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Mammals

ARCTIC FOXES OF PYRAMIDEN

July 30, 2019

*A ‘Blue Fox’ runs off with a kittiwake wing (Mike Watson)*

*Ivory Gull, Nordenskjöldbreen (Mike Watson)*

Previously I have always been in a rush to get around the island of Spitsbergen within a sixteen-day timescale so that usually means turning left out of Longyearbyen and heading for the open sea. However, to the right lie the upper reaches of Isfjorden, an often-ignored wilderness of Arctic tundra, huge escarpments and remote glaciers. In fact, the fjord extends so deep into the island of Spitsbergen that it almost cuts it in two. For instance, the large glacier Nordenskjöldbreen that flows into the head of Billefjorden leads directly to the ice cap of Olav V Land on the east coast. I felt sure that some of the wildlife that is commoner on the east coast probably uses these routes across the island and whilst we couldn’t find any bears during our time in Isfjorden (there had been at least one around two weeks earlier) we did see Sabine’s and Ivory Gulls here.

*Worker’s accommodation building, Pyramiden (Mike Watson).*

Passing this way also allowed a not-to-be-missed opportunity to visit the abandoned Russian mining settlement at Pyramiden (after the mountain of the same name that overlooks the town). I must admit to finding post-industrial decay fascinating, maybe it goes back to growing up on Tyneside in the 1970s surrounded by similar scenes but I also know that such places usually very quickly become havens for wildlife. I heard that Pyramiden was very good for Arctic Foxes and this proved to be worth the admission price alone.

*Kittiwake colony on the workers’ accommodation building and the covered mine shaft railway line (Mike Watson).*

The rickety old wooden jetty gave an idea of what was to come, a ramshackle decaying Arctic town, much of which is being allowed to lie where it falls. Pyramiden and its coal rights were bought in 1926 by Russia but it was not until after WWII that it flourished as a coal mining community. By 1989 there were 715 men, 228 women and 71 children living there. However, it was abandoned in 1998 owing to poor coal reserves and quickly fell into disrepair. We were picked up in a rather smart Russian bus and transferred to the hotel, which acts as the hub for the tourist activities, which are obviously growing in popularity. Our expedition leader, Phil Wickens, remembers only a couple of people living here not so long ago but there are now 30, employed as guides and hotel workers.

Opposite the hotel, there is a large kittiwake colony nesting on the old workers’ accommodation building, occupying every window ledge and overflowing onto surrounding buildings and even onto the swings in the adjacent derelict children’s playground. The settlement is a fascinating step back in time to the Soviet era and we were lucky to be allowed inside five buildings: the workers’ canteen, Yuri Gagarin Sports Centre, Swimming Pool, Cinema and the school. Most are now in a state of decay, minus much of their furniture and some have been tidied up a bit unfortunately, presumably to make them a little safer. I particularly liked the canteen and its awesome polar scene mural in the main dining hall. It struck me that whereas I am usually amazed at how much older than expected other artefacts are in Svalbard, I was equally stunned to learn how comparatively new the derelict Russian buildings are, thanks to a combination of shoddy Soviet era workmanship and the harsh winter environment.

*Kittiwakes on the workers’ accommodation building (Mike Watson).*

*Kittiwake playground, Pyramiden (Mike Watson).*

*Workers’ canteen entrance (Mike Watson).*

*Mural in the former workers’ canteen (Mike Watson)*

*Lenin outside the Yuri Gagarin Sports Centre (Mike Watson).*

*Sports Hall in the Yuri Gagarin Sports Centre (Mike Watson).*

*Kittiwake colony, Pyramiden (Mike Watson).*

*Mine shaft railway, Pyramiden (Mike Watson)*

*Phil Wickens in the school building at Pyramiden (Mike Watson).*

It was not just the old buildings that were of interest, a pair of Long-tailed Jaegers flew over the jetty. We saw four separate Arctic Foxes, including two dark morphs (or ‘Blue Foxes’). Those up by the mine workings were taking numerous bits of kittiwake presumably to stash for the winter and the one that walked up to us by the jetty was particularly tame. The flora was good too, with Woolly Lousewort common (although now over) and of thistle proportions! Polar Dandelion and Arctic White Campion were growing everywhere among the buildings and Yellow Mountain Saxifrage was even to be found in coal deposits. A few of us had an evening in the bar of the restaurant sampling some nice Russian beer before hiking back to SV Noorderlicht and the 21st century. Thanks to Captain Floris Spikermann Immink and his crew of SV Noorderlicht and also to our expedition leader Phil Wickens for making the Pyramiden visit possible.

