St. Lucia

Just got back from our last week off before we go on placement as I had spent the last 2 weeks off here around camp I really wanted to go somewhere for this one. Suzie and I decided we would go down to St. Lucia, a coastal touristy town near where we wanted to go on placement. St. Lucia is a great birding destination with hippos and croc that swim in the ocean and Turtles that come along the beaches to lay their eggs. Also, Our placement was going to be at Bonomanzi a reserve near by and we could stop in meet everyone and see what it was like.

We left early Sunday morning preparing for a 10-hour drive ahead of us with lots of snacks and good music to listen to on the way down. The drive is beautiful with windy roads through the foggy Drakensberg mountains then on to vast stretches of forest that lead into rolling hills and grasslands. I much enjoyed it even though we encountered much construction along the way. The landscape was nothing like you would imagine South Africa to be. We arrived about 4 in the afternoon to St. Lucia without a hitch. The room we were staying in was like a little apartment with a kitchen, TV! and even a Bathtub in the bathroom. Now for us this is luxury.

Monday Suzie and I went for a drive in the local park and within minutes came across Rhino sleeping under a tree 2 females and a calf escaping the heat of the day just relaxing by the water’s edge. As we drove on we came across so many different birds I can’t even begin to list them all. The next outlook brought us to a boardwalk where we could stroll up to the water’s edge and see the Flamingos and Hippos in the water. We decided to stop for a picnic lunch and then head back as we had booked on to a hippo and croc river cruise.

The river cruise was very good getting extremely close to the hippos (I got some great pictures). Suzie and I spent most of it taking notes on anything new the captain would say about things we would see along the way. We learned tons and it was worth it just for that not to mention everything else.

That night we stayed in and watched a movie, when there was a knock on the door. Who is that? We wondered. Well it was the security guard. He came to tell us there was a hippo on the grounds and we could come see if we want. So out we went and right there, not even 10 meters from us was a hippo happily munching away on the grass. What a cool way to start off the week.

Thunder Storms

Our last Bushwise exam was yesterday before the FGASA final exam so yesterday was a day to relax. I spent the afternoon baking chocolate cake, while most of the group went to Mahlahlah to watch a rugby game. Everyone was in a great mood and we were all up at Declan and Marty’s house hanging out when the Thunder started to clap. About 11:30pm Suzie and I walked to the kitchen to get a drink and it started pouring rain. The Thunder and lightening was non-stop with loud booming crashes and lightening that lit up the entire camp and it looked like it was almost daylight. We sat in the dinning area listening to the rain druming on the tin roof and watching the lightening crash. A couple times the thunder cracked so loud that Suzie squealed. It was her first real thunderstorm. She is from southeast England and said she had never experienced a storm like this. I ran back to my room to make sure the windows and doors were all closed and was soaked within seconds the road and paths were also flooded and turning into a river. In some spots it was as deep as my calf. The power went out about 30 minutes into the storm but there was enough non-stop lightening that a flashlight was not even needed. Between the lightening, though, it was so dark that you could not see your hand in front of your face. The rain poured for about 2 hours and the thunder and lightening went well into the night. Suzie and I finally made it back to our rooms about 2 in the morning when the rains let up a bit.

We still have not heard about Lucy, hopefully she is doing OK.

Ahh! Snakes!

The weather has been unbelievably HOT lately with temperatures above 35˚C making it very difficult to get any studying done as all we want to do is lounge in the pool. Friday came around so quickly this week and everyone realized that we had not done any studying for this week’s exam, which will be on Saturday. I had Aislinn’s assessment drive to go on in the morning as a guest, so I decided I would do some hard-core studying after brunch. We had just finished the dishes when from the kitchen we hear Lucy, she's our cook, cry for help. Turns out there was a snake in the kitchen, a spitting cobra, this snake can be very deadly. We called the instructors and Daryl came out. After much moving around of the deep freeze he eventually got the snake out of the kitchen. It was our first sighting of a deadly snake on campus. As we finally settled down to get back to studying Lucy calls for help again. She is starting to feel dizzy and her foot is hurting. Lucy thinks the snake bit her. Aislinn and Kathryn grab the first aid kit and bandage up her leg while I sit and talk to her trying to keep her calm. Suzie calls the instructors on the radio and Ruth brings the vehicle around, as we have to get to the gate to get cell phone signal and call an ambulance. If bitten its venom affects the Nervous system and your breathing and if not monitored can lead to death. Most snakes however, will try to get away to a safe place rather then bite and if they do bite a lot of time it is a “dry bite” where they don’t inject venom. Lucy, we don’t think was bitten as the symptoms didn’t seem to be severe enough. Daryl thinks a lot of it was in her head from fear. She was taken to the hospital and all they did was give her a shot of anti-venom and send her home. So far we haven’t heard anything but we are sure she is OK. The scariest part is the doctor who treated her gave her anti-venom. This is never a good idea and most places will not give it to you as you have to know exactly what snake bit you and the problems that arise from the anti-venom can be as bad if not worse than the snake bite. Usually you just treat the symptoms and eventually your body will rid itself of the venom. We are all worried about her but think she will be fine. Later that night Daryl spotted a python up by his house. It was just a small one and no need to fear it but we are now even more cautious around here about snakes as they seem to be coming out.

