Into the Heart of Madness - This is Gabon!

[SafariChick]

Yes, I was going to come back and show some of my ele photos as well so I might as well add to the collection! Akaka was definitely elephant central in the dry season and we were afforded amazing close views of them. As @gatoratlarge said, the bull eles were very assertive and it was awesome to get so close to them but know we could quickly move away in our boat if necessary. (There was one time where @Kitsafari and I felt the guide was getting unnecessarily close and the elephant seemed annoyed and agitated, but mostly the encounters seemed ok).

 

Here are some photos from the late afternoon of August 6, after the guys got back from seeing the gorillas:

 

 

 

a bird snuck in between the elephants!

 

 

 

 

 

[janzin]

1 minute ago, SafariChick said:

(There was one time where @Kitsafari and I felt the guide was getting unnecessarily close and the elephant seemed annoyed and agitated, but mostly the encounters seemed ok).

 

Yeah that's what I was thinking in that video that @gatoratlarge posted. That ellie was really pissed off and the guide should have moved off.  And even if the boat can move fast...so can that elephant.

 

Otherwise...amazing elephant encounters!!

[shazdwn]

Wow there is something about the eyes in those forest ele shots - definitely giving out a "don't mess with me" vibe.

[Atravelynn]

The Slender Snouted Crocodile and Giant Kingfisher video should have been labeled Tse tses, Slender Snouted Crocodile and Giant Kingfisher.  I could hear the buzzing.  That poor croc with them on his eyes.  Great ele videos.  One of the eles wanted to shoo your boat away with a kick just like the jacanas.

 

You have to admit, even the worst parts of this trip were not as bad as Michael Fay getting gored by the forest elephant.

 

 

[Zubbie15]

Yay, I finally caught up on this report, it seemed like just as I’d get close to being up to date there’d be a flurry of posts.  Quite the adventure you guys had, I’m generally pretty easy going on vacation but I don’t know I’d have been able to take all that you had to go through!  Some pretty nice rewards though, the mandrills and gorillas are certainly cool.  Also, the first elephants seem more attractive than their cousins, ill have to make plans to see some sometime.

[Kitsafari]

On 10/2/2019 at 11:06 AM, janzin said:

 

Yeah that's what I was thinking in that video that @gatoratlarge posted. That ellie was really pissed off and the guide should have moved off.  And even if the boat can move fast...so can that elephant.

 

Otherwise...amazing elephant encounters!!

 

you could see in the videos that the boat was moving forward and backward. at first the boat was stationary on the bank, but the elephant was testy and clearly showed its unhappiness. then the boatman (not Dmitri) moved the boat backwards and i thought it was good move to give the jumbo more space, but the boatman then moved forward again to the bank, and he did that a third time. I stopped taking photos by the second time as I felt the boatman was provoking the reaction and that's just not right by me. Putting my camera down was my way of saying i wasn't for it since I couldn't just walk away as I would have been walking probably on a crocodile in the waters. But that was the only small disappointment of the boat ride (well, other than those bloodthirsty tse tse flies!)

[Kitsafari]

It was pretty clear to us that the African forest elephants are physically different from the African bush elephant. It is much smaller, its ears more oval and its tusks straighter and growing downwards than outwards. The tusks are tinged with a dark pinkish streak making the ivory beautiful, but because of that, also more valuable to the ivory hunters. The differences with the bush elephant appeaar to go beyond just looks. The female forest elephant starts breeding at the age of 23 on average, and gives birth every 5-6 years, which make them slower reproducers than its cousin the savannah elephant which starts breeding much younger at age 12 and gives birth every 3-4 years. Hence, any poaching will hit the numbers with a double whammy since the next generation will take longer to emerge. 

 

according to New Yorker's citation from Andrea Turkalo's (who spent some 20 years in Dzanga bai to study the forest pachyderm) paper published in 2017 in the Journal of Applied Ecology, it would take nearly a century for forest elephants to recover from the poaching of the past decades. Estimates in 2013 put the number of forest elephants at less than 30,000. 

 

I was actually quite surprised that the elephant bulls were very patient with our presence. Other than the testy one which was in a really foul mood, the other bulls were not terribly aggressive. One of two tried to run off as much as they could do in a marshy swampy land, but a couple also carried on foraging as we watched from the boat. The breeding groups though seemed more cautious. 

 

Hopefully none of you are bored with elephant photos yet because I have a few to add too!

 

A young bull who told us off for veering a little too close.

