Madagascar November 2012 – January 2013, Marojejy National Park

Due to flight schedules we had to visit the far-flung Marojejy National Park. This park was of special interest to me for rumours about genuine Dusky Tetraka´s seen here.  Unfortunately these rumours turned out to be false and we saw none of these mythical creatures. However, I still think this is The place to search for this phantom, due to the variety of the forests and the extremely high quality of them in this national park. The main draw of this national park is however the charismatic mega fauna that can almost solely be observed here: Silky Sifaka.

We had unfortunately only one night inside the park due to our flight from Sambava to Maroantsetra and a delayed taxi-brousse from Diego Suarez to Sambava (very, very rough road). To get to Marojejy you have to take the taxi-brousse from Sambave to Antalaha and ask to be dropped at the national park office. To get back to Sambava you can flag down a passing taxi-brousse or simply hitch a ride, which we found to be much more comfortable.At the office, which is amazingly well organized, you can arrange everything for your visit into the park. Staying overnight inside the park is highly recommended, especially at camp two. The cabines are awesome and the view is breathtaking. Unfortunately we stayed at camp one, for we lacked time, but we got a good look at camp two. Camp one is also very nice, but the views are not as nice as at camp two. To get to the national park you have to walk four km from the office.

Once inside the park we started seeing good species almost immediately and species noted on our way to camp one included Purple Heron (ssp. madagascariensis), Red-breasted Coua and Chabert´s  Vanga. At camp one we heard Madagascar Long-eared Owl and many Rainforest Scops Owls. We also observed Brown Mouse Lemurs. Reptiles included Uroplatus sikorae, Calumna nasutum, C. boettgeri and Furcifer pardelis.

Red-breasted Coua (Coua serriana) eating Brookesia spec.

Furcifer Pardelis

Uroplatus sikorae (picture taken by Matt Baillie)

The next day we walked to camp two and back to the office. This walk produced Blue and Red-breasted Couas, Alpine Swift (ssp. willisi), Long-billed Bernieria, White-headed and Madagascar Blue Vanga and Rand´s Warbler. We also saw two Helmet Vanga nests, but they had already fledged two or three days before and we did not manage to find them. The lemurs however stole the show: we saw Eastern Grey Bamboo Lemur, White-fronted Brown Lemur and after a long search we finally also connected with the “Spirit of the forest”: Silky Sifaka.

Silky Sifaka (Propithecus candidus) peering down through the canopy

White-fronted Brown Lemur (Eulemur albifrons) (Male)

I can highly recommend this national park to anyone, its pristine rainforests and mountains are more than spectacular, the wildlife is first class (due to the immense variety in altitude, virtually every rainforest bird species can be observed here) and maybe the best of all: the management of this park is absolutely the best of entire Madagascar. Concluding: this is an off the beaten track experience not to be missed, for both birder and non-birder!

The camp two view (picture taken by Matt Baillie)