsiboka Pre-trip, 2019 arrived at the park, so we decided to look for Schlegel’s Asity—perhaps one of the most extraordinary passerine birds in the world. Arriving at the nest location, the male flew in almost immediately and sat right there in front of us for a good twenty minutes. It filled the scope, and the participants were all left a bit bedazzled by the glowing caruncles! As it was our first time in quality forest habitat, we were quickly notching up a lot of new birds including our first Madagascar Cuckoo-shrike, Hook-billed Vanga, Common Newtonia, Long-billed Bernieria, Madagascar Paradise-Flycatcher, and Souimanga Sunbird. Checking in to Fano’s Asity Lodge, we took another break in the heat of the day. The Western Avahi (or Woolly Lemur) is nocturnal and rarely encountered. For the afternoon session we wandered about the lively Ampijoroa section of the park. We hit the jackpot quite quickly with first the Madagascar Pygmy-Kingfisher filling the scope with orange, white, and red. Then we had great looks at perched male and female Cuckoo-Rollers, truly bizarre Madagascan specials—living fossils. Sickle-billed Vangas were yet another highlight of the session (giving their wailing Victor Emanuel Nature Tours 7 Madagascar Highlights and Ampijoroa-Betsiboka Pre-trip, 2019 baby call) that included great looks at Broad-billed Roller, White-headed Vanga, and Lesser Vasa-Parrot. Our first lemur sighting was one of the most spectacular of them all, the superb Coquerel’s Sifaka. But do not get too close underneath them or they may drop a mango on your head. They well demonstrated their leaping prowess. Our second lemur sighting was of one of the most difficult to see in the park—a family of three nocturnal Western Avahi (Woolly Lemurs) amazingly spotted by local guide Adriana, well hidden in a vine tangle. This was a lifer lemur for me. In fact, our good luck with lemurs rolled right along; as it became dark, we had excellent looks at Milne-Edward’s Sportive Lemurs, a single Fat-tailed Dwarf Lemur, and several diminutive Golden-Brown Mouse Lemurs— five species of lemurs in one afternoon. A Barn Owl posed well in the campground and, to add to our tally, we found Western Tuft-tailed Rat, both Oustalet’s and Rhinoceros chameleons, and a glowing green Madagascar Day Gecko. This Western Osprey was a surprise discovery at Lac Ravelobe. There are fewer than 10 records for the entire region. In true form it came down and caught a fish. The pressure was on a bit the next morning as the return flight time had changed to midmorning the following day. It would be good if we could clean up the remaining endemic birds before lunch and the heat. So we set off on a forest trail in the cool of the early morning and quickly came across a perched France’s Victor Emanuel Nature Tours 8 Madagascar Highlights and Ampijoroa-Betsiboka Pre-trip, 2019 Sparrowhawk that allowed us good scope views. Good views continued with cracking looks at Crested Coua, Coquerel’s Coua, and Red-capped Coua—getting our coua list off to a healthy start. Rufous Vanga popped up next, followed by Blue Vanga, both lovely well-patterned species unique to Madagascar. It was another vanga that was amongst our top priorities—the rare Van Dam’s Vanga, often called either that damned vanga or just Claude! Our luck held again—no doubt helped very much by our superb local man on the ground, Jackie. He placed us in a prime zone and then bang, up they popped. They must have been feeding chicks, as they were not at all concerned by us, using their hefty plier mandibles to crunch bark, searching for well-hidden invertebrates. Phew, one down, two more to go. The White-breasted Mesite was giving us a tough time. We had been trawling for it and trawling for it. Finally a bird responded but would not come in. Jackie and Adriana plunged into the forest and, after a patient battle of human and mesite, they coaxed the mesite to the forest edge where it gave a good clear view before running across the track. Well done; the local guides in Madagascar live up to their reputation of being the best in the world in my experience, barring perhaps Papua New Guinea. There was time to do the boat trip on Lac Ravelobe. It produced the hoped for Madagascar Fish-Eagles, two adults and a recently fledged juvenile. This endangered eagle, the size of a Bald Eagle, has perhaps the only easily publicly accessible population at this location. A major surprise was finding a [Western] Osprey.
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