Exhibition

Hello and welcome to a post dedicated to my current exhibition at the Rural Life Museum in Glastonbury, "The Natural World Through My Lens". 

The exhibition has now been open for just over six weeks with six weeks remaining and has been a great success thus far. If you haven't been to see it yet, why not?! The last day is Saturday 9th June and it is open Tuesday to Saturday 10am - 5pm with free entry. 

The exhibition displays three aspects of my work, including studies made over a period of time in Somerset, images from a trip to Madagascar and a selection of photographs from around the rest of the world.  There are also panels with lots of information on where it all began for me, my equipment, the Somerset Levels, Madagascar and some of my plans for the future and booklets that contain all the technical details of each image and also the stories behind them. 

With over fifteen years experience behind the camera I have a real passion for the natural world and the exhibition promises to bring to life both familiar and unfamiliar creatures in a whole new way along with some special landscapes. I have printed al the images on Ilford Gallerie paper, hand mounted and framed with a wood frame made in the UK using wood from sustainable forests. Each image has an information sheet on the back (same as that which is in the booklet at the exhibition) and is titled and signed on the front of the mount underneath the image. 

All the images are available to buy for £85 each, there is a selection of 11 note cards at £1 each (images from the exhibition), a 2013 Madagascar calendar at £10 and a wide selection of magnets and key-rings at £2 each available from the front desk for the duration of the exhibition. All the proceeds from sales go straight back into future projects. 

In addition to the exhibition, I am running free lunchtime illustrated talks about the what, where and why of what I do including video footage. The first one was a great success but hugely over-subscribed so I am now running a second talk on Saturday 5th May at 12 noon. The talk is completely free but you will need to book as places are limited due to the size of the room. If you would like to book a place please call the museum on 01458 831197. I will be around both before and after the talk to meet people and answer questions so why not pop along. I hope to see you there and just before I sign off I am going to leave you with the walk through video to wet your appetite, but don;t forget it's much better to see the exhibition in person for the full impact! 

Walk Through

Andasibe-Mantadia

Before I get started on the last bit of the trip, let me just apologise for taking so long to post this, exhibition work took over which is all I’ve been working on for the last month or so but more about that at the end of the post. This is the last part of our trip to Madagascar, it’s going to be a long one so grab a cup of tea and make yourself comfy. On leaving Ranomafana we made the journey up to Andasibe-Mantadia National Park, stopping on the way at a lovely picnic spot next to the river where we found a rather cute little chameleon and a fuel stop where we picked up a bottle of J.C. Le Roux to celebrate our engagement. The two parks have so much to offer, but before we explored we made our way to our accommodation at Vakona Forest lodge, a beautiful lodge nestled in the forest. After settling in, selecting dinner and getting changed we headed off for our first night walk along the edge of Andasibe, it is not permitted to enter the National Parks at night.

The walk took us up the road past the main entrance to the park searching for frogs, chameleons and anything else we might be able to find! Our luck was in and we saw not only a couple of species of frog, couple of species of chameleon and a stick insect! So here is the first photo of this instalment, a rather cute little green frog with enormous eyes!

After our walk it was time to head back to the lodge and get some dinner and some sleep ready for an early start to head off into Andasibe to experience something that it not only a must do, but something that I was looking forward. After breakfast, off we went picking up our guide on the way and headed off into the park, time to find the indri, the largest living lemur resembling a teddy bear and the only lemur to sing. On the way to find the indri, we did come across a couple of Eastern grey bamboo lemurs munching away and while we were watching them we had our first, all be it at a distance, experience of the indri singing and it was amazing. We headed off into the forest to find the indri and it wasn’t long before we came across a small group high up in the trees, trust me trying to photograph them wasn’t easy as not only were they high up, it was also raining! But soon enough taking photos was not what I was after and when they started singing I switch to video mode to capture the beautiful singing that sounds a little bit like humpback whale song. One of the indri actually came down the tree and sat just above my head I could feel the song right through my body and yes I did indeed shed a tear, it is a very moving and incredible experience so here it is, the video of them singing.

Indri Singing

I could have stayed with them all day but after an hour or so we had to move on, just before I move on here is one of the images I did manage to capture of the indri as it came down from the canopy.

