try2seeitall

After a few days of catching up with emails and other business, my nephew Scott was able to set me up with a three-day visit to Mpala Research Centre, the place where he did his undergraduate thesis on termites while at Princeton. He still has connections because some of his friends he graduated with are currently working as Princeton-in-Africa Fellows and he is currently serving as a project manager at another site an hour or so away and he comes to visit when he has time. I will talk more about his duties at Ol Pejeta in a future post. 

The ride up to Mpala was made more pleasant because the local taxi driver that I was riding with was excited to tell me about his country when he heard it was my first visit to Kenya. I learned a lot as he told me what we were seeing all along the drive.  We saw all kinds of domestic animals and even a very large herd of camels. This is the dry season and the colors of the landscape were mostly in the range of dull brown, dull green, and golden yellow. The sky was bright blue and nearly free of clouds. As we approached the research station we saw plains zebras, a solo elephant, and a bunch of tiny antelope called dik-dik, and lots of beautiful birds. 

The first person I met was Ciara, one of the Princeton Fellows, who showed me to my room and along the way introduced me to Julius, who was one of the main people in charge of security. He was the first of many people I met that day who had nice things to say about Scott. This was part of what made me feel welcome, but there was a calmness about the place that made me feel like I had been introduced to a little slice of heaven. This was bound to be great.

To learn more about Mpala Research Centre, click on the link below.

http://www.mpala.org/

It was a great trip in Madagascar. Hope to travel with you and the rest of the Madagascar Frogging Adventure Group. Now it is on to Kenya for ten days

The coastal city of Toliara was our final destination of the trip. We stayed at a quirky hotel that was shaped like a cruise ship and just a few minutes’ walk from the beach. It was here that many in our group did their shopping for gifts to bring back home to loved ones. Some enjoyed the bargaining, but I was just walking the town for amusement. I have to travel light and I have many miles and quite a few countries to visit before I return home. I was looking forward to the fresh seafood that would be available. We went to a local beach restaurant outside of the main part of town and had a multi-course seafood feast where some of the food was so fresh it was still moving on our plates. 

The coastal vegetation around Toliara is adapted to a different climate that is much drier. The habitat is called the spiny forest and the plants are unique. We visited two locations where we saw some weird plants, but we also saw some new animals. Lizards, snakes, and even a frog made appearances.  

For photos of Toliara and the surrounding area click here

On the drive from Isalo to the west coast we passed through the sapphire mining town of Ilakaka; once a rather lawless and wild part of Madagascar, it has since calmed down. It still made for some colorful photo opportunities from the window of our bus. 

Next on the list was Zombitse-Vohibasia National Park which protects a fragment of dry forest that is popular with birders because of several locally endemic species, some of which we saw. In the park we also saw Standing’s day gecko, Phelsuma standingi. We saw an amazing little lemur (pictured above) that Devin said has only been photographed by a few people. What probably impressed him the most was a rare species of vine snake with a long nose.

This trip has delivered more than promised!

Check out the pictures here.

Isalo National Park is the most visited of Madagascar’s parks. The park protects the Isalo Massif, a long network of sandstone canyons that is a favorite of trekkers. Here we were able to see some beautiful scenery and, because of good fortune, we were able to get two people from the park to lead our group while we were there; the head of research for the park and a very knowledgeable local guide. We were told by Devin not to expect much in the way of amphibians because it had been very dry. So expecting to see Mantella expectata, a species which in some seasons has bright sky-blue legs, was likely unrealistic.

Scaphiophryne gottlebei, a slightly larger small frog was another on the list of unlikelies, and we set out first to find it in a large grotto that in times of rain, gets massive amounts of water dumped into it from above. The site itself was unusual and worth the short hike, even if we were not successful in finding our little frog buddy. On the way in we saw an endemic owl, which some in our group managed to photograph, but this time I was bringing up the rear, and the owl was spooked before I could get the right lens on the camera. The frog was there, inside one of the many small holes along the back wall. Without the head of research along, we probably would not have found it. He only found one (pictured above) and we took turns photographing it. The photo shoot took about an hour, and during that time no one else found another one. Lucky we were!

So now it was time to set out on the long uphill climb to where Mantella expectata might be found. We were all sweating profusely by the time we got to the first potential site, where there was a little stream of water coming down from the pinnacles above, forming many small pools. The little pools looked like a good place for a little frog to live, but the whole group did not find a single frog. We repeated the process two more times without success and we figured three strikes and we were out. I started photographing scenery and people. Our expert had one more place to look, and there too we had no luck…until Sean Betti started looking under rocks away from the stream. There it looked bone-dry, and the usual suspects—scorpions and geckos—were turning up. They were interesting, but not really what we were after. Then just as we were about to give up, Sean said, “I found one.”