*Phil Wickens at Pyramiden Jetty (Mike Watson).*

*Arctic Fox, Pyramiden Jetty (Mike Watson).*

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PALLAS'S CAT

April 12, 2019

We were already thrilled by a great morning at Tso Kar that included Argali, Ground Tit, Upland Buzzard, Blanford’s Snowfinch and point blank Tibetan Sandgrouse but there was even more to come in the afternoon to make this my ultimate Tso Kar day and one of my best wildlife days ever. After a late lunch and a short break we set off again, hoping for a wolf, the last piece in our jigsaw, or so we thought. While cruising along slowly and checking some roadside birds I noticed a small cat trotting along the snow-free road ahead of us. It couldn’t be surely, could it? Well it was! Otzer turned on the gas and as we neared it, the cat veered off the road and crouched in front of a small raised patch of ground only a few metres away as I fired off a few frames at what was now clearly a Pallas’s Cat!!! Significantly rarer and more difficult to see in Ladakh than Snow Leopard, Jigmet mentioned that although he had now seen Snow Leopard more than 300 times but this was only his second Pallas’s Cat! The cat was clearly very cross at being disturbed and headed off across a nearby snowfield, pausing to scowl back at us every now and again. All three of our cars could watch its progress across the deep snow, a huge WOW moment for all of us. After a while a search party was assembled and Jigmet and his boys tracked the cat to a gully around half a kilometre away, where its trail went cold on bare ground. Time ticked away and the group of searchers dwindled, some connecting with a wolf that David Salt had spotted walking across the snow in front of the vehicles back at the roadside. However, after everyone else had given up and gone back to the Eco Resort at Thukje, Gyaltsen and Changchuk re-found the cat sitting at the entrance to a den in a small outcrop. Sadly too late for anyone to return in daylight and all that could be done was to admire the face-only portraits on their smartphones at evening meal.

*Pallas’s Cat tracks at Tso Kar [Mike Watson]*

*Pallas’s Cat den, Tso Kar [Mike Watson]*

Next morning we woke up and under clear skies it really was flipping freezing - a minimum of -32 Celsius was recorded just before dawn. Tso Kar acts as a cold sink for the air on the surrounding mountains. Our guys had stayed up all night keeping the vehicles ticking over so we were ready to roll. We headed out to the Pallas’s Cat den again but in a nutshell there was no sign this morning of its feisty little occupant, who was either fast asleep inside or had moved off to another nearby bolt-hole, of which there appeared to be several, along with more than one set of tracks! We had lunch and decided to get out of Tso Kar and enjoy some heating back in the Indus Gorge at Chumathang, our results at Tso Kar being well and truly off the scale. We crossed the now much snowier Polokonka La without incident, seeing a few Tibetan Snowcocks and en route Jigmet conjured up some great views of Stolicka’s Mountain Voles roadside at Puga Somdo, much to the delight of our small mammal enthusiast Linda. Some of the hot springs had plumes of ice frozen over them, such is the extreme cold here that boiling water freezes in the air.

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DARAINA REVISITED

October 7, 2018

*Golden-crowned Sifaka, Tattersalli Camp, Daraina*

The southeasterly tradewind buffeted our little ATR turbo prop aircraft on its approach to the tiny airport at Antsirinana (formerly Diego Suarez, hence the disturbing airport code on our baggage ‘DIE’) to the extent that our pilot had to abort our first landing attempt. We were thrown about a bit coming in from the northwest and just before we reached the runway he turned on the gas again and lifted the nose of the plane away from our target, before circling the large bay to the north and lining up properly next time for a text book landing into a strong headwind. There was some cheering from the passenger cabin when we finally touched down and drew to a halt. Outside we could see palms bent over in the wind and a few folks gathered outside the airport terminal and holding on to our hats we hurried inside to pick up bags and meet our 4WD drivers for the next few days. There are numerous adverts for kite surfing in the airport terminal, a clue to the reliability of strong winds here in northern Madagascar at this time of year. At least it was a warm wind, a bit like a hair dryer in fact. However, this was only the first minor hurdle involved in getting to the remote dry deciduous forests of northeastern Madagascar, which are home to some very special lemurs we were hoping to photograph.

