I've been home for a little over a month now from my adventures over the summer/fall, but have been busy catching up on higher-priority stuff, hence no picture posts from me lately. Here's some stuff from some time spent in Africa in August. ID help requested on the geckos below!
Unidentified house gecko in Djibouti:
I was supposed to go to Uganda and Kenya, but we had engine trouble departing Uganda and had to return and wait to get fixed--between getting parts, maintenance personnel, and overflight clearances all to match up, we were stranded there a week. That normally sounds like fun, except every day we "thought" we were going to get to depart, and so had to hang around the hotel most of that week. The hotel had no ATM and everything was cash only, so after two days we were out of money and clothes--couldn't wash clothes because it was 24-hour turnaround and we were always scheduled to depart within that window of opportunity. Same went for any sort of touring--they needed 24-hour notice and were cash-only. It would've been nice to get to visit the headwaters of the Nile or go trekking for gorillas; instead it was like a benevolent hostage situation!
One day we did manage to get to the botanical gardens in Entebbe, where I took the following pictures:
Colobus monkey high in a tree:
Vervet monkey with baby:
A pair of African fish eagles:
African millipede which has seen better days--I'd guess it's maybe a 750-pede now:
Gecko in one of the botanical garden's greenhouses:
Here's a gecko hanging around the hotel; probably the same kind as the one from the botanical gardens:
The hotel was on the shores of Lake Victoria, which is so polluted the hotel told us not to swim in it, plus there is a LOT of trash washed up on the beach. It was good for the various birds in the area to pick through, though. There were lots of kingfishers, hammerkops (hammerhead storks), cormorants, Nile geese, and these IMMENSE guys:
Marabou storks. One of the ugliest birds you'll ever see. They were almost as tall as me, and the wingspan was incredible!
It was cool to see a bunch of animals I'd only seen previously in zoos. I'd like to be able to go back and spend time away from town and see what I could turn up besides malaria!
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Chris McMartin
www.mcmartinville.com
I'm Not a Herpetologist, but I Play One on the Internet
I had to think back on that one because I thought you were referring to one of my W TX forays.