All of us have places where we feel at home and are comfortable. Places where we can find all the necessities of life. And animals are no different. A sloth must live in a tree, a whale in the sea, a lion on the plains of Africa, a bee where there are flowers.
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Stay in the right place and you may find you don’t have to stray far from your accommodation to see beautiful birds. Such a spot is Mandina Lodge in Gambia, a few miles inland and a million miles away in spirit from the coastal resorts.
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Some photographic subjects are obvious candidates for black and white, others seem better suited to colour. But sometimes it’s interesting to choose a subject or destination that appears to cry out for colour and experiment with some monochrome edits. The results may surprise you!
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Senegal’s Saloum Delta is a watery world of mangrove swamps, small islets, creeks and shallow lagoons. It’s hard to imagine a more perfect place for a bird to live. And live here they do, in their hundreds. Of the 650 bird species in Senegal, 200 species can be seen around this delta.
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You might think that a place called Hellville would have a dark past. But this lively town on the Madagascan island of Nosy Be takes its name not from any Satanic connections but from Anne Chrétien Louis de Hell, a French admiral who was governor of Réunion Island from 1838 to 1841.
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There are luxury resorts all over the world where you can, if you want, relax on a beach knowing that you and your fellow guests will have it to yourselves. No one will intrude to disturb the illusion of perfection or remind you that you are (quite probably) in a third world country. Eden Lodge, on Baobab Beach, where we spent our last few days in Madagascar, is definitely not such a spot.
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In parts of Madagascar a unique landscape has formed, alternating sharp shards of rock and deep canyons. This is the tsingy, from a Malagasy word meaning 'where one cannot walk barefoot'. It is formed from limestone plateaus, the remains of ancient coral reefs when this area lay under the sea.
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Of course Madagascar is a wonderful place in which to see unique animal species, iconic baobabs and beautiful landscapes. But it’s also home to diverse communities of people. It would be a shame to come here and not see something of their lives too, as well as those of the wildlife.
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Such are the natural wonders of Madagascar that in a couple of hours’ walking you can see an array of endemic species from tiny (and I mean tiny!) chameleons to lively lemurs and towering baobab trees.
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Did you know that there is a World Lemur Day? No, nor did I, until we happened to find ourselves in Madagascar on the last Fridy of October which is when it is celebrated. It was wonderful in any case to be able to view these beautiful animals in their natural setting, but especially so to do so on their special day!