*Golden-crowned Sifakas at Tattersalli Camp, Daraina. Over-grazed and eroded cleared hillsides contrasting with pristine dry deciduous forest.*

Next came a 12.5 hours road journey. The road south from Antsirinana to Anbilobe is part of the main arterial route from the north of Madagascar to the capital Antananarivo but not that you can tell now. Along with the rest of northeast Madagascar it was battered in March earlier this year by Tropical Storm Eliakim, the system, which was also responsible for much loss of life as well as the destruction of 30% of the country’s precious vanilla crop. There is now only a thin strip of tarmac in places and deep ruts to either side of it as well as most bridges down and diverted, which made our progress very slow. If that wasn’t bad enough, the unmetalled 100km section from Anvilobe to Daraina had been mostly destroyed to the point that there were at least one million detours around impassable sections, administered by locals with small barriers demanding a toll for passage on the new route they had cut by hand through the adjacent bush in many cases. We saw one feeble attempt at road repairs taking place in one location, otherwise the road, if you can still call it that had been abandoned by the authorities. The result was that we could only average 16kmph on this section for hours on end and we arrived at our destination, the conservation NGO Fanamby’s Tattersalli Camp at Daraina well after midnight. The same journey had taken ‘only’ nine hours last autumn and the ride was not nearly as bumpy as this time. We had to grip the handles of the 4WDs constantly lest we be hurled around inside like in a washing machine. Fortunately we did not have anyone with a spinal condition and we were all quite pragmatic about the adventure we had embarked on. Our spirits were raised when we discovered that our wonderful camp hosts had waited up for us and served us an evening meal after 1am, the first time I have had two evening meals in the same day on a tour! Eventually we hooked up our mosquito nets and settled in to our wooden huts on stilts, which overlooked a lovely patch of dry deciduous forest, home to all the special animals we were hoping to find over the next few days.

Understandably, not everyone was up at first light next day. However, the Golden-crowned Sifakas were, taking the early morning sunshine in treetops not far from the camp and visible from our verandas. After a little figuring out which trail from the dry streambed would take us closer to them we enjoyed some very nice views in the low angle sunlight as they descended to feed. Fab-u-lous! There was a family of seven, one of which was a mum with a tiny 1-2 months old baby clinging to her side. There were a couple of other family groups further away in the forest that we could see from time to time and another family from the woodland behind the camp visited on one day. However, most of our encounters involved the streambed family. There were more evergreen trees in the bottom of the valley and this is probably the prime territory for the sifakas.

Golden-crowned Sifaka is listed as critically endangered by IUCN owing to a declining, fragmented population and a very small range. It is only to be found in the Daraina region of northeast Madagascar. Another major attraction is that it is thought by many to be the most beautiful of all the lemurs but I guess that depends what your favourite colour is. We initially visited Daraina in the hope of seeing a naturally occurring Aye-aye but with two blanks now we have to simply regard it as a pilgrimage to see the sifaka. Well worth the effort in its own right in my opinion. The area in which Golden-crowned Sifaka is found is so remote that it was not described as a separate species until as recently as 1974! We counted a minimum of 27 sifakas during our stay and enjoyed several encounters with streambed family, which visited the trees adjacent to the camp each afternoon. Recent studies have suggested that the formerly more extensive range of this lemur actually contracted before the appearance of man (the ‘anthropocene’), owing to drought events changing the forest landscape.

*Crowned Lemur, Tattersalli Camp, Daraina*

Crowned Lemur is ‘merely’ endangered and occurs sympatrically with the sifakas in the dry deciduous forests of Daraina. There is also a family of this lovely lemur, which visits the camp each day to drink water, as well as to feed on the seeds of nearby bushes. It has a larger range, which extends to Ankarana and Mount Amber in the north. They were also very confiding and approachable making them ideal photo subjects with their incredibly sweet little facial expressions. Like Golden-crowned Sifaka, its range is severely fragmented and they face numerous threats, the main ones being habitat loss to slash and burn agriculture as well as hunting for food and the pet trade. Recently the forest has been occupied by low-tech gold prospectors, who dig large pits that kill trees by undermining their roots.

