Madagascar: The Eighth Continent (2008)
Madagascar: The Eighth Continent (2009)
Madagascar and the Grand Comoros

Madagascar, lying just off Africa’s southeast coast, is like nowhere else on earth. The world’s fourth largest island is more akin to an eighth continent. This Gondwanaland relict was last in contact with another landmass 160 million years ago, and it has followed a distinctly separate evolutionary history. The small list of 270 species may not seem long, but an amazing 120 of these are found nowhere else, and the island holds some very special birds. Madagascar is an essential birding destination with five endemic bird families: vangas, ground-rollers, Cuckoo Rollers, Malagasy warblers, and mesites. The incredible ground-rollers, in variations of sapphire-blue, rufous, and emerald probably top the list of most-desirable endemics. Four species are found in the eastern forests, and the variations of their distinctive “booo” call always get your heart racing. A fifth species, the roadrunner-like Long-tailed Ground-Roller, scampers between baobabs, octopus and elephant's foot trees, in the strange spiny deserts of the southwest.