Day 11 - Sunday 13/09/2015: Ifaty
Today we had a dawn start and did most of our birding in the spiny forest before we had a very late breakfast. The spiny forest is a sub-desert habitat in the SW coastal strip of Madagascar. It consists of various unusual succulents with broad unbranched fibrous trunks and a relatively small branch and leaf section at the top; and several varieties of plants with large thorns. It was difficult to establish how much of this habitat remains; none of it is legally protected; available wood everywhere in Madagascar is reduced to charcoal with no thought given to conservation of unprotected areas or the sustainability of the process. The area we visited belongs to a local man (Mosa) who makes a living from guiding various bird groups to see the ornithological highlights of the spiny forest – even he allows a small amount of charcoaling on his property.
Mosa’s land was only a 5 minute drive from our hotel. On arrival Brian gave him our shopping list of species we wished to see, and we were successful in seeing all of them. On entering Moosa’s property we found several Sakalava Weaver nests and their inhabitants, though unfortunately I didn’t see any males with a bright yellow head. We were then taken to a roost tree for Subdesert Mesite and found 7 all huddled together along one branch. In walking through the area the other subdesert specialties we encountered were: Running Coua, Green-capped Coua, Long-tailed Ground-roller, Lafresneye’s Vanga, Archbolds Newtonia, Subdesert Brush-warbler and Subdesert Tetraka. A Madagascar Harrier-hawk flew over calling. We were shown to a nest of the exceedingly rare Banded Kestrel, but no-one was home. We spent our last hour in the forest trying to track down this bird and eventually one flew over our heads giving us all a reasonably good flight view. We also added the local specialty lemur – the White-footed Sportive Lemur. All in all an excellent and most successful morning in the field. On our way out of the area we were pursued by numerous village children trying to sell us necklaces and wood carvings – I bought wood-carvings of a Baobab and a Zebu.
After our 10:30 breakfast we had an hour or so to wander onto the beach and paddle. The large bay at Ifaty holds a reef extending several kilometers from shore, beyond which we could see the waves of the Indian Ocean breaking at its outer limit in the distance. The water in this bay was extremely shallow and we could see the knees of people looking for shellfish etc more than a kilometer from shore. We didn’t go far out but we did see numerous starfish.
Our late breakfast was followed by an early lunch at 12:00, in order that we could continue with our wildlife viewing. We set off back the way we came along the sandy track to Tulear. We stopped along the way to look for the scarce and local Madagascar Plover and soon found a pair of these along with the more widespread, but still new to me, White-fronted Plover.
Our late breakfast was followed by an early lunch at 12:00, in order that we could continue with our wildlife viewing. We set off back the way we came along the sandy track to Tulear. We stopped along the way to look for the scarce and local Madagascar Plover and soon found a pair of these along with the more widespread, but still new to me, White-fronted Plover.
Our itinerary allowed for more time to look for waders on our way to the hotel in Tulear, but since we fell under the whims and vagaries of Air Madagascar (colloquially known as ‘Air Maybe’) tomorrow it was decided that we would try to do tomorrow mornings’ activities this evening. So we continued past Tulear and back to the area of thorn scrub mentioned yesterday about 20 minutes from town along route N7. Here we were looking for two very local species. It was an unsuccessful effort but it was pleasant to walk through this scrubby habitat and see a different type of vegetation in the evening sunlight. On the down side, locals were bringing out wood and bags of charcoal along the track through this area the whole time we were there.
We returned to Tulear and the Hotel Victory as the sun set. I had a quick swim in the hotel pool before dinner and bed.