Comoros November 2012 - Grande Comoro, Salimani

After two months spend on the African mainland, we ventured out to the Indian Ocean, where we will spend the next nine months, at least. We started with the Comoros, an archipelago seldom visited, although I don´t know why, for it offers a huge variety of ecosystems and a respectable list of endemic species. We started on Grande Comoro (Ngazidja), of course, for it has the only airported that can be reached from the African mainland. We wanted to start with the most difficult species first: Grande Comoro Drongo. After some research I found a reliable site: Salimani (http://biodivcomores.africamuseum.be/Biodiversity/Birds/Bird_home.htm)

The first time we visited this site which consists of abandoned plantations by ourselves by just taking a taxi-brousse to Salimani (be sure to state that you want to visit the Salimani in the South, for there is also a Salimani Norht of Moroni, the capital. We were shown around by a local we met in the taxi-brousse, who apparently knew the bird. However we did not find it. We still saw other endemic species like Humblot´s Sunbird (nominate subspecies), Comoro Green Sunbird, Kirk´s White-eye, the   dazzling Comoro Blue Pigeon and a pure (!) Comoro Fody (ssp. consobrina). Other good birds included Madagascar Turtle Dove (ssp. picturata although there seem to be no pure ones of this taxa left), Frances´ Sparrowhawk (ssp. griveaudi), Greater Vasa Parrot (ssp. comorensis) and Lesser Vasa Parrot (ssp. sibilans). We also saw plenty of the omnipresent Seychelles Flying Foxes (ssp. comoriensis), which I won´t mention again, for they were truly seen daily. Some Phelsuma v-nigra v-nigra were also noted.

Comoro Blue Pigeon (Alectroenas sganzini)

Seychelles Flying Fox (Pteropus seychellensis comoriensis)

The second time (10 days later) we recruited Chauffeur (see next entry) and we were in possesion of tape, for we found a copy of Atlas des Oiseaux de la Grande Comoro, du Mohéli et d´Anjouan, which contained a cd with all the bird sounds including those of different subspecies, which we were free to copy! According to Chauffeur, the best time to see the Drongo was in the afternoon. So we went from 15:00 to 18:00. We took the same taxi-brousse, got out at the same place and walked the smae route we did the first time, so the random local indeed knew what he was talking about. After a fair bit of searching a bird responded to tape by coming in silently to check things out. (Only the high-pitched contact call seems to work) We enjoyed great views of the bird for 15 minutes and after that we returned to Moroni. Other birds seen on this  walk included a lovely male Frances Sparrowhawk (ssp. griveaudi), Kirk´s White-eye and Lesser Vasa Parrot (ssp. sibilans).

Grande Comoro Drongo (Dicrurus fuscipennis)