I see my posts have become discombobulated and out of order, but let’s press on. Comoros continues to amaze, and after dinner this evening, Anne and I walked down to the water to sit and watch the fruit bats come home to roost for the night. What a sight!
Anyway, new birds for today include this incredible sunbird, who might be a purple sunbird (Cinnyris asiaticus), but we are a bit out of their range, so I’m not sure yet.
Next, we have this bee-eater, my first one ever, and which may be a Madagascar bee-eater (Merops superciliosus). There were a few of them perched high in trees and making sorties to collect insects from the air.
This shy bird, in the same tree as the bee-eater above, but hiding under the canopy, is a bulbul, and I’m hoping that it is a Grande Comore bulbul (Hypsipetes parvirostris), because that would be my first endemic bird. The folks at ebird, however, say that they are “endemic to the middle and high elevations of the mountains of Grand Comoro,” and I spotted it at about sea level, so it is probably a Malagasy bulbul (Hypsipetes madagascariensis) instead. Oh well. Still crazy cool, right?
But wait! There’s more. Here’s my very first myna, a common myna (Acridotheres tristis). At one point, Anne and I saw at least a dozen of them foraging together in the grass.
Finally, I’ve gotta wrap this up because it is getting late, but not all the astounding creatures here have wings, and this is just one example. As far as I can tell, this is a Alticus anjouanae, which is a species of combtooth blenny for which Wikipedia appears not to have a common name. They are fish, but there were dozens of them hopping around on the rocks just above the waterline, munching on algae, I believe, and actively working to prevent the waves from washing them off.
Tomorrow, Anne and I are branching out from the capital city, Moroni, to see some sights on the east side of the island. Wish us luck!
Signs of Life in Estabrook Park 