Madagascar — Andasibe lemurs
I’ve wanted to come here for years. I am finally here for a real trip — ten days, three parks, and a guide who has been working Andasibe since before he had a camera to show tourists.
Our morning began with the Indri call. If you haven’t heard an Indri, it’s the loudest call of any primate and it carries for two kilometers. We followed a group through the trees for almost an hour. I got a few decent frames of a female with a baby on her back — more luck than skill.
Beyond Indri: Common Brown Lemur crossed our path three times, curious as always. Diademed Sifaka leaping between trees in what looks like slow motion. A single Avahi (woolly lemur) asleep with its head tucked that our guide spotted from a ridiculous distance.
Birds: Madagascar Paradise Flycatcher was the bird of the day. The white morph male floats like a sheet of paper. Magpie Robin at the lodge. A Velvet Asity (a tiny blob of a bird that’s one of Madagascar’s endemic oddities) that the guide said took him a year to first spot.
Herps: a panther chameleon on a roadside bush that let me work the macro for fifteen minutes. Several Tomato Frogs at the lodge. Leaf-tailed Gecko at dusk that I can’t quite believe I saw.
