Day 19

The night survey started, as usual, around 4:30am. On a positive side, we saw two Zanzibar galagos hanging in the vicinity of our traps and heard a few more calls. On the down side, none had gone in our traps and the night was relatively uneventful. Will we catch any galagos here? Well, time will tell but the chances look slim.

Andy's preparing a tube trap for the evening
(Photo by Simon Bearder).

Since we couldn’t decide what small galago species we saw in the lowland area in Mtai Forest Reserve we were keen to find out what it was. Some shopping was needed and our newly arrived TFCG volunteer, Habibu, had to pick up his bags in the nearby village, so Simon and I set off for Mtai again. We were dropped off by Abeid at the position were Andy and I spotted them last time. It was quiet, as usual around here, but we heard a few calls and saw some eyes of the small galago. Nothing conclusive though. Just when we stood up to go for a walk we heard an advertising call that settled it all – Zanzibar galago. A few seconds after the call we saw some eyes again but this time we managed to see where it went and were able to film the animal for 10-15 minutes. A successful off-shoot! Back at camp Andy’s evening had been calm and no galago had been caught in the traps. There had been a threat of rain with some short showers and that usually makes the galagos quiet and they don’t move around much.

Simon's preparing for the evening survey back at
Mtai Forest Reserve.