November 10, 2013: Bat Snuggles (and more!)

365 Project, Day 111

Here is my day 111 submission to my 365Project:

After a nice break of over two months (and a wonderful time at home visiting friends, family and taking in autumn!) I am on my way back to work. I left home November 7th and finally arrived at Camp Malongo in Cabinda Province, Angola yesterday afternoon. I still have to get over my jet lag so I'm slightly relieved we are not going to the ship for a few days yet; I should be mostly over it by the time I have to officially start my watches. Of course, I woke very early today so I took advantage of the wee hours of the morning to get a good breakfast (they serve it from 4 am to 6 am here!) and check out the bats and other wildlife around the camp. 

Today my focus was to look at the Straw-coloured fruit bats (Eidolon helvum) inhabiting the trees around camp. It was very entertaining watching their antics as they clambered around in the trees, clustered together, pushed each other around and occasionally appeared to be snuggling together. One thing I quickly learned...don't hang out underneath these guys too long or you might get bat pee or poop on you!!

Fun fact of the day:

Straw-coloured fruit bats, like other megabats, prefer to eat various fruits and have been known to eat blossoms and the young shoots of silk-cotton trees. They also have an unusual habit of chewing into soft wood to obtain moisture.

To read more about straw-coloured fruit bats check out these webpages:

• Afribats - Ecology of the straw-coloured fruit bat in Nigeria
• Lubee Bat Conservancy webpage - African straw-coloured fruit bat
• BBC Nature - Nature wildlife webpage on African straw-coloured fruit bat

To add your own observations of straw-coloured fruit bats and other bats in Africa check out Afribats iNaturalist.org webpage. To read more about Afribats here is the link to a PDF on their citizen-science project.

Northern grey-headed sparrow (Passer griseus)

Straw-coloured fruit bats...keeping a close watch

Coming in for a landing!!

Cattle egret (Bubulcus ibis) in flight

Stretch...a very interesting look at a bat wing :)

One of the many camp cats

Blue breasted cordon-bleu waxbill (Uraeginthus angolensis)

Rufous-tailed palm thrush (Cichladusa ruficauda)

A female Sitatunga (Tragelaphus spekii, you can tell she's female by the stripes), a type of antelope I saw in a grassy field near the forest edge

Speckled Mousebird (Colius striata)

Blue breasted cordon-bleu waxbill (Uraeginthus angolensis)

Village (dark headed) weaver (Ploceus cucullatus) 

Bronze Mannikin (Lonchura cuculluta)

I spotted this guy keeping an eye on me while I was photographing the mannikins

The following series of pictures are of, what I believe, is a juvenile Cattle Egret (Bubulcus ibis)...looking pretty soggy!

August 31, 2013: A Fat Whale

365 Project, Day 68

Here is my day sixty-eight submission to my 365Project:

Today was my last day on the vessel offshore Angola...time to go home! Luckily for me, shortly before the helicopter as due to take me to shore (after 10 weeks on the ship!), a pair of humpback whales (Megaptera novaeangliae) swam across our bow nice and slowly. It felt like I was a getting a whale send off and I got this shot of this whale looking pretty fat and healthy from behind :)

Fun fact of the day:
Humpback whales of the southern hemisphere, when in their feeding grounds in the colder, more productive waters of Antarctica, eat tiny crustaceans (mostly krill) and small fish consuming up to 3000 lbs (1360 kg) of food per day. 

To read more on humpback whales check out the NOAA Fisheries webpage on humpback whales. 

  And some more photos from my last sighting on this job:

August 27, 2013: What You Lookin' At?

365 Project, Day 67

Here is my day sixty-seven submission to my 365Project:

I was delighted when this Grey-headed kingfisher (Halcyon leucocephala) landed on the heli-deck this morning during a fairly quiet watch. As I started snapping photos he was definitely keeping an eye on what I was up to; I loved this photo of him from straight on with the wind blowing up from under the heli-deck ruffling his feathers :)

Fun fact of the day:
Both sexes of the Grey-headed kingfisher excavate the nest, which is a burrow consisting of a tunnel leading to a nest chamber. It is usually dug into riverbanks, erosion gullies, irrigation ditches and termite mounds. 

To read more about the Grey-headed kingfisher check out Birdguides.com. 

Here are the rest of the Grey-headed kingfisher series:

August 25, 2013: Night Lights

365 Project, Day 65

Here is my day sixty-five submission to my 365Project:

I have just over a week left out here and I finally got a shot of one of the installations at night which I'm happy with. It's taken me a while to get this shot down; while photographing from a moving vessel I've had to get the right balance of shutter speed, ISO and use my VR to minimise camera shake :)