And another long-awaited encounter

Not with an animal this time, but an atmospheric phenomenon. My first attempt at seeing the aurora was in Iceland, in 2004. Nothing, despite a clear sky. My second attempt was in Norway, in 2005, and I did catch a glimpse of the Northern Lights. They appeared as just a couple of muted green streaks in the sky, which maybe lasted for fifteen minutes before they faded away. Nothing daunted (it did, after all take me more than twenty years to finally see a leopard in the wild) I tried Finland, Greenland and Svalbard. I did get to see polar bears in Svalbard, which are probably even more difficult to see than the the aurora, so I was lucky. But the spectacle in the sky still eluded me. 

Recently we've taken to revisiting places when, for one reason or another, there was something we didn't see the first time round. My last post, in the Gambia, was one of those. We also revisited Madagascar in 2023, hoping to see the fossa and the aye-aye, the trip which salmonella had blighted for almost the whole party on the first occasion in 2011 – and succeeded. So it seemed quite reasonable to give Norway a second go as well. We just booked a short trip, staying in Tromso as before, with a couple of Northern Lights expeditions. Once we got settled in the hotel, we decided to go prospecting for restaurants at which to have dinner. Our hotel was right on the quay, and as soon as we emerged we realised there were lots of people just standing around, looking across the water. It didn't occur to me to wonder why until I looked up, and there they were. Green and yellow and purple. We stayed out there watching for half an hour, and they didn't disappoint. The following night we did do a long drive, almost to the Finnish border, in the hopes of seeing them again, but it was a somewhat underwhelming experience compared to the evening before – although they did make an appearance.

Shortly after we got back from Madagascar, we saw a tv programme about the fossa. It's the apex predator, proabably tracing its ancestry back to mongooses, although it's much bigger, and it feeds principally on lemurs. It fills the niche never occupied by leopards, as Madagascar broke away from mainland Africa 60,000 years ago, and evolved some weirdnesses all its own. The programme spent many days trying to find one, and when they did it was collared, which I regard as cheating! We were staying at a lodge in the Kirindi Forest, and I went out birdwatching one morning, only to see a long tail disappearing behind the kitchen. There was only one thing it could be, at which point my camera battery ran out. It was definitely a fossa, so I called my husband and asked him to keep an eye on the beast until I returned. It wasn't in the least bit frightened of him, and actually approached rather too close for comfort. Note the teeth in my photo!

The aye-aye

The elephant bird, now extinct, was enormous, and the giant lemur is now also extinct. But the strangest lemur of all, the aye-aye, is still around, and I got to see it on an organised trip to an island. I also got to see the Amber Mountain Rock thrush, which is rare. It was just sitting in a bush next to the road. The aye-aye is the world's largest nocturnal primate, with long fingers, one of which is elongated so that it can search for grubs beneath the bark of trees.  It taps on the branch until it can hear movement, then it gnaws a hole and uses the finger to extract the grub. It has such a devilish aspect, that in the past it was regarded with deep suspicion. 

Amber Mountain Rock thrush

Lemurs are always on the lookout for bananas...

Apologies for long absence

 

Village weavers in the Gambia

Over the last three years I have had some eye problems, and arthritis in my hip. Hopefully the eye will be resolved with a small operation at Moorfields, one of the best if not the best eye hospital in the world, which just happens to be local to me! I may need a hip replacement, but there are a few investigations to be performed first. This means my travel plans have been somewhat curtailed, but I did manage a birdwatching holiday in the Gambia, run by Naturetrek, which was excellent. Most of the group were of the same equally mature years as myself. I bought a particularly apt T-shirt for my husband, and had a couple of enthusiastic enquiries from other wives on the trip.

husband modelling T-shirt

I would like to give a big plug for Merlin, the birdwatching app run by Cornell University. It identifies birds by sound, and also by photograph. I had no idea how many different birds we had in our garden, as it picks up the ones with soft, high-pitched voices such as the goldcrest and the firecrest. I also realised that if I'd taken a photograph of a bird on my travels I had obviously seen it, so I entered them all as well. Currently I have 544 birds on my life list! Some of them are really unusual, such as the hoatzin, which I saw in Venezuela in 2008 and the Amber Mountain rock thrush - Madagascar, 2023. But there are so many really beautiful birds as well, and there are a lot of different rollers in Africa which deserve a mention - and a photo. Paradise flycatchers live up to their name, and so does the resplendent quetzal, which I've seen in Costa Rica but not photographed. So I've become a birder, but not a twitcher. They're obsessives!