For more pictures and a photo of the striking Mantella epectata click here. Try to see if you can find it. This specimen does not have sky-blue legs, but they are blue. The Frog Whisperer is holding it.

Anja Park was a short diversion on our way to Isalo National Park. It is a community-managed reserve protecting a small fragment of dry forest at the base of several large granite domes. Although I had seen ring-tailed lemurs that had been rescued at a park outside Antananarivo, the rest of the group had not.  Here they were habituated, but still wild, and free to roam as they pleased. We also saw snakes, and once again it was Sean Betti who captured it for all to see. We saw some of the smallest of chameleons as well as some of the largest. It was here that our veterinarian, Brad, noticed that one had a mouth infection and he did his best to help him out.

For more photographs of Anjo Park click here

Ranomafana National Park consists of over 100,000 beautiful acres of mid-rainforest. It is one of the most visited of the national parks in Madagascar. It is a magical place especially when you see the mist rising through the forest from the raging river in the valley. It is known for its lemurs, and we saw several species. This is one of the places where we were not allowed into the park at night so we did our night hike along the road. It was raining pretty much when we left so I left my good camera at the lodge for the first night hike and I opted out of the second night hike (which turned out to be a mistake because it was even more productive than the first), so I am hoping one of my companions will upload some photos that I can use. I did get some photos of lemurs that are posted in the photos of current adventures.

I am going to have to shorten some of my posts and hope that others will add some detail, because I am sitting in Kenya now trying to catch up.

For more Ranomafana pictures click here.

The photo has nothing to do with the next story, except maybe you can imagine a man contemplating his situation in life. It was taken at the Cowani Site and I will try to tie something together in my typical random thought way.

Stories don’t always have happy endings. Sometimes they start out looking like it is going to end in tragedy and things turn out OK. Take the time, many years ago, my future wife was riding to school on her bike, hurrying to get to an 8 a.m. class. A city bus began to pass her while at the same time they both hit a patch of icy road. Her bike slid out from under her and away from the bus. She went towards the bus, hit the ground; slid under the moving bus, behind the front wheels. The driver never saw what happened and continued on his way. She remembered everything like it was in slow motion, as the right rear tires passed within inches of her head; the left rear tires just missed her feet. The construction workers that saw it happen, rushed to help her expecting to find much worse. She picked herself up, took a few deep breaths, walked over to her bike, and found it to be in working order and continued to class. She called me after class (as I went to a different university), still obviously shaken. I remember it as if it were yesterday. I find my fingers shaking typing this as I recall the conversation. Life would have been different. Sometimes important things are a matter of inches or of seconds. 

Remember the early morning start time in the last post? Well I think a new family story and a new word phrase has been placed into use. You can say Whack whack whack, or the ice cream story, or the parrot fish story, and the appropriate family member will be embarrassed or the moral of the story will be conveyed without saying anything more at our family gatherings. It will go something like this, You Tenrecked it. The phrase will be used when you try to do something good and it comes out horrible. No happy ending here. 

Here is the story. Maybe by telling it first, and hiding it between much more serious events, I will avoid repeated embarrassment, but I doubt it. My nephew Scott (the only person on the tour who has not successfully bred exotic frogs, and more of a mammal enthusiast) and I were hurrying to the dining room of the lodge. He spotted a tiny little mammal scurrying around the foundation of the next bungalow. I could see that it was black and white and looked a little like a hedgehog. He said in an extremely excited whisper, “It’s a spiny tenrec.” (If you don’t know what one looks like, you will have to google it, because I didn’t take a picture.) It was about to make its way into the brush in an attempt to escape our notice. Scott, again in an excited whisper, said something like, “Don’t let it get to the bushes, I want to get a picture.” Well, in an attempt to comply, so that Scott could do his part to try2seeitall, I stepped in front of it with the same left foot that in a few hours would wind up in the rice paddy, and slipped. Since you know this is not going to be a happy story you can guess the rest. I tenrecked it. Both our eyes got big and we knew the potential this story had for future family gatherings. The guy who helped worms get across the sidewalk when he was a boy as the sun would come out and the guy on the tour who would be least likely to manipulate an animal to get a better photograph gets stuck with coining a new phrase.