 

 

Another slightly older bull fleeing away from us but had to navigate the uneven marshes

 

 

a breeding group huddles together and freezes with the young ones tightly close by

 

 

and then a more mature elephant bull. This bull was stunning. clean of face, oval ears intact, and his tusks long and straight with a curved end and strong pink tinges - showing that he was at his prime. He was confident, stood his ground, eyed us with his intelligent eyes, and just carried on eating with a stern look that brooked no nonsense from us lot. 

 

 

 

 

then a young lone elephant - sedate and calm and too busy to be eating than be bothered by us. i think it was a female that had wandered a way from its herd. 

 

 

 

Further on, another smaller breeding group  that was less fearful of us. 

 

 

Edited October 3, 2019 by Kitsafari

[Kitsafari]

On the afternoon of the first day, after the three guys - beaming from their gorilla experience - joined us, we boated in the other side of the camp. 

It was a languid ride, where we were either busy swatting the dastard flies and wanting to shoot the birds along the banks. In the end, we braved the tse tses so that we could shoot some new and some familiar birds. 

 

Hadada ibis was prominent in this area. 

 

 

 

while the woodlands kingfisher was seen frequently throughout our trip in Gabon. 

 

Lots of African jacanas here but these were shy and were always escaping us even before we lifted our cameras.

 

At first, the sighting of a giant kingfisher filled us with excitement, but this giant bird is thriving so well in this area so we would see it so often that after a number of sightings, we became rather blase about its appearances and skipped a few of them along the way. weren't we just spoilt! 

 

 

Then, a beautiful bright new lifer for me - a striking shining blue kingfisher that flashed its blue while we slowly floated by. wait for @michael-ibk photos - he does it more justice with his excellent shots. 

 

 

a tree heavy with weaver's nests makes a picturesque shot, while the village weavers were noisily flying away from us most of the time. 

 

 

an African pied wagtail preens and poses over the river

 

[Kitsafari]

Our second day at Akaka Camp was more of the indolent way of safari. If I had thought doing game drives through a park on land was quite relaxing, a boat ride on a placid river was even more relaxing (when the flies were not trying to extract my blood).

 

To deal with the flies, I wore a pair of hand sleeves and pulled it longer to cover my hands, and then used one of another pair of hand sleeves as a fly swat to wave around my person which had a limited effect because the flies would just aim for my legs, and then swarmed around my exposed hands when I took photos. I came away with bites and plenty of whinings, but @AndMic was stoic and didn't whinge at all while @SafariChick's bites caused quite a bad angry rash. 

 

Funny how time erases part of the irritating flies, until @gatoratlarge's photo of the flies on Jane's hat reminded me of it.

 

I can only recall more clearly  now how unafraid and relaxed I was on the boat rides in Akaka camp. we were all alone in that area, with the boat cutting through the clear reflections of the papyrus reeds and trees on the still rivers. and the hushed air of the marshes being broken by the sound of the boat or the calls of the birds. 

 

Dawn at Akaka camp: 

 

 

 

Truth be told, two nights at Akaka camp is sufficient to get into the depths of the Loango National Park. I don't know if it was not the right time of the year, but after the third boat ride of seeing similar species, it was as if we had exhausted newer species. On hindsight, perhaps a forest walk would have added another dimension to it but I opted for the easier route on the boat. 

So more birds for the second day on the river. 

 

White-bibed blue swallow

 

 

a golden juvenile Purple heron

 

and African finfoot which kept vanishing into those reeds as soon as they were spotted. Needless to say, my shots went into the bin; this was the best of my lots!

 

 

more giant kingfisher

 

 

 

Pied kingfisher - another species that is common here - with a big catch but finding it hard to swallow it

 

 

a juvenile malachite

 

 

and a coucal  - not sure if it is a senegal or blue-headed? 

 

 

 

we moved into one of the smaller tributaries and found a Western slender snouted crocodile hanging out with BFF giant kingfisher. 

 

 

 

 

The afternoon boat ride yielded more birds and an unwell sitatunga

 

Blue-breasted bee eater

 

the sitatunga was initially seated when we saw it. it was very close to the river and the flies were all over it. It got up cautiously after a while, but took a few steps and looked back at us, as if it wasn't able or didn't want to move too much away from this spot. Dmitri thought it was sick.

 

 

then it was back to the camp for our last night there. 

