Madagascar Trip Report
5th - 14th October 2022
Rice paddy fields in southern Madagascar
Before Covid struck I had arranged an autumn trip to South Africa, but with another volume in the 'Wildlife of the World' series in mind I decided to pay a brief visit to Madagascar first to fill in a few gaps from my previous visit in 2010. I worked out my itinerary then contacted Brett Massoud of Dadamanga Travel who did a brilliant job of organising exactly what I needed. The following is a brief summary of the trip:
Andasibe
I'd decided to try and do the whole trip speaking only French, and struck gold with my french-speaking driver Didi.... reliable, good company but most importantly a superb, safe driver even on Madagascar's sadly deteriorating roads. He picked me up at the airport, sorted out a local sim card and then we headed straight for my first stop at Andasibe, where I was hoping to get photos of Madagascar's biggest lemur the Indri, and record its beautiful, haunting call.
Up early the next morning, we were the first into Andasibe-Mantadia National Park when it opened at 08:00am. Tina our National Park guide was excellent, quickly finding a troop of Indri which I spent about an hour photographing. We then spent the rest of the day exploring the park followed by a night walk in a private reserve nearby, seeing a total of seven species of lemur as well as a variety of snakes, lizards, invertebrates etc.... an excellent first day!
Mother and baby Indri (Indri indri)
Giraffe Weevil (Trachelophorus giraffa)
Diademed Sifaka (Propithecus diadema)
Lake Ampitabe
Another early start, this time towards Lake Ampitabe where I was due to stay at the Palmarium Hotel. This is effectively an open-air zoo with various species of introduced, tame lemurs roaming the grounds. They also have captive Aye-aye on a small island where guests can go and watch them being fed each evening.
The hotel is lovely, with a large area of secondary rainforest to explore full of wild birds, amphibians, reptiles and invertebrates. However, I did find it sightly worrying that some of the guests seemed unaware that the aye-ayes and various lemurs stealing food from the restaurant, were'nt actually wild animals.
Tame Aye-aye (Daubentonia madagascariensis)
Spotted Madagascar Reed Frog (Heterixalus punctatus)
Berenty
Next on the itinerary was a flight down to Berenty reserve in the far south, the poorest part of the country which hasn't been helped by severe drought in recent years. Here the habitat is very different with extenisive areas of dry and spiny forest, both teeming with facinating birds, reptiles, invertebrates and of course lemurs.
Apart from a colony of brown lemurs that were introduced some forty years ago the lemurs here are all native, but as with much of madagascar they are very much habituated to the presence of people. My guide Lambert, like all my guides on this trip was excellent... patient, hard-working and very knowledgable.
Jewel Beetle (Buprestidae sp.)
Verreaux's Sifaka (Propithecus verreauxi)
Giant Coua (Coua gigas)
White-footed sportive lemur (Lepilemur leucopus)
Madagascar Nightjar (Caprimulgus madagascariensis) with chicks
Antananarivo
Back in Antananarivo I had a few hours spare so Brett arranged for a new driver Fano to pick me up and take me to Tsarasaotra Park, which is a small private nature reserve with a lake, marsh and woodland, all crammed with bird life.
Fano guided me around and I spent an excellent few hours photographing the many species of egrets, herons and ducks as well as kingfishers, dragonflies and butterflies.
Madagascar Kingfisher (Corythornis vintsioides)
Squacco Heron (Ardeola ralloides)
Overall, the trip was a success and I came away with all the photos, video and sound recordings I was hoping for. Madagascar is a poor country with limited infrastructure and not an easy place to travel. I was very impressed with Dadamanga Travel who's professionalism and adaptability were key to the success of the trip and I'd strongly recommend anyone visting the country to get in touch with them. You also couldn't find a better driver than Didi Razafimahaleo (didirazafimahaleo@gmail.com) and I'd recommend Lambert Dimilahy (lambertdimilahy@gmail.com) if you're visiting Berenty. Madagascar has some of the most amazing and unique wildlife in the world but also some of the biggest conservation challenges, and the country certainly needs more responsible tourists to visit and support their efforts.
Mammal Species Lists
Many madagascan people feed wild animals and also capture and relocate them to make it easier to show them to tourists, particularly chameleons and lemurs. As a result the line between 'captive' and 'wild' has become blurred. Below I have listed the 'wild' mammal species I saw, which I have defined as those living in their historic habitat without depending on direct support from people such as feeding. However, all the mammals I saw during the trip apart from the flying foxes were habituated to people viewing them on a more or less daily basis.
Andasibe
Indri (Indri indri)Diademed Sifaka (Propithecus diadema)
Common Brown Lemur (Eulemur fulvus)
Eastern Woolly Lemur (Avahi laniger)
Grey Bamboo Lemur (Hapalemur griseus)
Weasel Sportive Lemur (Lepilemur mustelinus)
Goodman's Mouse Lemur (Microcebus lehilahytsara)
Berenty Reserve
Ring-tailed Lemur (Lemur catta)Verreaux's Sifaka (Propithecus verreauxi)
White-footed Sportive Lemur (Lepilemur leucopus)
Gray Mouse Lemur (Microcebus murinus)
Reddish-gray Mouse Lemur (Microcebus griseorufus)
Madagascar Flying Fox (Pteropus rufus)
Warty Chameleon (Furcifer verrucosus)