It was our last day here, so we just hung out at the hotel and watched the birds and bats. I finally got a real nice picture of that mysterious blue/purple sunbird, and I now believe I have it identified correctly as a Malagasy sunbird (Cinnyris notatus). My best guess for the confusion is that the sunlight has never been right to see the green, just as the heads of mallard drakes usually look green and only sometimes look blue, when the feathers catch the sun just right.

Meanwhile, I believe that this cutie is a female of the species.

The mongoose was out again this afternoon, perhaps to wish us safe travels.

I’ve been seeing bronze mannikins here on the island now and then, but this afternoon this one let me have my best portrait yet.

As the afternoon wore on, the bats started returning from their day in the forest searching for fruit, and here’s a pair.

Anne and I noticed that as they arrived and started to settle in for the night, some would appear to skim the surface of the Indian Ocean. Sure enough, the fine folks at Nature Seychelles Conservation report that “close observations show that the bats dip their chests in the water as they fly over and then lick the water off when they roost,” and that “many Pteropus species are found in coastal areas and islands and have been seen drinking salt water” probably to “to supplement certain minerals lacking in their diet.”

Finally, let me leave you with this pretty image of a plain tiger butterfly, aka African queen or African monarch (Danaus chrysippus)

I got out nice and early this morning and had the hotel grounds and its critters mostly to myself for a while, and my first sighting was a pair of common mynas, which I only saw for the first time just yesterday. This one let me get a nice detailed look at it, and then I turned to continue my search, but I soon heard the two excitedly discussion something.

When I turned back to see what they might be all excited about, I could not believe my eyes as this stunning creature emerged from a hole in the ground. I’ve never seen such a thing before, so I looked it up to find that it is a small Indian mongoose (Urva auropunctata). Will wonders ever cease?

Later, I even spotted two of them scurrying over the rocks by the water. What an absolute treat!

After breakfast, Anne and I went on a little tour along the southern edge of the island, and an early stop was at a mangrove swamp where we all saw a couple of great egrets, which are always beautiful, but my favorite sight was this young-looking striated heron (Butorides striata) creeping through the canopy. Some of you might be thinking, “doesn’t that look awfully similar to the green herons we see in Estabrook Park, and you are correct because I read that “this bird was long considered to be conspecific with the closely related North American species, the green heron, which is now usually separated as Butorides virescens.”

We eventually made it down to the southern tip of the island where we could see the island of Mohéli about 40 km away, and where Anne found this stunning sight for me, a common leopard or spotted rustic butterfly (Phalanta phalantha).

Tomorrow is our last full day here, and then we begin the long journey home.

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!

I’ve got some time at the airport in Lilongwe with good connectivity and power, so let me show you a little more from Malawi in case conditions are not so good when we arrive in Comoros.

For a break from all the birds, here’s a vervet monkey from my visit to the Lilongwe Wildlife Centre yesterday. It was one of a large troupe monkeying around along the Namanthanga River.

Here’s a brown-veined white butterfly (Belenois aurota) from along the highway outside the wildlife centre

And were are a couple of African striped skinks (Trachylepis striata), warming up in the morning sun on the wall around Jelia Park, where we stayed for a few days in Dowa for Anne’s research.

Anne and I arrived in the tiny island nation of Comoros in the Indian Ocean this afternoon, and things got off to an interesting start. The jet parked right in front of the shiny new terminal building, we exited out onto the tarmac, we were instructed to hike instead to the old terminal building a few hundred yards to the south, and then skies opened up. Anne and I did our best to hustle with our luggage, but we were both pretty soaked as we went through passport control and immigration. At least I kept my camera bag dry. Ha!

But the show must go on, and so we took a taxi to the hotel Anne picked out for us, we checked in, we stepped out the back to check out the ocean view, and I saw the weirdest looking bird flap lazily by. The body looked at least as big as a Cooper’s hawk and almost as big as a red-tailed hawk. It was the most incongruous sight.

I said to Anne, “that looks like a giant bat!”

Sure enough, we didn’t have to wait long before we saw a couple perch in a nearby tree so we could get a better look.

Best of all, one eventually perched close enough for me to get a real good look. Say hello to a Seychelles fruit bat or Seychelles flying fox (Pteropus seychellensis). I could hardly believe my eyes or my luck to get to see such an amazing sight.

As it got closer to sunset, they became more and more plentiful, and we estimated that there were as many as a couple dozen flying or perching over the grounds around the hotel. I read that they can weigh “approximately 600g, and can have a wingspan of up to 1.1m long.”

Finally, to wrap up on a more traditional note, Anne also spotted this stunner, a red fody (Foudia madagascariensis), just hanging out on a palm frond about 20 feet away. The light was getting pretty low by then, so the image is real grainy and the red runs together, but I think you get the idea. Comoros is amazing!

Sorry about skipping another day, but there was a lot going on yesterday, and I never had a good time with both connectivity and power. I did see more great birds, however, and I’ll be able to show them to you eventually. Today, Anne and I are flying to Comoros for the next phase of our trip, and here’s a darling black-and-white mannikin (Spermestes bicolor) to keep you company until I can post again. We saw bronze mannikins when we were here last October, but this is my first black-and-white.

For comparison, here’s another bronze from the same location.

Connectivity continues to be sporadic, partly due to the nature of the trip of Anne’s that I’ve piggybacked onto, but I continue to see new birds, and I’ll get to show them all to you eventually.

In the meantime, here’s a pair of little cuties to keep you going, and these are called cut-throats (Amadina fasciata). Yes, that’s their real name, click the link if you don’t believe me. We spotted them at the edge of Lake Malawi, and they would occasionally take a peck at each other as they perched on that branch and preened.

Sorry about the radio silence. I thought I would have connectivity, but that hasn’t really turned out the be the case. Anyway, I have been seeing a lot of incredible birds, many of which are completely new to me, and here’s one of them a red-billed firefinch (Lagonosticta senegala).

That’s all I have the bandwidth to show you now, unfortunately, but I’ll have a lot more for you eventually.

Anne and I arrived safely in Malawi and are now finishing up a wonderful dinner with her colleagues in Lilongwe. I even got to see some birds this afternoon, but I’ve gotta make a quick post because of limited bandwidth.

I was thrilled to get another look at the amazing variable sunbird. There were a pair flitting back and forth between a powerline and a tree in the yard. Here’s the male:

And here’s the female:

Finally, I believe this is a new bird for me, a spotted flycatcher. It winters down here, in southern Africa, and will probably soon fly to Europe for breeding season.

Tomorrow, we all drive to the Nkotakhata Wildlife Reserve to see what we can see. I’ll keep you posted.

Anne and I will be spending all day in airports and airplanes, but when we finally arrive in Malawi, I look forward to seeing another black-throated wattle-eye.

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