 

 

Edited October 3, 2019 by Kitsafari

[AfricIan]

What an amazing trip – when I saw Michael's Introduction I thought “This is going to be good but I must get my Zakouma TR done first”.  It’s a good job I did because if I hadn’t you’d still be waiting for it!!

So, although I’m very late to the party, many thanks for taking on this epic, keeping us entertained with your writing and for all the great photographs - I can't wait for the next instalment .
 

[Towlersonsafari]

some of those photo's, especially of the ellies, have real zing @Kitsafari

[Kitsafari]

@Towlersonsafari thanks. I thought that mature elephant bull was even more handsome than the savannah ones

[Galago]

@Kitsafari aaah Shining-blue kingfisher. What a stunner.

 

Sympathies about the tsetses. I too react badly to their bites (carry steroids just in case in the bush) so I know how horrid it can be. And they are SO persistent! Did you not have your anti-tsetse mesh kit with you Kit?

 

The elephant shots are great and @gatoratlarges videos just fascinating. Such handsome critters!

[michael-ibk]

 

As you can probably tell by now we all absolutely loved Akaka - it was like soothing balsam for our somewhat challenged safari soul after the previous days. Elephants galore, good birds, no stress, no unexpected surprises at all, just relax and enjoy - I think we all really needed this to recharge our batteries.

 

 

I think we might overextend your patience with Elephant pictures, they others have already posted so many fantastic ones so I will (try to) restrain myself - suffice to say that it was absolutely awesome to see so many so closely. Like Joel said, there´s something prehistoric and very much "different" to Forest Elephants. Some of their looks at us certainly enforced the feeling that you really don´t want to run into one of them in the jungle.

 

 

 

 

We all were wondering about the often very obvious white spot by the eyes. Our guide Dimitri said this is the result of tick infections but I´m not totally convinced about this.

 

 

 

Fantastic seeing tusks like these.

 

 

Akaka is a luscious paradise in the dry season, and most of the Elephants seem to congregate here. You would be pretty disappointed in the part of the park where Loango Lodge is situated without coming down here - we only saw three distant Elephants over there - not surprising given how dry that area was.

 

 

Other than Elephants mammals are very sparse, so birds are the main attraction. More than fine by me, and even Jane started to excitedly point out Kingfishers - I guess she´s slowly getting to the light at the end of the tunnel.

 

 

Rosy Bee-Eater, a Gabon specialty. Not many countries in Africa where you can see this splendiferous variation of this crowd-pleasing family.

 

 

African Darters were everywhere.

 

 

Pink-Backed Pelican, a much rarer bird than its familiar Great White cousin.

 

 

A Little Bittern hiding in the reed - totally trusting in its camouflage.

 

 

A Purple Heron enjoying the morning light. Light, as was the norm in Gabon, was a rare commodity, the weather was mostly grey and dull. Every short opening of blue sky was a welcome change.

 

 

 

 

Cassin´s Spinetail, often seen around camp.

 

 

Not a very good picture but I feel I  have to post a picture - this is an African River Martin, and for some reason this is one of THE top birds to get for every birding group to Gabon. Mostly because of its rarity, this species only occurs here and in some pretty inaccessible parts of Congo.

 

 

Finfoot is another much-sought species in Africa. I´ve seen them in Zambia´s Kafue NP but Gabon is a different story altogether - no problem absolutely finding them in Akaka, and also in relatively open areas which is a bit atypical. Generally they like to stay hidden at water´s edge between roots and below low-hanging branches.

 

 

 

Edited October 3, 2019 by michael-ibk

[michael-ibk]

 

 

Akaka Camp is just as perfect as any bushcamp I´ve ever been to. Small, intimate, providing all necessary comforts and amenities but still rough enough to give you the feeling of being part of wilderness.

 

 

No silly wooden walkways - sorry everybody who appreciates them, I really much prefer a proper natural path.

 

 

 

 

Absolutely sumptous meals - I especially loved the Camembert for breakfast - finally Gabon´s French history showed itself in our food.

 

 

Palm-Nut Vulture, raptor Nr. 1 in Gabon. And not that much of a raptor - like the name implies, they eat a lot of fruits (over 60 % of their diet).

 

 

 

Good old African Fish Eagle - not as common here as in Eastern or Southern Africa.

