In search of the Madagascar pochard: the world's rarest duck - Part 3

Day 6 - 25th July

As soon as my head has hit the pillow (OK, so I don’t have a pillow just a rolled up t-shirt) the dawn chorus starts. After a quick cup of strong coffee, we all rather excitedly head down to the lake together. The exhaustion and sense of dread from the day before has been replaced by anticipation. As I climb up the rickety observation platform, the very first thing I see as I peek my head over is a perfect flyby of 3 Madagascar Pochards, only 40 feet in front of me! It is an exhilarating sight. They then circle around and fly back again, like synchronised fighter planes. Nigel, Peter, Felix, Glyn and I then spend the next several hours on the platform together, suspended over the edge of the lake, watching the Pochards and soaking in the experience.

This is a stunningly beautiful volcanic lake, surrounded by primary forest, and is probably one of the last true wild places of its kind left in Madagascar. Due to the hard work of Lily and the TPF and the presence of their nearby field camp, and the fact that the lake is unsuitable for fishing or rice cultivation, this lake remains virtually untouched by human activity.

The lake is a flurry of activity. We have fantastic views of Pochard off to our right, possibly prospecting in a small patch of marsh on the shoreline. There are Meller’s Ducks “quacking” on the adjacent shoreline and there are pairs of Madagascar Little Grebes around the entire lake. These birds provide much amusement and the lake is full of their “chattering”. Most of the female grebes are prospecting in the reeds, emitting ridiculous “meeps”, while the males are assiduously guarding them from other males. Every few minutes they meet up and the chattering begins again. There is a pair of spectacular Madagascar Buzzards soaring above the lake. Red-billed Teal and White-faced Whistling Ducks complete the mix. All of this is enhanced by the mist in the early morning, and the realization that we could all end up as part of the lake ecosystem if our wobbly platform should fail and tumble the lot of us into the lake.

On a more serious note, as we sit and watch the initial euphoria fades with the more sobering thought that these Pochard. As we watch these few birds flying from one end of the lake to the other within seconds, the lake seems to grow smaller and smaller, shrinking in on us and the birds.

We count 19 pochards on the lake in total, and only six of these are females, which leads us to speculate on why this is the case? We think this could possibly explain the low reproductive success of the last few years, and increases our sense of urgency. Despite many nests and hatchlings, none of the young have survived to fledge. It is purely hypothetical at this point, but we wonder if females are so badly harassed by males that they are unable to care properly for young?

The forests around the lake are alive with spectacular species. Just off the main path Lily points out a male red owl sitting serenely not 10 feet above our heads, further on there are crested ibis and a family of brown lemurs jumps through the trees ahead of us. It is also my first experience with leeches, but thankfully they are only the inch long kind! This forest is clearly a very special place that together with its lakes needs permanent protection.

In the afternoon we visit the nearby Green Lake, not known to support Pochard, and its immediately clear why. The lake is very deep, and a pastel green with no real shoreline or marsh around edge. We could likely create some habitat though quite easily around edge. There are Meller’s Ducks, Red-billed Teal and White-faced Whistling Ducks around the shoreline more than a hundred grebes, many of them young of the year. On the walk back in the late afternoon, clouds of midges encircle us, and each of us has our own personal cloud following us around through the savannah.

We pass Bruno and Iandry working on the 4WD on top of the hill above the pochard lake, I am somewhat sceptical as to whether they will be able to fix it, and am expecting a long, exhausting, slogging journey down to Bealanana again tomorrow.

The five of us return to the observation platform in the evening, and watch as egrets fly in and roost on the lake edge, and we soak in the evening flights of the Pochard. All seems calm and right with the world, the ducks are carrying on as they have possibly for centuries, oblivious to the impending doom. We head back to the campsite in darkness as none of us have thought to bring our headlamps and none wanted to leave while we could still see the Pochard on their lake.