The Weekly Recap
Hello and welcome back to the weekly recap!
This week, we have two trip reports from Singapore. My dad’s, who posted about our 48 hour layover there in July: Javan (and maybe also Red-cheeked) Flying Squirrels, Raffles’s Banded Langur and Sunda Colugo are a few of the 7 species he saw. We also went on a walk together in the MacRitchie Reservoir and spent ages watching an adorable family of Long-tailed Macaques – a mother was nursing a tiny newborn with the patience of a saint while its other two (slightly older) babies fought over a piece of pink plastic around her, nearly knocking her over several times. I was strangely reminded of my brother and I fighting over the pink plastic straws in a monkey themed board game, a memory which still makes our dad break out into a cold sweat.
The second Singapore report is from Jake Barker, who also travelled there in July but saw 14 species in 4 days (and 57 birds!) including Horsefield’s Flying Squirrel, Lesser Mouse Deer and also the Sunda Colugo. He also shared a report from the UK where he saw the classics like Red Squirrel, Eurasian Beaver and European Hedgehog.
Next is Michael Johnson’s hunt for a Solenodon in the Dominican Republic. The very advanced method developed for catching them (chasing them down and grabbing them by the tail) turned out to be a great success, and he also saw a few other mammals like the Small Indian Mongoose and Hispanolian Hutia (so cute).
The report for a Royle Safaris trip to Sichuan back in March is here: Chinese Red Panda, Golden Snub-nosed Monkey, Rufous Tube-nosed Bat and Long-nosed Mole are just some of the highlights!
Next up is Chrissy Mason’s report from a Harrier Tours trip to Uganda during which they saw a whopping 74 species! Eastern Gorilla, Ground Pangolin, White-bellied Tree Pangolin, Thomas’ Dwarf Galago and Benito’s Roundleaf Bat are just a few highlights. And being lucky enough to have been on a Harrier Tours trip myself, I’m sure it was also lots of fun (and I don’t use that word lightly…).
Simon van der Meulen’s trip to Patagonia was a real adventure, with loads of great species: Darwin’s Fox, Big Hairy Armadillo, Monito Del Monte and Puma, of which he had many amazing sightings and photos!
This great report from Japan by Ian Thompson includes the Japanese Badger, Japanese Flying Squirrel, Tanuki and some beautiful photos.
To wrap up the trip reports is my dad’s from our recent trip to Sabah, Borneo. As well as the amazing sighting of a Sunda Clouded Leopard the whole mammalwatching community already seems to know about, we also saw a Western Tarsier, a couple of Bornean Orangutans, Binturongs and some adorable Sunda Stink Badgers. This quickly became my brother’s new nickname for his girlfriend, a bold move considering how far above his weight some might say he’s punching. But the highlight of the trip was definitely when my dad dropped his binoculars off the jeep on a night drive and we drove back so fast to find them that I was launched into space and back several times. Getting to mock him for his blunder was a close second.
Another episode of the Mammalwatching Podcast is out! I’ve been a bit behind on the podcasts so haven’t listened to this one yet (not that I would willingly listen to any of them, of course….) but it’s an interview with Kadambari Deshpande and Nachiket Kelkar, a couple working on conservation in India, and sounds very interesting:)
These two videos of some amazing Sunda Clouded Leopard behaviour are definitely worth a watch – you can see one trying and failing to catch a Slow Loris (slightly embarrassing for the leopard if you ask me) as well as one going for a morning walk with a Malyan Porcupine.
Lillian Hall has shared some great pictures from her organic farm and nature reserve, Finca Villa Barbara, in Northern Colombia. Visitors are welcome if they want to see Ocelots, Jaguarundis, Tamanduas or Crab-eating Foxes or more cool wildlife.
Jonatan den Haan would love some help IDing a spotted cat caught on camera trap in Ecuador – check out this post to see.
Finally, some new listing league tables are now up, adding the categories of Canids, Bats and Mammal Families. Now, my father’s mammal ailment may not have been hereditary (thank god), but his love for lists certainly was, so even I can appreciate how delightful this update is.
If you would like to subscribe only to weekly updates like these from mammalwatching.com, you can visit this page.
Thanks for reading:)
Katy
Cover photo: Puma – Simon van der Meulen. I sometimes wonder what would happen if I dared to make a bird the cover photo… But with great power comes great responsibility. 🙁
Post author
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.