Link to videos

I couldn't upload to the blog: http://s33.photobucket.com/user/L4dyM4cb3th/library/Africa?sort=2&page=1

Better edited videos also at: https://vimeo.com/home/myvideos

 More videos to come once edited and I've not put up any pix so far.

Now planning my next visit

My final day in the bush

Most of tomorrow will be spent in transit, one way or another.

I have to report a vervet raid on the kitchen this morning. Clever monkey liberated an apple before I noticed. I also have some decent pix of crested guinea fowl and some fairly rubbish ones of the local baboons.

And now we are 3.

The couple left this morning without so much as a wave, and our monitor and his new girlfriend left about an hour ago. I am all alone (sympathy, please) as Sina is asleep having got up at 3:30 to go on a fruitless quest for wild dog puppies and the relief monitor, Philip, is hiding somewhere.

Here is a vervet planning a raid:

I probably shouldn't mention the nocturnal hyena visit:

Those tracks are about 10 feet from my bedroom door. The red reflector is where the hyena tried to get the nyala skull down from the post you can just see. (Someone put them in as eyes.)

Here is the only extant picture of me:

and a fever tree.

Here is the baboon which regularly tries to raid the bin:

No - actually that is a different and smaller baboon.

And here is an idiot bird or several:

When I get home I'll get my videos edited and post a photobucket link. There is some awesome dog and cheetah stuff as well as an elephant charging our truck (not very seriously).

Excellent birds

Purple crested turaco

 

 

 

 

 

Hamerkop

Thursday August 28th

Spent the afternoon in a hide by a waterhole, looking for an injured (snared) zebra. It was reported by a tourist and everyone has been looking for it for about 3 days. I think the lions look suspiciously full. A zebra with a badly injured leg can't run too fast.

I did get some nice pics, though: mainly birds. Here is a selection:

Nowhere but Africa!

Nyala (m)

Black headed bulbul

Wholly intact zebra

Vervet on a mission

Slender mongoose

Thirsty impala

Wednesday August 27th

Sorry for being away, but the lions left me speechless.

Have a sunrise:

Tuesday 26th - 6am-ish

and a tortoise:

One of the little five

And a sunset:

 The burning bush

We actually were home from the evening drive by 18:30 as the smoke was so bad it was making me ill and it was decided that no-one wanted more smoke. 

Yesterday was a really early start. Left at 04:30 to see the dogs. It's just over an hour's drive on appalling tracks for the most part. I have taken to describing it as an African massage. The wind on the back of the truck is very lazy and Sina and I most closely resembled a couple of small icebergs by 05:40 when we arrived. Hot tea was about to happen when the dog pack appeared on the path. I do have video, but it needs some serious editing before I can display it to a wider public. No stills: too busy actually watching the dogs, who tried and failed to hunt down a wildebeest. They left and killed elsewhere before coming back about an hour later.

One of the dogs came right up to the back of the truck - I swear he would have jumped on had the tailgate been down - to check us out on each occasion. No aggression, simple curiosity. We followed them for a bit as they were keeping close to the track and one peeled off to chase an impala. One of the older dogs followed him(?) and took him back to the pack. Dogs are not lone hunters. 

We went off and did some bird watching, well, I did, before fleeing from a hippo. This turned out to be completely unnecessary as the hippo had no intention of coming out of the water, but provided valuable points for last night's drinking game. As referee and chief rule maker I did not participate in said game, but everyone is rather hung over today.

Lion

Sunday August 24th - 20:53

There is an elephant in my garden. I can't see him, but he's busily eating a tree or two.

Today we delivered a car to St Lucia, which is a lovely seaside resort to the east of here. We had lunch outside in the sun, then came home to do the evening drive.

Now, I don't actually have a picture of the lions (look, it was dark, OK?) .... but you need to believe that we were driving with a tourist safari bus in front of us when two lions were just - well, there. In the road.

We were looking for them, but it's not often that an animal just presents itself to you. Normally they hide behind a bush and laugh at you. You know they are there. I'm sure they know we are there, but a lion which doesn't want to be seen will not be seen.

No interweb for a few days

so here is the catch up

Wednesday August 20^th Mkhuze


OK – no idea when this will be posted as we have no interweb here @ the mo.


Began with 5 of us, but one went home on Tuesday so now we are 4: Sina who is German and has just completed her Master's, and a married couple of more mature years, Dominic who is French and his American wife Rebecca. They live in The States.


Yesterday – Tuesday – was “interesting”. The dogs are all in the south of the reserve, too far to travel backwards and forwards, so we camp out every second night (not compulsory) to monitor them.