That makes our snake sighting total at 6, Brown house snake, vine snake, tiger snake, sand snake, python and spitting Cobra. Photo is of the tiger snake. As for studying well not much got done but the test was not too bad and I think we all passed.

Assessment Drive

I passed my assessment drive on Wednesday! Now I am one step closer to becoming a full-fledged field guide. I thought it went quite well and Ruth, who was my tracker, agreed it was awesome. The assessment drive is not difficult in the fact that we have more than enough knowledge to pass. What makes it difficult is that we start the drive from camp and not from the reserve and we have to stop and talk about things we see on the side of the road leading to the reserve never quite making it into Makalali. Basically it means we won’t see any mammals but have to incorporate them into our assessment in some way. As you all know my driving skills are not the best so I choose to do a short little walk around our tree path here in the camp. This helped me pass my exam as I was able to point out tons of little things like insects and tracks and get my “guests” involved by showing them butterfly eggs, and let them smell the scent of the Tamboti tree. There was also a beehive on the path and my assessor, Mark, was impressed with my knowledge about the bees. Bees when coming back from collecting pollen will dance out their route to the other bees shaking their abdomen and emitting pheromones so the other bees know where to go. Some bees will raid other hives of their honey by pretending to fly the same way as the bees they are raiding in order to get past the guards protecting the honey.

As we went on the road a vehicle passed us pulling a horse trailer. Mark knew the guy driving and asked me to pull over. The guy was transporting a Sable (type of antelope) to a hunting lodge. We don’t have sable on our reserve so we all got to climb on top the trailer and look at it from over head. They are beautiful animals with long curved horns.

After that the drive was pretty much over and we headed back to the camp where Mark interviewed me on things I was not able to cover such as astronomy and gave me feed back about the drive. He said my knowledge was good and I knew my bird and bird calls very well but I needed more practice on my driving, knowing when to change gears and things like that but I already knew about it so was quite pleased.

Next step the FGASA Level 1 Exam on November 20.

Picture of a Grey Go-Away Bird.

The Joys of Africa

A Leopard has killed a Kudu(antelope) just outside of camp and the whole place stinks of rotting meat so bad that you can't breath. It's disgusting. Just thought I would share that with you.

Last Day :(

Woke up at about 5 this morning to the birds and monkey’s screaming I opened my eyes just in time to see a leopard jump into the tree right beside out room. I woke Tim up but the leopard had mostly climbed too high for Tim to get a good look all he saw was a shadow. We jumped out of bed to see if we could get a better look but the leopard was out of sight by them. We could hear the baboons and birds giving alarm calls, something jumped on the roof of our room and then onto the boardwalk. But we couldn’t tell if by then it was the monkeys or the leopard. Couldn’t fall back asleep after that. I’m so happy to have been able to see all the big 5 in this trip.

Left at about 8:00 this morning after a wonderful breakfast and drove through the Kruger park to get back to camp. Saw a flock of 8 ground hornbills, many many herds of elephants, tons of buffalo and some baby Ostrich. I’d never seen baby Ostrich they were so small and so cute. So sad to have to leave Pafuri I kept hinting to Mark that I wanted to do my placement there but so did everyone else and I don’t think they even take students. Still maybe one day.

Day 4 Elephants and Buffalo!

We’ve decided to stay another night and it’s a good thing we did! On the mornings hike we walked near the place we were yesterday but took a different route. We found Rhino tracks again and since the tracks were headed in the same direction we were going we followed them. Soon we heard loud grunts and growls. It sounded as if the Rhino’s were fighting just over the next bend. Mark instructed us that if they come this way we should get behind the rocks. As we walked closer they sounded more like lions than Rhino but then we heard the calf squeal and realized that it was rhino’s. That second when we thought it was lion though my heart stopped. We definitely didn’t want to be walking in on lions fighting. We could hear the rhinos for quite some time but could not seem to track them down. As we were walking in dense bushes we must have been circling around them and never coming close enough to see. Mark said it was probably a male trying to mate with a female who was not willing this he deducted from the calf squealing.

The afternoon we did another hike, We were trekking between two high cliffs and Mark was just telling us how many animals use this path to get down to the water when we saw a herd of elephants coming straight for us. The amount of dust they were kicking up told us how quickly they were moving towards us. We scrambled up the cliffs as fast as we could and as high as we possibly could get. It seemed to take ages to climb up those cliffs and Mark had to do it with a rifle in his hands. But then the elephants didn’t come. We sat there and sat there and nothing. We couldn’t see where they were because trees blocked our line of sight. Mark scrambled back down and was able to see them but they had slowed down and were eating. We sat on the cliffs for about 15 minutes and then this rumbling came and the elephants came into sight, a heard of about 10 and they were moving very quickly but as soon as they got to where we were sitting they stopped. One elephant turned towards where we were sitting and started to smell the area. Declan, was quite a bit lower on the cliffs then we were and we were worried that if the elephant came closer Declan was not high enough to be out of the way of it’s powerful trunk. Luckily they just sniffed a bit and carried on their way. We sat astounded by the experience when only seconds later a heard of buffalo followed behind the elephants. They stopped just short of where the elephants were and then turned and went back the way they came. Two of the big 5 encounters in a span of 2 minutes it was quite a rush. We were so glad that we stayed another night after that experience!