 

 

You´d think that Hippos should absolutely thrive in a habitat like this, but no, we only had one short sighting of them. I´m not sure about the reason of their scarcity - this is a pretty remote area. But hippo meat is considered a delicacy in Central Africa, and if it´s not poaching it´s hard to understand why there would not be more of them. OTOH, the Elephant population seems to be pretty stable in Loango NP (unlike in more Northern parks of Gabon) so poaching does not seem to be that much of an issue.

 

 

Yellow-Billed Stork

 

 

Woolly-Necked Stork

 

 

 

Central African Slender-Snouted Crocodile. As discussed in previous posts, a split from West-African Slender-Snouted Crocodile, elevated to full species after two studies in 2014 and 2018. It is believed that about 70 % of the entire population is found in Gabon. They used to occur as far East and South as Tanzania and Zambia but are probably extinct there now.

 

 

While they mostly eat fish they are opportunistic feeders. One individual has been observed trying to kill a Pelican, and Chevrotain has been found in another´s stomach.

 

 

 

Great Blue Turaco, another very special bird of Africa´s rainforests. Pretty shy here in Akaka, only seen flying over the river a couple of times.

 

 

No, not your common Nile Monitor. Or is it? This is an Ornate Monitor, native to West and Central Africa. Wiki tells me until 1997, the considered to be a subspecies of the Nile monitor. It was subsequently described as a separate species on the basis of reduced number of ocelli rows on the body, a light coloured tongue and a more massive build.More recent work based on a large sample size using mitochondrial and nuclear DNA sequences indicates that Varanus ornatus is not a valid species and that animals with the diagnostic appearance belong either of two sister species of Nile monitor.

 

 

We did see some Monkeys in Akaka, but mostly pretty distant and high up in the trees. The low light made it difficult to get more than record shots.

 

 

Red-Capped aka Collared Mangabey, the only species a bit more cooperative. Found in coastal, swamp, mangrove, and valley forests, from Western Nigeria, East and South into Cameroon, and throughout Equatorial Guinea and Gabon, and on the Gabon-Congo border by the Atlantic shore. Classified as "vulnerable" - bushmeat hunting and habitat loss being the primary reason.

 

 

 

 

Edited October 3, 2019 by michael-ibk

[michael-ibk]

And to conclude Akaka, a series of birds. What else could you expect from me after all? This is Kingfisher heaven, I was really happy to see five different species here, one of them totally new for me.

 

 

African Pygmy Kingfisher, the smallest of the bunch. Not a fishhunter, it´s insectivorous.

 

 

Malachite, the familiar wonderfully colourful little jewel of the rivers. Very common in Akaka.

 

 

This one puzzled me for quite a while until I figured out it´s a juvenile Malachite.

 

 

Pied Kingfisher, the most common species. As you´d expect it´s abundant here. This one gave us the best photo opportunity - giving new meaning to "Bit off more than one could chew".

 

 

 

Shining-Blue Kingfisher, my new one. A stunning bird which is not easy to get, shier than their cousins. But not rare at all, I guess we saw 10 to 20 of them.

 

 

 

And the Giant - it was almost ridicolous how common it is in Akaka. This long was one of my nemesis birds, and it took me years until I got my first usable photo of the species. Should not have wasted time in other countries, here one is posing on a branch every 200 metres or so.

 

 

[Galago]

Some proper birding at last and some lovely photos! @michael-ibk

[Alexander33]

Well, I throughly enjoyed seeing everyone’s photos and hearing your accounts of the forest elephants. What a treat that experience must have been. 

 

Fantastic photos of the kingfishers, @michael-ibk, especially that one profile of the Giant. 

 

Edited October 3, 2019 by Alexander33

[janzin]

Fantastic Kingfisher photos!

[janzin]

C'mon guys, two days without a new installment? Get crackin'!

[SafariChick]

3 hours ago, janzin said:

C'mon guys, two days without a new installment? Get crackin'!

 

Ah, clamoring for more, are we?  I will see if I can get to another installment soon ....

Edited October 5, 2019 by SafariChick

[ElaineAust]

35 days until I am back in Africa and I need my bush drug to keep me going until them.  Please, please, some more.

@ElaineAust

[Kitsafari]

A really busy work week, and an unwell dog take precedence. 

 

But let me quickly bring you to the following morning, which will be short and sweet. Jane and I were scheduled to do the habituated gorilla experience while the other four guys would do a leisurely boat ride back to the lodge. 

 

We sped off in a smaller boat that took about an hour or so along the river,  and then into the calm lagoon to the researchers' camp where we picked up a researcher who would guide us. The reseachers all take turns to guide the groups,and our researcher - i've already forgotten his name, sorry, was spending his last days at the project. He was moving on to a gibbon project in Kalimantan. 