First of all the telemetry went down, so we had to come back for a repalacement. Then there were 3 rhino in the road, who refused to move, so we had to take an alternative route and by this time we were already very late. If you don't get to the dogs by 5:30pm at the latest, they've gone and it's dark at 6.


Then there was the bush fire. Don't ask.


We finally reached camp at 7:30pm and stumbled into bed. There was a hyena very close as I went to sleep, but I don't know whether it actually came into the camp – which is unfenced. In any case, we all survived to see the pack at around 6:10am as they left to go hunting.

Friday August 22^nd 09:55


Oh, the bliss of a lie-in. No morning drive today, so I didn't emerge till 07:20. We all stayed behind last night, electing not to camp as the morning drive was very long. Left at 05:30 as usual, but didn't get back till 13:00.


We were looking for cheetah. Eventually, after a lot of fruitless driving around, Cole, our monitor, went into the bush and found two of the three we'd been tracking. We, of course, are not allowed to leave the truck as it's too dangerous, so for the second time in a week I absolutely did not see cheetah.


I have also failed to put up my mozzy net*. No malaria here, but there are mosquitoes and I have quite enough bites, thank-you. In addition to the mosquitoes, there are bush babies living in the roof and a gecko living in my bedroom. These are Good Things.


*Net now safely installed.

Small selection of latest pics:

Friendly skink

Joyce, who did my washing beautifully by hand.

My neighbours

African sunrise

Today's unexpected cheetah

Final post from Zimanga

As I'm off to Mkhuze tomorrow.

Here is the scorpion:

inside my hat, as promised.

Today yielded 2 cheetahs, the wild dogs and no aggressive elephants. All good.

Saturday August 16th

07:30 BST
08:30 SATime


I should be out on a drive, but I looked at the day at 04:45 and decided that being cold and wet for several hours wasn't why I came to Africa, so I made some tea and went back to bed.


It is still distinctly chilly, overcast and windy and I suspect that this afternoon's drive won't yield too many animals unless it clears up - which at the moment does not look likely.


In the meantime we have been chased by large, grey animals: the young bull elephant has taken against our truck. Graeme is promising to 'sort him out': those are trainers I would not like to be in. But he knows what he's doing and I don't.


I move to a different reserve on Monday, which should prove interesting. It is bigger and, unlike Zimanga which is privately owned, a government reserve. This means tourists whom we don't really have here.

Tuesday August 12th

Yesterday was Shopping Day! We went into town. We shopped at Spar and a bottle shop. The latter is a warehouse selling booze. Last night I had my first glass of wine in over a week. I may have lost some weight :-)


Lunch was at The Ghost Mountain Inn – which is, in fact, a very nice hotel indeed. But they can't cook fish and chips for toffee.


I wimped out of the afternoon drive as it was raining - it was, honestly – and I have showerproof but not waterproof gear. This turned out to be A Good Plan as it was not only very wet, but the truck was chased by an adolescent bull elephant with a testosterone overload. Some experiences are best avoided. My time was better employed sorting out a shooting schedule and a shot logging sheet, de-anting the kitchen and cooking macaroni cheese for dinner.


This morning dawned cold and misty, but dry. We finally located the dogs who entertained us by lying in the long grass with little more than their ears visible, so we left them to it and went off in search of cheetah.


Scarlet seemed closest. As the telemetry told us that she was very close, an impala dashed across the track so quickly that it was almost impossible to tell what kind of antelope had flashed across our vision – rapidly followed by Scarlet at full cheetah pelt. It was over in under a second. No time to turn a camera on. You have no idea how fast a cheetah in pursuit of breakfast can run until you have seen it.


Graeme, wildlife stunt driver extraorinaire, rapidly reversed in the general direction taken by both animals and asked for a telemetry scan, completely unnecessarily. Scarlet and her kill were right in front of us. A little judicious manoevering and we were within 15 metres of a cheetah having breakfast. She took a look at us, decided that we weren't in competition, and proceeded to act as though she was completely alone only pausing to drag her prey behind a tree; a very small tree.

Sunday August 10th

Sorry. I was about to post this when the interweb died - so it's a bit late.

Impala tastes good. Dogs and cheetah can't be wrong :-) Our bra'ai included impala sausages. Look, it's not Bambi, OK? Oh – and an elephant. Not on the barbecue, on the other side of the fence.


Unfortunately I am unable to show you the herd of elephant which stopped us on our track this morning as my camera batteries died. The camera is meant to tell me whether I have fully charged batteries. It lies.


