Even though we live in the Islands we like to do some sight seeing on our time off! We headed to North Sound Virgin Gorda to go on the Necker Island Nature Tour.
Necker Island is a 74 acre private island owned by Richard Branson, he has accumulated several animals and birds which are endangered and has opened the island up to tours exclusively thru Gumption Tours. Gumption picked us up at Leverick Bay, Virgin Gorda in his glass bottom boat (he does reef tours as well) and took us out to Necker Island. As we started walking down the path we saw some scarlet ibis, they are named for their vibrant color.
Scarlet Ibis
Next up were the lemurs… they are found only in Madagascar and Comoro Islands, they are considered to be some of the most endangered mammals in the world. Ringtail lemurs are the most recognizable, they have long tails with alternating black and white rings 12 of each color, black and white ruffed lemurs, Red ruffed lemurs and the mongoose lemur are some of the lemurs we saw. We were allowed in the area where the red ruffed lemurs are housed, the areas are cordoned off to keep the different species separate, but they have large areas to roam around in and a structure to hide in if there is a tropical storm or hurricane in the area. The red ruffed lemurs were very friendly with us especially when we gave them treats. They jumped right on our shoulder as we came in their enclosure. Lemurs have 5 fingers on each hand and foot, they do not use their tails for holding on, they actually have opposable thumbs and no claws, so they grasp on to things with their hands. They were awesome to see!
Ring Tail Lemur
Feeding the Lemur
Black and White Lemur
We saw 4 of the 9 land tortoises on the island, a couple of them were almost 70 years old and could still eat about 100 pounds of food a day. They move very slow as they have a huge shell to carry with them.
Tortoise
The flamingos are thriving here, they started with less than 100 birds and now the flock has grown to over 400! There is one special flamingo named Lucky. He is lucky because he is blind and was rescued. He would not have survived in the wild, but being on Necker Island they can make sure he doesn’t starve.
Flamingo
Lucky the Flamingo
Other birds we saw included macaws, cockatoo and white cheek pink tail ducks.
The dates for the tours come out around the 1st of each month and are listed on Gumption’s Tours, Gumption also does reef tours during the day and night reef tours on his glass bottom boat
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