Although we had to move on, we did see the indri a couple more times but high in the canopy eating! The next lemurs we came across were common brown lemurs, one of which was just above our heads eating away completely undisturbed by our presence. After watching them for a while we headed off hoping to find more lemurs but also a nightjar in its daytime roosting spot. Our guide, Maurice headed off into the forest to see if they were there and I can honestly say that I would never have seen them if he hadn’t pointed them out so here they are a pair of collared night jars showing their amazing camouflage.

We continued to make our way through the forest with the song of the indri ever present, eventually coming back out into the open and back to the visitor centre and the park entrance. But that wasn’t to be it for that trip as there was a young Parson’s chameleon next to the toilets, and I was quite surprised to see that it was bright orange and here it is:

Finally it was time for lunch so we headed back to the lodge and re-fuelled. The plan for after lunch was our choice; we could either head back into the forest to look for birds or stay behind at the lodge and visit the lemur island. Well, we decided to stay behind and after lunch headed over to the island where they have a small collection of lemurs that had been rescued from zoos and trust me they were very friendly jumping all over us, we must have been on the island for an hour or so and I’ve glade we stayed as it turned out this was the only time we would get to see the beautiful diademed sifaka and here he is:

It was a great chance for us to experience the lemurs close up and get some photos of us with our new friends. On leaving the island we headed off to see the crocodiles and a pair of fossas they had in captivity and then we slowly wondered back to the lodge enjoying time to ourselves which was followed by our chilled bottle of J.C. Le Roux sitting on the veranda. It was great to have that time to ourselves before we headed off out again for another night walk, but this time we headed into part of the park that they do permit night walks. But we had only made it a short distance before Claude spotted a Madagascan tree boa on the road, well it would be a missed opportunity if I didn’t jump out and grab a few shots but as this is me, I got very close to the snake but was rewarded by capturing a couple of images of it flickering its tongue and in this image you can see the shadow of where the tongue was!

So after the snake, we headed off into the forest and it was chameleons galore, images of which you can see on Flickr, but to our surprise we found something else, a praying mantis cunningly disguised as a leaf and here it is:

Continuing the walk we saw another mossy leaf tailed gecko and mouse lemurs moving around in the shadows, plenty of frogs and yet more chameleons! Finishing our night walk we headed back to the lodge for dinner and bed, ready for our last day in Madagascar. Up early we headed off to Mantadia which was about an hour away and nothing could have prepared us for what we were about to see. We could hear the indri again but we could also hear something else which definitely was not a lemur. Heading through the forest we came across.......... not one but three fossas high in the trees, but that wasn’t it as they were actually mating. To even see one fossa in the wild is incredible but to see them mating with a second male in the wings, well there are not words. Needless to say I have images and video so here they are the image of the mating fossas you need to look closely to see the top of the head of the female and underneath the video of them mating, enjoy!

Mating Fossas

Continuing our walk after over an hour, we caught glimpses a couple of indri and a black and white ruffed lemur with a radio collar on as they are carrying out vital research in this less visited park and on the way back to the lodge we found an Eastern grey bamboo lemur next to the road and a Madagascan buzzard sitting in a tree. On arriving back at the lodge, that was it, time to head back to the airport and start making our way back to the UK. Visiting Madagascar was not only a dream come true, but an eye opening, passion filled experience so naturally I was sad to be leaving. However, it is not the end as I am fully intending to re-visit one day and head up north as well as revisiting the areas we visited on this adventure and hopefully my stories and images will highlight the incredible and amazing wildlife and country of Madagascar and maybe encourage a few of you to visit one day. So this is it from Madagascar but do keep checking my website, flickr and facebook pages as I am still sifting through images and adding more and of course it is not the end of my adventures I will post about my trip to Norfolk but for now I have some wedding planning to do when Chris gets home at the weekend and of course it is nearly Christmas so here is one last photo of me with my new friends. I hope you all have a wonderful Christmas and New Year with family and friends, but don’t forget to get outside and enjoy the natural world at some point to.