On a much more serious note, Scott’s “day at the office” did not go well. He called me when I was working on this post in his apartment a few hours north of Nairobi (where we flew into a couple of days ago) to tell me that one of his bosses was in the hotel that is probably making national news back home as I am writing this today. He is alright, but not everyone was and the death toll topped 20 with details still emerging. He had to hide in a hotel closet for many hours and he is going back to the States as soon as he is able. I don’t want to give any more details than that, but if you are interested you can Google: The 2019 DusitD2 complex attack . As in life, when you travel, it’s not all good.

Our local guide who lives near the site of a rare and interesting little frog that scientists call Mantella cowani said we would have to get up early to hike to the location where it could be found. We had to eat breakfast and be ready to go by 4 a.m. It was still dark when we set off in the direction of a granite mountain top we had seen the day before near the place where the van had a flat. We could not see it then but our guide knew the way. By the time it got to be light enough to turn off our headlamps we could see three granite round peaks. Of course, the one we were going to was the farthest away. I had already taken a misstep trying to cross an irrigation channel and wound up with one leg knee-deep in the mud of a rice paddy.

The hike was strenuous, but the trail was pretty well established. It passed by a small Catholic church with a school consisting of a few white buildings. It was closed today, but our guide said it was still a functioning institution. Our group was pretty spread out by the time we got to a fork in the trail. Because our guide was a frail-looking man, who looked older than me, I did my best to keep up. Honestly, it was not as hard as the Vohimana hike, and I was starting to get in shape. Devin, who had never been to this site, was staying in the sweeper position, making sure no one was left behind. The fork we took was the smaller path, which quickly put us out of sight of the main path. The people lagging behind remained on the main path and began wandered the hills. Eventually they ran into a local person approaching from the opposite direction and asked if he had seen any foreigners. He said no, so they began backtracking. It wasn’t until about an hour later that we saw them preparing to cross the stream. I felt bad, because as soon as we crossed the stream, we started seeing cool stuff in this unusual habitat, and it never dawned on me that everyone was not there.

Back to the frogs . . . Cowani, as we call it, is a critically endangered frog that probably never was very common and has not done well in captivity. It is a bold little frog that seems at home on the dark large exposed granite. The rock stays wet, it seems, at least at this time of the year, as there is a ribbon of water that runs down the face. Where the water comes from is hard to imagine as it is the highest point around and it wasn’t raining. The rock was covered with white lichen and the frogs seemed to be searching through the folds of the lichen looking for the tiniest of bugs. Occasionally, you would see small flying termites get stuck to the moisture and quickly get gobbled up. The abundance of food made for some healthy looking little frogs. The better photographers must have gotten some great photographs as the lighting was ideal. I hope they will share. I mostly took pictures of people and scenery.

The frogs were not the only things worthy of photographs. It was a unique habitat filled with orchids, sundews and other plants I had never seen. Even our plant experts in the group were amazed at the number of species they had never seen. And Mike took the opportunity to fly the drone again. I got some interesting photos.

See more photos from the Cowani Site here.

The way to what our group called the Cowani site was a long travel day. Travel by road is slow in Madagascar. Our group had a great bus and bus driver. I was able to do a lot of photo editing while on the road but sometimes I had to look up and enjoy the view or get involved in lively conversation.

To get to the lodge where we stayed required a smaller vehicle. The road was narrow, the bridges looked like they were made out of sticks that definitely would not have supported our larger bus and the path usually was traveled only by foot, bicycle, or Zebu cart. So we squeezed into a tiny old transport van and made our way up to the Sous le Soleil Lodge, expecting to be packed like sardines for about an hour. The fully loaded vehicle started to bottom out every time we hit a small dip. Our driver was starting to look a little worried and eventually we came to a stop. The left rear tire was nearly flat. We all got out and the driver quickly went to work changing the tire in the mud.

Some of us took the chance to meet local people walking down the road. Mike, our tour operator, had a better idea and not wanting to waste time, he unpacked his drone. It was not the first time he flew it–I had heard it before. It sounds a lot like an angry swarm of bees on the move. It was, however, the first time I had seen the local people’s reaction to a really cool technology they probably had never seen. Mike worked on aircraft while he was in the U. S. Air Force and he is a skilled technician. He is mild mannered and kind. The joy you could see on Mike’s face when people were surrounding him to see what the drone was seeing was the highlight of the journey to the lodge. I hope to collaborate with Mike at the end of my adventure to edit together some of his video with some of mine to tell a visual story. Mike was making the most of his time, as we all should.