Tomorrow I shall have temporary access to wifi, so I will be able to upload some video.


Time for some introductions.


Our monitor and fount of all things wildlife knowledge related is Graeme. He can find a track where there are none, identify a very small bird from a very large distance without the aid of binoculars, but cannot always locate a dog.


Becky is our film expert and general fixer. She is seriously overworked and underpaid, but invariably good humoured.


The other volunteers are Michael and Marcus who are Swiss and friends, but Michael lives in Japan and teaches English there.


Gail is from the USA from near Washington DC. She inspects boats for a living and travels all over the world with her camera for pleasure. In a prvious incarnation she was a rock goddess, traveling with her guitar across America.


Finally Marlene is from Pretoria and is here as a part of a course she is doing on African wildlife. Her current project is wild dogs: her next will be elephants. She isn't a full time student – this is in addition to her 'proper' job.


Second drive today was mostly dogs. I have video, but can't upload it @ the mo.


Have this nice sunset, instead :-)

Thursday August 7th

Just got in after a l-o-n-g day.

This morning we were searching for Scarlett – the female cheetah. The telemetry was a bit vague and we were about to go to a high point to try and fix her when suddenly

Scarlett! 

2 cheetah in three days isn't bad going :-)


The morning drive ended early as we had to get back to focus on the business of the day: planning our film.


More importantly, a shower. We currently have only one working shower between us and, as chief cook, I've always been at the cold end of the queue (somone else is cooking tonight – YAY!). I am happy to report that I am now clean and that Lush shampoo bars are a thing of beauty. I will not go into details about the blocked shower tray outlet and the small flood caused by the tray overflowing … but everything dried out nicely when hung over a tree branch.

Our warthog family

There must be something dead, somewhere

As the film is going to focus on the dogs, the rest of the day was spent with them. They were right at the far end of the reserve and we spent a scary hour and a bit getting from them back to the house in the pitch black.

Calvin - or Chance.

Wednesday August 6th

Beginning of search for wild dogs: 5.30 am
Wild dogs located 07.55 am
Because the dogs are severely endangered, they must be monitored twice daily. We finally found them by the river, hiding behind a bush. I am here to tell you that a fairly small bush can happily disguise 4 wild dogs extremely effectively.
Zimanga is also warthog capital of the universe. They are everywhere, including one family which has found a hole in the fence and regularly visits the camp. They are fairly nervous and the sight of people will send them back outside the fence, though the babies have still to learn exactly where the escape route is and will run behind mum, missing the hole entirely and being brought to an abrupt and unexpected halt.
No warthog was harmed in the recounting of this story.
Nice birds. Here is a random list:
Lappet Faced Vultures (lots); Tawny Eagle; Marabou Stork; Black Stork; Fish Eagle; Bronze Winged Courser; Yellow Hornbills (lots); Fork-tailed Drongo; African Open Bill; Egyptian Goose (lot)s; Malachite Kingfisher – I have a ticky list  There are more.
Coffee and rusks were taken at probably the highest point in the reserve. (I will upload a fairly rubbish photograph, which doesn’t do the view justice.) By this time the 150 layers had been discarded and the strappy top had been liberated. I am sensitive to the feelings of my reader and no photo will be forthcoming.

 My first ever wild dog!

Tuesday August 5^th
Zimanga – Kwa-Zulu Natal
Why have I been elected chief cook? I’m sitting on the veranda waiting for the chicken casserole to do its thing, but I have crickets and the occasional nightjar for company, so it’s not all bad.
And I don’t get to do the washing up.
Late start this morning: 6.30. We are being spoilt. 5.30 starts from tomorrow!
The main thing I learnt on this morning’s drive was that if you see a guy parked up in a battered Toyota truck, there’s something worth looking at. (The guy in the truck owns the reserve.)
Now, the painted dogs were excellent, don’t get me wrong, but the cheetah and its kill was marginally better: getting out of the truck and getting close to the cheeta - which simply observed us with rather less than curiosity – is going to be a hard act to follow.
I learnt how to use the telemetry tracker and how to log sightings of the animals being monitored. I’ll twist someone’s arm to take a photo, assuming we survive the casserole.
Oh, and it may still be winter, but it’s HOT. Mornings start with woolly hats and about 15 layers, but it’s strappy tops and Factor 50 by 10am.

This is Kalahari with his kill - an impala.

I'm spending August volunteering at a private game reserve near the Swaziland border.

This shall be my blog.

And this is where I'll be and what I'll be doing: http://wildlifeact.com/specialist-volunteer/film-maker-volunteer/