Isalo & Ranomafana

The second instalment from our trip to Madagascar and on leaving Zombitse we continued on our journey heading for Isalo on a rather uneventful drive giving plenty of time to catch up on sleep! Finally we arrived at our hotel which was very, very nice but there would be time to enjoy it later, for now it was time to have lunch get changed and head off into Isalo National Park. Isalo is a strange place, it is a stunning landscape of eroded sandstone outcrops and canyons, although it may not have the density of wildlife of the other National Parks, it does still have some unique species such as the bizarre elephant's foot plant (Pachypodium rosulatum) and is actually one of the traditional burial sights for the Malagasy people. We did see several pairs of Madagascan kestrels flying in and out of the holes on the rock face and we even found a small reddish praying mantis! Although we didn't see any lemurs, our local guide told us that they use the holes in the rock to hide at night from the fossa. 

We didn't have long in Isalo due to changes in flights earlier in the tour but it was definitely worth visiting and on the way back to the hotel we stopped for a fiery sunset before having a wonderful meal and an early night. We had a very early start to get on the road to Ranomafana before the end of the day taking in a stop or two on the way. The first part of the journey saw us climbing up onto a barren plateaux, but then we encountered something we were not expecting, a huge several million strong locust swarm and it would have been rude not to stop and experience it from outside the comfort of the bus. So here is a link to the video and you can see a couple of images on my Flickr page. 


Locust swarm


Right, well after experiencing the swarm which I have to say was very noisy, we jumped back into the bus and headed for our next stop, which for me in one of the most important as it really highlights community based conservation. Anja is a community run ring tailed lemur reserve and one of the few places you can see the lemurs on rocks. Simply put, the community realised that by conserving a species that people would pay to see they could make a good living, so instead of hunting/killing the lemurs when they came down to raid the crops they just scared them off this is community based conservation in action and a real success story. On arrival we picked up four local guides and headed off to find us some lemurs and we were not to be disappointed coming across a family including a couple of adorable babies which were happily playing in the trees but being carefully watched by the mums! I could have stayed all day, but time was moving on so it was back to the bus, but not before I have shared this cute baby with you! 

Back on the bus it was off to watch paper making by hand, a picnic and then Ranomafana eventually arriving around dinner time, so there wasn't really much time to do much other than eat and sleep! So Ranomafana, the rainforest at last  it was time to go find some lemurs and we were after four species in particular, the golden bamboo lemur (the discovery of which led to the park being established for it's protection), the Milne Edward's sifaka, red-bellied lemur and the critically endangered greater bamboo lemur. After crossing the river to enter the park we saw a belted chameleon hiding very well in a tree and our first lemurs were the golden bamboo lemurs eating high up in the trees but they did venture down and in a fleeting glimpse of sunlight it was very easy to see where they get their name from! Next up were a family of red-bellied lemurs snuggled up but we did see the beautiful white tear drops of the male's eyes and it was then on to the Milne Edward's sifakas, the second largest living lemur and with beautiful big red eyes. To get to the lemurs was interesting with plenty of walking up and down hills and slippery slopes but it was well worth it as we had the chance to observe a family of these beautiful lemurs, including a baby, but it was clear from watching them that they have a bit of a fly problem and spent a lot of time scratching and grooming! As we were watching these lemurs we got the call that I was hoping for, they had found the greater bamboo lemur, that was enough for me and off we went through the rainforest. The greater bamboo lemur is critically endangered with only around 130 individuals left in the wild and only two in Ranomafana. I feel incredibly privileged to have been able to see this lemur in the wild it was a very humbling experience so here he is:

I could write for ever about the experiences and sightings but I will try to keep it short (ish), if you would like to know more about any of the places or wildlife please don't hesitate to drop me an email and I'd be more than happy to share them with you. For now it was time to move on and start heading out of the park to refuel our bodies not before we came across a couple of satanic leaf tailed geckos. After lunch we were off again to a different part of the park to see what else we could find, first up were the crazy giraffe necked weevils a truly odd creature but also weirdly beautiful, maybe not as strange as the next spotted which I actually found after everyone else had walked past it, including the guides! Here he is one of my favourite creatures the mossy leaf tailed gecko, do check out my Facebook page for more images of him/her including the camouflaged one! 