 

I think Michael touched a little on the project but pse bear with me as I may repeat what he's said before. 

 

The Loango gorilla project has been operating for a quite a while but it really took off in 2014 when the the researchers began to habituate the Atananga group. Tourists were only allowed to visit the habituated gorillas in 2016, limited to four in a group and done only 3x a week so that researchers don't spend all the time sheperding tourists. of the fee we pay for the visit - not all go to the gorilla project. If i recall correctly - safarichick can correct me - 10% goes to the project, with the remaining going to the Loango lodge and the Gabon wildlife agency. 

The project is run by the Max Planck Institute of Evolutionary Anthropology, to study the ecology of these animals. They are in the process of habituating a second group, so hopefully more tourists can see them, and hopefully more funds for the project. 

 

With the researcher, we moved to the proper visitors' centre - about 20mins or so on the boat I think. 

We had a snag. 

The day before , a group of tourists were going to see the gorillas when a elephant charged and not only the humans scattered, the Atananga group also scattered. The gorillas hadn't been seen since although groups of researchers were looking all over the area for them. So until they were found or at least their tracks were found, there was nothing we could do except wait in the visitors centre. A young Gabonese girl and a gentleman joined us, apparently she had missed seeing the gorillas earlier. I can't remember if they were the ones from the day before but I couldn't speak French and was unable to communicate. 

 

Meanwhile the researcher gave us a thorough briefing and background on the Atananga group as well as on the gorillas. 

I faced the window as we sat and waited. A bird flew in and landed on an open branch, I raised my camera, then yelled bird, and ran out. 

 

It was the black bee eater - a bird I did want to see. and when I looked through my viewfinder, I could see why so many birders wanted to find it. I was very lucky - being the only person there to take its photo meant the bird wasn't so skittish and nervous. It posed just for 2 mins, but enough for me steady my hand and get a few shots against a cloudy and grey sky. 

 

As for the gorillas, they never found them that morning. I was very disappointed, but the black bee eater made up for it. 

 

 

 

[michael-ibk]

Such a stunning bird! 

[Kitsafari]

we waited till 1pm, and after that, there wasn't just enough time to do a proper gorilla trek so the researcher called it off. When we returned to Loango Lodge, manager Matthieu said we would have another chance the next morning, provided they found their tracks. We crossed our fingers and toes, and prayed for it, since it was on my target lists. I'd never seen a gorilla before, and seeing them in the Langoue Bai had made me excited to see at closer proximity. 

 

Meanwhile, we enjoyed the lodge.  The lodge has a bit of history. It was first set up in 2000 by Dutch entrepreneur Rombout Swanborn but the lodge ran into financial difficulties, and Gabon's National Parks Agency took over management. The ownership is still in dispute, from my vague memories and hopefully the others will correct me if I'm wrong. The agency hired French Matthieu to manage the place and hired South African Matthew as a consultant to look into ways to improve the camp. while the lodge 's "bungalows" (really just a single room which I had) and suites were as comfortable as they could be with a working air-conditioner and a fan, and with hot water and good pressure. 

 

And meals arrived on time! such an exception to the rule in Gabon, and testimony to the competent management of the current team. 

 

 

But my bed sheets and duvet covers were torn - huge tears that tore further when I went to bed that night. initially i thought they were being blase in using such awful sheets that had seen better days but when I mentioned to Matthew, he said they had ordered new linen a few months ago, and now they were stuck at the customs and had been for two months. the lodge still has a few issues that need to be worked out, but on the whole,  my impressions got better as the days go by.

 

I was initially skeptical of by Matthieu but slowly he won me over with his hands-on approach to work, after he came himself with a couple of things I had requested.  The following day, I was in my room when there was a lot of shouting in the garden. Later, Matthieu came to tell me there had been a terrible accident. A Gabonese guy had too much to drink, went back to his boat, waded into the water and started the engine. He stood too close to the blades and he had serious injuries and was bleeding very badly. Matthieu put him into the car and sent him to the closest doctor but thought amputation was inevitable. Later we heard the doctor managed to save his leg and Matthieu had paid for the guy's medical expenses - a very generous effort to better relations with the local community. 

 

A flock of African Grey parrots was always present at the lodge, and so were African pied hornbills, while moustached guenon peeked at us from way yonder in the heights of tall trees.