Comoros November 2012 - Mohéli, Chalet St. Antoine

Chalet St. Antoine is The place on Mohéli to see all the endemics of the island. However, access to this site is very difficult. I have no idea what the best strategy should be. We simply arrived in Miringoni, where the trail starts, by hitching a ride from Hoani and ended up sleeping in the drivers house (Although there are bungalows in the village, he insisted on inviting us to his house. Awsome experience!) In Miringoni we organised  a guide, called Abacar, who speaks very decent French, but no English. You really need a guide, for otherwise you just won´t find the trail. At the top, at Chalet St. Antoine (800 m.a.s.l.) is no accomodation, nor food, so you have to camp out. We found that buying food in Miringoni is very difficult and therefore I advice to stock up somewhere else. We walked the entire very, very steep trail in three hours, arriving at 8:00 at the top with a load of spare time.

Birds seen on the trail and around the chalet included the endemic Comoro Green Pigeon (just two and I think if IUCN acceps this form to be a full species it will be rated as endangered, at least), Mohéli Thrush (Very different from Grande Comoro Thrush. We saw a few, mostly around the camp), Moheli Bulbul, Long-billed Green Sunbird  (ssp. voeltzkowi), Madagascar White-eye (ssp. comoriensis), Malagasy Harrier (a pair preformed stunningly at the chalet), Madagascar Paradise Flycatcher (ssp. voeltzkowiana), Cuckoo Roller (apparently it is unknown which subspecies is represented on this island or even which species!) Benson´s Brush Warbler (just one noted), Comoro Blue Vanga (two males seen) and Comoro Cuckoo Shrike (just one female observed of the scarce moheliensis subspecies)

Long-billed Green Sunbird (Nectarinia notata voeltzkowi)

Mohéli Thrush (Turdus (bewsheri) moheliensis)

Malagsy Harrier (Circus macrosceles), male 

Male Cuckoo Roller, whatever (sub)species it may be, in display flight

Female Comoro Cuckooshrike (Coracina cucullata moheliensis)

After a very long wait (10 hours) it was finely getting dark and very soon four or five Mohéli Scops Owls started calling and after having the (rather weird tyto-like) call recorded, we could lure on into view and enjoyed rather brief, but good sights of the bird. Surprisingly we also heard some Persian Shearwaters calling and it turns out to be a known breeding site of the temptator subspecies.

We also recorded Common Tenrecs here and had to restrain Abacar from eating them! Retrospectively I think eating introduced species is not such a bad thing and it is a shame that House Crows apparently don´t taste as good as Tenrecs... We also tried to find the endemic Livingstone´s Fruit Bat, but unfortunately we did not manage to find this extremely impressive species. I can highly recommend this site as well, but prepare yourself well and I think leaving Miringoni in the afternoon will do just fine. Abacar is a decent guide, but a bit shy. Besides the birds, the view at the top is also very beautiful, for you can see the entire marine park, including the uninhabited islands (see next post).