We spent a couple of days at Ranomafana and saw chameleons, frogs, geckos, birds and more lemurs which you can see images of on any of my other pages so I will leave you to take the adventure in your own time with a cup of time! Before I end this instalment though I will say that having the opportunity to see such amazing wildlife let alone photograph it was incredibly rewarding and humbling and has really stoked the fires to help conserve this wonderful biodiversity rich island. If you can help in anyway or can suggest ways in which my images could help please drop me a message. So for now, I'm off to pack for Norfolk ready to go find myself some seals, have a great weekend everyone. 

Madagascar - Part 1 Berenty and Zombitse

I have been home for two weeks now and have not stopped, but had the most amazing time and it really was a dream come true, plus Chris proposed so we have come home engaged! It was the most romantic proposal with an audience of Verreaux's sifakas including a 2 month old baby that all watched intently, needless to say we are very happy.


So, on to the wildlife and the country........


Madagascar is a truly beautiful and interesting country with so many different ecosystems, driving around it was hard to believe that the whole island was once covered in rainforest but now so little of this actually remains and in the south it is very much a spiny forest that is very dry. In terms of the country there are influences from both India (east of the country) and Africa (west of the country) and these influences were obvious as we drove through both the capital city of Tana and also through the countryside. One thing that become very apparent ( although we were already aware when we booked the trip) is that the best sites for wildlife are spread out across the island, and our first stop of Berenty was a flight to Fort Dauphin followed by a four hour drive but it was definitely worth it. It was the one place I have always wanted to go and the only place we could wonder around by ourselves and it world famous for two species of lemur in particular, the ring-tailed lemur and the Verreaux's sifaka so only right to include a photo of each!

Although these species are very charismatic and very endearing, there is a lot more to the area including geckos, chameleons, owls, snakes and of course other lemurs. Whilst at Berenty, we spent as much time as possible outside taking walks and finding what we could but this wasn't just at Berenty Reserve, we were lucky enough to be able to visit a couple of other reserves in the spiny forest which proved to be very fruitful both during the day and also at night which included this large headed gecko:

We encountered a grass snake, scorpion and several white-footed sportive lemurs which although restricted to the spiny forests of the south are not listed on the IUCN Redlist as there is currently insufficient data on this species to allow classification and unfortunately this is the case for many of the less well known species. Needless to say there are many, many photos and videos which can be seen on my website, Flickr and Facebook pages so please do visit and have a browse and maybe even leave a comment. 

Eventually it was time to leave Berenty and following a couple of days of travelling our next real wildlife hotspot was Zombitse National Park, not only on the the newest parks but is also of huge biological significance as it forms one of the last remnants of transitional forest between the western and southern regions. It is home to a re-classified lemur, the Zombitse sportive lemur which is thought to be found nowhere else on the island and we were very lucky to see one sitting right out in the open, so here it is:

To finish off this instalment we have some flatid leaf bugs in their larval stage which are very strange indeed they look all fluffy and this is actually a predator defence mechanism. The next blog instalment will included stories and images from Isalo and Ranomafana National Parks and will appear in the coming weeks and then the last instalment from Madagascar will be based on Andasibe-Mantadia and will include some links to videos including mating fossas! In the meantime, I have wedding venues to visit and a trip to Norfolk to plan, so until then happy snapping and if you do have any questions or there is a species you would like me to include in the next post just drop me an email! 

A Dream Come True

Well, it has been a long time coming but the time has now arrived for us to pack and head off to Madagascar tomorrow.

Since I first visited Jersey Zoo as a young girl I have wanted to go to Madagascar to see lemurs in the wild, this is a dream that has grown with phenomenal passion and even resulted in studying the behavioural responses of captive ring tailed lemurs to visitor numbers and noise levels in relation to their enclosure design for my MSc thesis. Finally last year we went ahead and booked this trip which will take us to four reserves around the island during what promised to be two of the most exciting weeks of my life. I cannot express how excited, lucky and privileged I feel to be able to be making this trip and I look forward to sharing the experience, stories and of course images and videos from the trip. If there is internet access I will try to post an update, but if not see you all in two weeks.