First week of September

So this week was a rather busy one with several game drives, a cheetah walk and a full day out on the quad finding rhinos... in the first rain we've had in the past 3 months (which was more then worth the wet socks).

The week started good with following the lions down towards the river, they had been in the area for the last 2 days but out of range of us to off road to them.

What I wasn't expecting was to hit the end of the road and have all 5 of them just laying in the shade a few meters off the road.

I pulled up and sat next to them for a few minutes, less then 10 meters away. I hopped out and with it being about 9:00am I decided, to the delight of the volunteers, that this would be a perfect spot to have some coffee and tea. After our 10 minutes break with lions I slowly took the car off road to get a better visual for the data log, and since they where still comfortable with the car, we enjoyed another 30 minutes just 3 meters from our 2 boys.

Lion tracks

Then on my quad day with the rhinos I was tracking them down, which is rather difficult while raining, and happened to pass our drive which had gone off road to get a visual and they swung around and picked me up before heading back and watching our big male mating.
Lion mating is a very vigorous affair, with quite a bit of mating required before the female will enter estrous, and in the 30  minutes we where there they mated 3 times. The process is rather short and can be painful when the male withdraws as his penis has small backward facing barbs that help induce oviation, but often leads to him being smacked by the angry female. 

So hopefully we'll have a few new lion cubs come December!

It's been a while...

White Rhino in Kruger NP

African Wood Hoepoe

So It has been a few months since my last update (something I will need to work on) but here at LEO we are busy all the time and always have alot going on. My work here is focused on Lion and Rhino monitoring and keeping track of the animals that live on the reserve, we do game drives basically twice every day, have walks into the Cheetah area, alot of data logging and keeping track of animal moments and helping with reserve management: from alien plant removal to road maintenance and fence repairs.

African Buffalo-Kruger

It's alot of long hours and hard work, but good work with alot of experience to be gained. I also get the chance to do guiding in other areas, as we do excursions into Kruger NP and several other 'hot spots' in the area.

Mtumi

 Alot of my time in spent doing rhino monitoring and some anti-poaching activities tracking the rhinos on the ground on a quad and getting close watching over these endangered animals.

We have 7 lions on the reserve, they where introduced to keep the herbivore population to a healthy and sustainable limit and we keep track of them and their habits, and as Selati is a private reserve with no game lodges on it, we are generally the only ones to view the animals.

And we also have two young cheetah who where orphaned earlier this year that we are keeping a close eye on in a separate area while they learn to hunt so they can be introduced into the reserve.

Definitely not a bad job.

To the new start...

Reed frog

This was the last week here at the Bushwise course and most of us are now moving on to our internship this Monday. I have been given a place with two other students at a research place that deals with motioning and studying various animals on a almost unused piece of land. These last few days we've had our final game drives and walks together, as well as the theory exam for walking trial safaris. This was alot on different scenarios and how to handle different situations as well as a test on our wildlife behavior knowledge and what different signals and body language means what for each animal. We also had a farewell lunch at a lodge, buffet style and a final thank you to instructors and staff, and our final movie night on the projector after a slideshow of some of our favorite photos of the time here (the lion king was the movie, obviously) and dinner at the local bar.

So with placement coming up we really don't have much idea what will be expected of us, but I'm ready to move out into the field and start really learning how things work. This course has been great with alot of good people and instructors and most defiantly not the worst way to spend 5 months, even with delays and exams and study time.

The last week off

Bed for three nights

This past week was the final week off I had here on the coarse, I left with 4 other students and met up with one of the instructors who took us out to a very secluded camping spot up on a expansive rock plateau about 6 hours away. The place was called Makgabeng and has several cave walls that have been painted on by local tribes over the past.

Red paintings-before European settlers

We arrived late after the sun had set and had to wander around finding a place to sleep while setting up camp in the dark. The next day we wandered around toward the long gorge that cut through the labyrinth of razor sharp rocks, and after that it got even better… we found some white cave art, this art is 200 or less years old and it depicts scenes 

from the tribes during what is called the ‘boer wars’, this was the great expansion of South Africa when those of European decent turned deeper into the continent to escape the British rule (aka: the boers). 

view from the top

We returned to camp after several hours and had a nice Braai (BBQ) on the campfire. The next day we wondered towards the nearest mountain and explored a few more art caves before making our way to the top through the pathless passes of fallen boulders and sheer cliffs. We did it in a pretty short 3 hours even though half the company had (previous) leg injurys and the instructors young daughter scampered up ahead of us.

The moon and Venus

Since we where up on a flat place miles from the nearest civilization with 0 light polution I decided to try out some night/evening photogrophy and got a few good shots, not great but good, including this one which by chance happened to catch a shooting star zip between my rock arch and Venus

This last month...

Dwarf Mongoose

So, to summarize the last few weeks, I had my written and practical assessment, along with the rest of the group, almost all of us passed and will be moving on to our placements next month. Most of that time was spent just revising and talking routes and figuring out how to get over these last things. It was a big relief when it was over and now there is just one more test to go, this one is for walking on foot so it’s not quite as important but you do need it if you want to take people on walks (which I do so, more study). The lions we met on a walk and got within about 15 meters of them, a group of 2 lionesses with their cubs and it was just nice to see them wander together.

 This past week has just been a long relaxing time with some nice sightings and a overnight trip up the mountains, the vegetation there is very unique and the nearest equivalent is way over near cape town, very much a diamond in the mountains rough. The Mariskop mountain is like a forest covered in moss and ferns with lots of unique wildlife and plants (including awesome wildflowers). The camp sight was just up from a lovely river with a rope swing and some nice rapids. A great place to sit and think or look at the stars; or to wander through the green-gold sunlight through the trees.

