louiseinlimbo

Well, I had an interesting weekend in terms of wildlife!  It started on Saturday evening, when the late shift of staff returned to the Lodge, telling us that their route home was blocked by a rather bolshy elephant and her calf walking along the access road, who they had not been able to move off the road to let their motorbike go safely past.  So the Lodge owner drove along the track in his big car, tooting at them and banging on the side of the vehicle as he got to the elephant, so that it moved into the forest and let the guys behind go past on their bike.  I was cross with myself that I hadn’t taken up his general offer, “Anyone want to come along for the ride?”. The next morning I decided to take a walk along the access road, as it gives a slightly different view of forest wildlife to that seen from the small trails cut through the forest.  I was pleased to see a flock of plumed guineafowl on the road at one point, as well as a clearly identifiable white-crested hornbill flying ov

We have a new trainee guide here, and he needed to be shown the two main sites which clients visit – Bai Hoku and Dzanga Bai – and I was allowed to accompany him, as a perk of being a volunteer at the lodge.  I felt I should give this blog the same title that I used back in 2012, when I wrote then about my visits to these amazing two sites http://louiseinsenegal.blogspot.com/2012/07/wildlife-watching-in-car.html  Firstly on Friday we went to Bai Hoku to see the gorillas, the only habituated group that can be visited here now that the silverbacks of two other groups have died.  Exactly as I described previously, they are more difficult to watch than mountain gorillas as they move frequently – and they are difficult to photograph as the interior of the forest is quite dark.  However, it is still a wonderful experience to be close to such amazing creatures. We watched the group of seven gorillas, especially the silverback guarding the group – sometimes climbing trees which really didn’t l