*‘Fanamby’ Fork-marked Lemur, Tattersalli Camp, Daraina*

‘Fanamby’ Fork-marked Lemur is potential new species of lemur, discovered in the forests of Daraina as recently as 2010. It occurs well outside the range of the four recognized forms of Fork-marked Lemur and will probably be named after the conservation NGO Fanamby, which has done much to protect remaining forest patches in this area. It will of course be instantly critically endangered. Fork-marked Lemurs’ diet consists mostly of tree gum rather than fruits. We could hear them calling in the forest surrounding the camp as soon as darkness fell and saw it in the spotlight a couple of times.

*Daraina Sportive Lemur, Tattersalli Camp, Daraina*

Daraina Sportive Lemur is another product of the recent trend to split lemur forms off as separate species and like those above it is listed as endangered by IUCN. It is subject to the same threats as the other lemurs too. Happily it was easy to see by day as well as by night during our stay and also a little more than the usual ‘jack-in-the-box’ view typical of roosting sportive lemurs, with their feet ready for a quick getaway.

Other interesting mammal species seen during our stay included Daraina Mouse Lemur and the introduced Common Palm Civet. Birds included Madagascar Harrier Hawk, which preys on small lemurs and its high-pitched screams could be heard regularly echoing across the forest. Madagascar Hoopoe could be seen regularly around our huts and both Rainforest Scops Owls and Madagascar Nightjars called around the camp when the sun went down.

It is easy to dwell on the desperate plight of the last remnants of the lovely forest in the Daraina region and blame the various factors for its demise but the main purpose of this post is to encourage more folks to make the journey to Daraina and thereby contribute to their conservation. It is important that the forests have a value to local people via eco-tourism instead of the one-off income from slash and burn agriculture or timber. Stays at Daraina can be arranged via Fanamby here or on our new Northern Madagascar tour itinerary from 2020 onwards.

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GIANT ANTEATER

September 3, 2018

THE FIRST EVENING MEAL ON MY RECENT WILD IMAGES TOUR WAS INTERRUPTED BY NEWS OF A 'TAMANDUA BANDEIRA' (i.e. a Giant Anteater (!)) nearby. We all rushed out and enjoyed a show-stopping night-time encounter with this amazing creature, which usually rests up during the day and goes foraging for termites at night. This particular individual is a regular visitor to the lodge grounds at the lovely Pouso Alegre and has been fed (raw eggs among other things) by lodge staff here for some time. It is therefore very tame and relaxed around people. Nevertheless it was worth reminding ourselves that these ostensibly peaceful animals have been known to kill people with their incredibly powerful bear-like claws so we were sure to leave it some space where possible! Giant Anteaters have very poor eyesight and encounters can sometimes be very close indeed, as this one was. Some of the horses in the same paddock as the anteater, bolted past in the dark but the anteater was unfazed and continued on its way. We returned to the dining room to pick up where we had left off (I was just about to give a talk about photographing Giant Anteaters among other things - bolting horse sprang to mind again). It was getting late now and time for bed and as we headed to our rooms the anteater sauntered past.

The following day we were returning to the lodge and paused to photograph a Jabiru feeding on small crabs in a roadside pool when the anteater was spotted again, this time in broad daylight, wandering towards the lodge grounds. We were able to catch up with it easily, they never seem to go anywhere in a hurry and enjoyed some more point blank views. We were able to photograph against a variety of backgrounds, including plenty of non-manmade as well as man-made ones before it made its way back into the forest. Maybe the overcast sky of the cold front had done us a favour after all as they usually rest in the shade on sunny days.

There are at least one million interesting facts about Giant Anteaters. Here are just a few. For a start it has a very low body temperature for a mammal of only 33 degrees Celsius. Its bear-like claws, used for breaking into termite nests are so long that it has to walk on its knuckles. Its sense of smell is 40 times more sensitive than us and its tongue is so long it is anchored to its sternum and can reach 45cm beyond its mouth! It cannot produce stomach acid of its own but used the formic acid of its prey to aid digestion. I didn’t even mention the extraordinary shape of its head yet. What an incredible creature!

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ARCTIC FOXES OF PYRAMIDEN

PALLAS'S CAT

DARAINA REVISITED

GIANT ANTEATER