After a wonderful night of sleep, everyone was awakened at 6
AM for a traditional Malagasy breakfast of rice, rice, some eggs, and more
rice.
I had also barely stepped out of my tent when I glimpsed my
first Madagascar Blue Pigeon, Madagascar Bulbuls, and Souimanga Sunbirds. As the sun rose
above the forested ridges of Maromizaha, I heard the trumpeting calls of Indris
echoing across the valley. Though they were quite far away, the Indris’ cries
were quite resonant, and I couldn’t wait to see the cat-sized, panda-colored
creatures that made them.
Not long after the Indris had quieted down, our breakfast
was interrupted by two giant blue things that glided into a tree right above
us, grabbed a small chameleon from a leaf, and proceeded to fight over it
tug-of-war-style before finally tearing it apart and eating it.
They were Blue Couas:
large cuckoo-like birds that resembled a cross between a roadrunner and a
Stellar’s Jay. Much like Stellar’s Jays, they were as feisty as they were
beautiful. They made a wide variety of unusual sounds, and in all my travels, I
have never seen any bird quite like them.
After breakfast and a short lecture, our group of 16
students was split into 3 smaller groups that went off in search of lemurs and
other interesting wildlife. For the group I was with, our quarry was the
Diademed Sifaka- a great golden creature that is considered one of the most
beautiful lemur species. Fortunately for us, the Sifakas and Indris in
Maromizaha have become habituated to human researchers following them around
for years. Thus, when we did finally encounter the sifakas, they couldn’t care
less about how close we were to them. The group of four that we saw just
continued to eat leaves, groom themselves, and make the occasional giant leaps
from trunk to trunk. They were so close, it was almost like watching them in a
zoo!
Pictures will come later- the bandwidth at Ranomafana won't allow it.
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