(These odd flowers where all over the place up there)

This is now the end of the off week, there are a few of us who were taken by one of the trainers to a pretty secret place to see some rock art and explore there, special permission is needed by the chief because it’s on tribal land and the camp site is basically a dirt patch. It was rather amazing and that stuff will be coming soon...

So soon

Mole Cricket

So last week was a few game drives and the botany practical, it came out to about 25 different trees, grasses, flowers and shrubs that we had to go through. Aside from that we had a Kruger trip and we spent 8 hours in the car driving here and there, my group saw all the big 5 so it was a good week all in all.

This week has been the start of the main exam for this year, level one starts Friday morning and covers all the modules and material we've gone over these last three months, so most of these last few days has just been going over this material. We've had a few game drives this week and a few good sightings, and this week will end with a few of us going down the day after finals to watch Avengers 2 at the cinema, which is about 2 hours away but should be worth the trip. It's almost the end of this coarse and the start of placement, so alot is riding on Friday and the practical drive the Tuesday after. As much as I like reading about the bush it does take quite a bit of the time I would spend out in it exploring so I'm really looking forward to moving on and being able to experience as much as I read. But nothing really beats going to sleep hearing lions roaring in the evening, and waking up to them again in the morning.

                                                                                                                                                                   

Third Week Off

So this is almost the end of this off week, I went up with two friends up to the coastal city of Durban which is a 9 hour drive away. We stayed at a great hostel about 20 minutes from the city center, it had two rock swimming pools next to a balcony that looked out over the beach.

The main reason for this trip was to jump into the water with these oceanic black tip reef sharks, we got to spend a full hour with them in the water and it was just the three of us and the guides. We jumped quietly into the water and hung onto a wooden beam that had a chum bucket dropping like an anchor about 5 meters below us, this bout them around us and some times the skipper would toss in sardines and this kept them happy enough to stay near waiting for a snack. We had a underwater camera and video camera so a video will be coming soon. This was one of the best things since I came out here.

Besides that we just went to the mall and enjoyed a movie in a real cinema, and some nice home cooking or grabbing pizza to sit on the beach.

This next week is a tree focus until the practical exam which is on a list of 60 different species we need to ID and know the scientific names. And the week after is the start of major studying for the final FGASA exam which is what we've been working towards. After that it's not all over though, there is also a practical drive to complete in early May and at the end of May is the Trails guide exam which is the last test and the last thing I need to complete for walking safaris along with the Rifle certification. So getting ready for the final sprint.

Rifles and roadtrips

This week was the Advanced Rifle Handling (ARH) tests, which is a timed and accuracy based test for walking safari guides. It's hard enough by it's self but a bit harder being left handed using a right handed rifle. There was a blind folded exercise of loading and unloaded, three rapid shots at 15 meters, 10 meters and 5 meters. Then if you do that then it's a misfire simulation and then a mock stationary buffalo charge at 12 and 8 meters. And all that ends with a mock lion charge being reportedly pulled at real time speed.

The video is posted here:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2GoFWIHIL3E

During a night drive

This marks the start of the next off week which make only about 4 weeks left until the final exams, all the pre-tests are finished now so it's revising and getting ready for the practical drive assessment. Really just three more things to finish and then off for placement on reserve, the place lined up is called Leo and it is research based meaning instead of guests it's volunteers and it's alot of animal tracking, ID and monitoring, if it's half as good as it looks it'll be very very good.



This week it's down for a few day in the coastal city of Durban, hopefully for some shark swimming.

The end is nigh

 This past week has been, yet again, very busy, but on the plus side all the bookish exams have finished as of yesterday morning. All that is left is the practicals and the one final in a few weeks and then it's off to work. This week was SA history and culture along with conservation into and fresh water fish; on top of that was a few mock assessments and some rifle practice getting ready for the ARH (Advanced rifle handling) that we do this coming week. If I get the ARH then I can do walking safaris and take guests or volunteers out on foot, which is a completely different experience from the vehicle. So I am hoping it all goes well, but it is one of the more difficult guiding qualifications with blindfolded exercises, dummy rounds and a mock lion charge (which is pulled towards you at real life speed of 10 meters per second, and you get one shot).

Black Shouldered kite

So it's now basically a month of revising and study until the final but hopefully a little more free time to add in a few hobbies here and there. Still lots to learn but hopefully I'll be able to get through at lease a chapter in a novel or actually have time to sit and watch a movie.

Have a few more pictures to go through since so much time was taken up this week. My team won the birding contest with 136 ID in 4 days.

Birds on drive

Blue Waxbill

Spotted Eagle-Owl

Pair of African fish eagles

A few pics from the birding week. We had a sleep out last night way on the other side of the reserve in the middle of a nice old dry riverbed, a good few hours of cooking over the fire and star gazing with a nice relaxed drive back to camp.
A test in two days that will cover about half of the birding challenge and tomorrow is a full day of study.

 We have a friendly competition among the group as to who can see the highest number of birds in the last few days, and without knowing numbers, I think our group has done well with over 100 identified by sound and sight.

 This here is a African Hawk Eagle, a less common tan morph coloration, he was happy to sit for a few pictures before giving some great in air shots.

On the left is a Adult Bateleur, one of the hardest birds to ID since it's adolescence feathers differ drastically from this one we found here the other day.

On the right is a female collard sunbird (and the bright blue/red collar is only seen on the males).
We have loads of very colorful, beautiful birds, but for me it's all about the raptors.



One more drive to add up the numbers and then a full day of bird booking for the exam.