Madagascar Sand Grouse
(Pterocles personatus)
Our first stop in Tsianampetsoa was to see some Madagascar Sand Grouse, and it was a big disappointment. While we did see a few grouse, there were people cutting all the grouse habitat down for thatch — inside the park. There were people cutting everywhere the grouse were supposed to be, displacing the grouse and leaving their habitat a mess.
We visited a limestone cave that had some blind fish in it; according to our park guide the fish can swim upside down.
Then we hiked through the dry forest to see some humongous baobab trees. Our park guide claimed the "grandmother" baobab was 2000 years old, but our guidebook says scientists have carbon-dated baobabs and they have a maximum life of about 1600 years. Close enough...
We came to a big limestone cave with a huge banyon tree on top of it. The roots of the banyon tree reached several meters down over the cave entrance to reach the ground and the water in the cave.
Lake Tsianampetsoa is fed from underground through limestone formations; it is also connected to the sea. It's about 16 km long and 2 km wide, but only 80 cm deep in the dry season. It fills up to a whopping 1 m deep during the rainy season.
At the lake we saw some Flamingos and Red-billed Coots, but they were pretty far away and it was very hot so there was a lot of heat waves to distort the view.
The next morning it was time to head back, heading north by way of Anakao.
