Madagascar Nosy Be Chameleons

[jannb]

Thank you for the nice comments on the photos and our trip. It was amazing to see the chameleons free. It made me want to come home and fill in the pool and screen in my entire backyard so my Cham could go free. It was also very sad to see how the people live and to see wildlife being burned in the forest and to know that many chams only live one year due to the long dry season there. It was also nice to know that they have little cricket/grasshopper looking insects in Maddy and that females do lay their eggs in sand. Also we never once saw a cham basking in the sun. They got all their UV from the cool shade of the trees. We did take our UV meter and the UV ranged in the shade from 200 to 300 most of the time.

Great pictures. Was your Madagascar visit was just to Nosy Be? You kept count and got pictures to go along with them. It seems as though it was a great trip.

Jeremy, we did spent one day and night in Tanny (Antananarivo) which was extremely scary. The locals are so very poor that tourist look like walking banks to them and I would have been terrified to go out and look for chams there. Nosy Be did not seem nearly as bad as Tanny. We did go to several areas in Nosy. We spent one day in the rain forest in the Lokobe Reserve and another day in Hell Ville. If you ever go I don't recommend Hell Ville because it was almost as bad a Tanny. Our resort was nice and safe and all the chameleons were fairly safe there. The resort has something like 19 acres of untouched beauty.

 

[lovepicasso]

WOW!!.....what a trip that must have been, the chams and photos are fantastic, great job with the photography, thanks for sharing.

 

[Synapse]

Thanks for sharing pictures of your adventure with us Jann. Looks like you had a wonderful time. I feel bad for places like Madagascar. You never know how bad the poverty is until you are actually there yourself. It's so sad they have to destroy their beautiful land to sustain themselves and their people.

 

[clarkrw3]

Jann, WOW!! Thanks so much for the photos, I loved to see the tree's they called home as well as the chameleons. I am SO envious of your trip and hope to one day make it over there. Hopefully before it's all destroyed. Natural Nosy Be chams are so attractive I wish we still had some here in the states I would love to work with some, trying to keep that red and yellow strong. 11, 21, 22 and 33 were just stunning animals and as usual your photography was top notch!!

 

[Decadancin]

Jann, thanks for sharing with us. I'm not sure if I will ever be able to travel there, but I feel like I got a taste of the best part!!!

 

[jannb]

Thank you everyone for all the looks and comments. Rob, I wonder why our Nosy Be's here are mostly blue and all the ones we saw were green. I ask my daughter if Hendershot, the nosy she gifted to me was a cross. Lol. Hendershot is so blue and looked nothing like the ones in Maddy.

 

[asongforyou]

Wonderful pictures! Out of curiosity, what were the humidity levels?

 

[ibdragons]

Thank you jann for taking such beautiful pictures. I would of been stopped at customs with every pocket filled with chams. Only because ive heard a lot of them dont make it past a year.

 

[Psychobunny]

Thanks so much for sharing those awesome pics with us
I enjoyed savoring each and every one of them

I would love to go to Maddy and explore it's smaller islands too before I get old.
Love to see cham in in their natural habitate.
Is it just me, or are wild chams way skinnier then our little pets?
Are we overfeeding and making them fat??

 

[maxttu]

Awesome experience and great shots! I have to ask, how hard were they to spot and were they just wandering every where? I mean, could you just take 10 steps into the forest and be knee deep in chams???

 

[CaliChameleon]

Wow these pictures are amazing thank you for taking the pictures and sharing with us

 

[birdlover71]

I wish

Too be able to go there someday....

 

[jannb]

Thank you to all that looked at all my photos and for all of the nice comments.

Wonderful pictures! Out of curiosity, what were the humidity levels?

In the rainforest the humidity had to be 100. We did take the UV meter but not a gage to check the humidity. It was a little lower on the beach thought because there was always a cool breeze and it rained almost every night and the leaves on the bushes still had water on them even late in the afternoon.

Thanks so much for sharing those awesome pics with us
I enjoyed savoring each and every one of them

I would love to go to Maddy and explore it's smaller islands too before I get old.
Love to see cham in in their natural habitate.
Is it just me, or are wild chams way skinnier then our little pets?
Are we overfeeding and making them fat??

Yes, we are definitely all overfeeding our chams. Most of the chams were skinny but most were young. There was two older adult males with fat pads.

Awesome experience and great shots! I have to ask, how hard were they to spot and were they just wandering every where? I mean, could you just take 10 steps into the forest and be knee deep in chams???

I free range all my chameleons so I'm always looking for chams so looking outdoors was normal for me. You had to look for them. They weren't just out in the open. We did move some of them to photograph them but we always put them back in the exact spot where we found them. I'm sure there were plenty of times that we walked right by chameleons and didn't see them.

 

[Chris Anderson]

The only chameleons we saw at Lokobe were the little Brookesia.

Hi Jann,

I really enjoyed seeing all the photos from your trip. It looks like you had a great experience and I'm really glad to see you went and had such a good time! I wanted to let you know that the Brookesia you saw were Brookesia stumpffi.

Best,

Chris

 

[jannb]

Hi Jann,

I really enjoyed seeing all the photos from your trip. It looks like you had a great experience and I'm really glad to see you went and had such a good time! I wanted to let you know that the Brookesia you saw were Brookesia stumpffi.

Best,

Chris

Thank you Chris!

 

[JonRich]

Awesome pix Jan.. Was the first tree a Tamarin tree?

 

[JackP308]

Really good pics Jann, thanks for sharing your trip.

 

[jastate09]

I'm glad you got to go. Thank you for sharing your trip.

 

[Brad]

Jann, thank you for sharing your Nosy Be photos. It was great to see the chameleons in their natural habitat and to read your explanations of those photos. It was also interesting to learn a little about the culture that you encountered. If I ever get the chance to visit Madagascar I will definitely consider that same resort.

 

[Brad]

How far was the resort to Lokobe Reserve?