Malagasy paradise flycatcher

Amber Mountain rock thrush

I think what I'll do now is just add some birds I've really liked, saying when and where I saw them. Some were identified by sound, and some by photograph. I have often used birds in my writing, and the difficulty in seeing the ones you want gave me the idea for the one in the Divide books - the lesser spotted tease!

If you're interested in identifying what's in your locality, do try the Merlin app. Make sure it's the Cornell version, and not something else. Happy birding! 

Go away bird, Namibia

Lilac-breasted roller, Namibia

Carmine-breasted
bee-eater, Botswana

Hoatzin, Venezuela

 

Hyacinth macaw, Brazil

Namibia - and a long-hoped for encounter

I know I am fortunate in having travelled as much as I have. I do use my trips to gather material for my books (the opening of The Divide came from a holiday in Costra Rica), and I take photographs for watercolours. It took me many years to finally see a leopard, but just like buses, you wait for ages and then a whole load of them come along. 

I've seen white rhinos, but just the backside of a black one until July 2022, when I finally got to one really close to. The other animal I have always wanted to see is a meerkat. But not only did I get to see one, I got to cuddle it as well. We stayed at a place called The White Lady Lodge, names after some rock painting.Just behind the lodge is a rocky escarpment, in which a colony of meerkats live. During the day they forage for pests in the garden, making short work of scorpions and other potentially unwelcome invertebrates. They are not fed by the lodge at all. But we were there during their winter, and it gets very cold in the morning. Two meerkats ventured into the lodge one day, and discovered the cat basket.

They were so impressed that the lodge bought them one of their own, and every evening they scapered across the veranda, dashed through the bar, and put themseves to bed. But in the morning there was nothing they liked better than being picked up by a nice warm human, and cuddled inside a coat... What was so delightful about all of this is that no bribery was involved, as they were not fed. It was their choice to interact with us, and one of the best experiences of my life.

There were some pretty good birds, too!

Using lockdown to explore your locality

 I'm lucky in that I live close to some lovely countryside, and consequently some excllenet walks. The M25 is on my doorstep, so it's not totally rural around here. But I've been walking on Epsom Common, and along the River Mole, and I've discovered a wealth of willdlife. Here are some photos of the creatures that have brightened my life over the last few months.

Cambodia

A Selection of photos. There wasn't a lot of wildlife, but the underwater landscapes were pretty spectacular.

Angkor Wat - the Tomb Raider temple

Bats leaving  a cave at dusk

Fruit bats

Leopards!

It's taken me twenty-six years and eleven different game parks to finally see a leopard in the wild. I've been to Kenya, Uganda, Rwanda, Malawi, Zambia, Ivory Coast, India and Sri Lanka, and every time they've eluded me. Frequently it was the jeep in front of me, or one behind that managed a sighting, which was infuriating. But this August I went to Botswana, and had the holiday of a lifetime. It's a wonderful country, and there's loads of wildlife and a small human population. I was wild camping with a group of people, which meant we had hyenas and honey badgers sniffing round the tents at night, and we could hear lions roaring and elephants trumpeting. We saw a pair of cheetahs grooming one another, and a young male lion left to babysit his three-week-old cub for the first time. He didn't really know what to do, and the cub kept yelling for mum. And I saw four different leopards, all told. It was really exciting holiday in many ways, so here are some photos.

 

Tigers!

In 2014 I went to Bandhavgarh National Park in India to see tigers, and didn't see a single one. I decided to have another go in Tadoba, and the result couldn't have been more different. I also managed to see sloth bears and dholes, the Indian wild dogs. A tremendous trip, and some very close encounters with a number of different tigers.