New Trip Report: Central African Republic & Cameroon
Here’s a new report from Vladimir Dinets who spent an intense 9 days in Sangha Lodge and South East Cameroon and racked up around 100 species of mammals including Bongo, Ludia Shrew, Link Rat, Giant and Red River Hogs, Water Chevrotain, Flightless Anomalure, Golden Cat and both Black and White-bellied Pangolins.
Sangha Lodge and SE Cameroon, 2017: Vladimir Dinets, 9 days & 100+ species.
Jon
5 Comments
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Venkat Sankar
Hopefully it’s ok if I try and answer this. The drivers go pretty slowly along the road to the bais (it’s full of mudpits and branches), so you can often spot them from the car. Keep the sunroof window clear as you can sometimes spot them through there too. Sometimes, the car will stop so people can clear branches and other debris from the road; walk along the road a little away from the car and listen for monkey calls, then you can track down troops. I saw Moustached, Putty-nosed, and Crowned Guenons and Gray-cheeked Mangabeys this way as well as Red-cheeked Rope Squirrel and Red-legged Sun Squirrel. I saw more monkeys while driving the roads than on the bai walk (did better with Duikers there).
According to Rod, the boat trips aren’t that effective for spotting stuff along the Sangha. They saw otters (Spotted-necked I think) along the Yobe (a smaller tributary) recently (from Sangha Lodge facebook). Might be worth asking about.
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Vladimir Dinets
tomeslice: in addition to what Venkat said, on a few occasions we saw mangabeys on the road far ahead, so all we had to do was drive up there and stop at the approximate location. Note that the driver wouldn’t stop for any animals unless you ask him in advance. Also, always watch for duikers when you are near a monkey group.
I didn’t do much boating, except to the Picathartes site and back. The only mammal seen from the river was a lone putty-nosed guenon. Yobe River would be very much worth checking out (it’s a clearwater river, a rarity in Congo Basin).
The golden cat was seen an hour or two after midnight. -
Sabine
Vladimir, phantastic report! Spent 11 days at SL in Nov. 2016 and while reading your report, feeling like beeing there again. Spent additional 5 days at Cameroons Lobeke NP, which eas too short to explore the different bais, but is really worth the visit. So for every one who is planning to visit SL, try to combine it with Lobeke NP.
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tomeslice
I’ve been waiting for this! Amazing stuff!!!!
So when you say “briefly seen along the roads to the bais” do you mean that if you drive slowly you can see them, or was it just a glimpse as you were speeding through the road? Should we take some time to walk along these roads? Or do you see most monkey species during the “bai walk”?
Also, did you see any mammals along the river ride to the lodge? Did you or anybody else entertain the idea of doing night boat rides/spotlighting sessions from the river?
And most importantly – what hour of the day and where did you see the golden cat in the LCF?
Thanks again! Great stuff!