Another week on the trail of wildlife in Africa has seen Christelle Randall studying for exams, sweeping leaves, getting covered in soot on camp chores, encountering a grumpy bull elephant and becoming a Zimbabwean billionaire..
So another week has gone by and a lot of interesting things have happened. We took all our exams last weekend, following a week of serious training and are now able to hit the fields and participate in proper wildlife research.
Our group of 12 has been split into two and each day one person from each group is allocated a duty for which he or she is responsible.
For instance camp duty involves staying behind in camp, cleaning, preparing food for the whole group/staff and all chores.
I did this on Monday where I cooked macaroni cheese for 17 people, cleaned out and re-lit the “donkey”, our water heating system for which we cut and burn wood to heat up the boiler tank and refuelled the paraffin lamps around camp.
By the end of the day I was completely black, covered in soot, and I had earnt the nickname of Cinders. Anyone from work reading this who still suspects I am on a three-month holiday might think again….
Both groups have names and in a moment of inspiration I christened ours “the bladerunners”. This is because there is a collared male lion called Blade who we have been tracking. The other group is called the Buffalo Soldiers.
Other tasks include vehicle duty which means checking both trucks each morning at 5am and making sure everything is as it should be (tyre pressure gauge, fluids, clean the back from fallen leaves etc), base camp duty which involves inputting data collated from previous days and radioing in to the vehicles out on game drives to ensure all is OK.
Data entry involves collating data when out on game drives with minute and specific details on the animals. Probably the most important duties, for actually locating the animals involves telemetry (finding a rough location for a collared animal) and triangulation (narrowing down on the map through a series of triangulations exactly where the animal will be).
This whole week has been a lion focus which means both groups have been searching each day for the two resident prides at the reserve.
One pride is run by a lioness called Thicka , with her sister Pikkanin and three cubs. The other pride is run by a lioness called Tsotsi, with her sister Thala and their six cubs, some of which are now sub-adult.
There is an adult male lion called Blade who, it seems, goes between both prides. This could only really be possible if he had fathered both cubs which is what seems to be the case.
We have often found him with Thicka but he can sometimes be seen with Tsotsi’s pride so typically male he gets the best out of both worlds.
In the last week we’ve found Thicka and her pride on a kudu (large antelope) kill (with Blade present) and Tsosti and her pride on a baby giraffe kill (with Blade present again…he knows where and when his bread is buttered). It can take up to five hours or even longer to find the lions especially as the landscape here is pretty dense woodland.
Yesterday we had a pretty cool experience. In the afternoon we found Tsotsi and her pride, after a couple of hours, who were relaxing in a thicket.
Anyone who has been on safari before will know that lions aren’t usually the most interesting animals to watch. They are lazy and spend most of their day sleeping with the interesting action happening at night. We had been watching them for a short while when we heard a loud rustling in the distance. The lions were suddenly alert looking in the same direction.
Our staffer guessed that it would be a lone bull elephant and told us to be very quiet as we waited, together with the lions, for the elephant to appear. Two of the older cubs went to investigate and we saw them try and play with the elephant’s tail. The elephant was a little disgruntled and came crashing through the trees in our direction.
He was even less happy when he saw us and all I could think was the elephant would trample us and the lions would be only too happy to finish off the job.
The elephant came right up to our truck (open vehicle) and my friend Paul was asked to speak to the elephant in a constant low and soothing voice in a bid to convince him we were OK.
After what felt like an eternity the elephant decided we were no trouble and walked off but in the same direction we’d come in.
This meant we were stuck and had to try and find another way out for fear of walking back into the elephant.
The sun had also now gone down and the lions (who the elephant had chased off) were back. Now that it was dark they weren’t quite as relaxed as before and the one of the older cubs was showing a worrying interest in the truck.
This was especially worrying as we knew that the lions had not eaten for a day and a half and they were due to hunt that night. Luckily we found our way out and although it was a pretty amazing interaction to see, I needed a stiff drink when I got back to camp.
Other highlights this week have included a visit to the nearest town Messina which is about 80km away. It happened to be pay day and also a day off so we found the locals in high spirits. We had lunch in a burger joint called Spur and in walked a large party who turned out to be all the ministers from Limpopo.
The town itself was small and consisted of a main road with a variety of different shops and markets. There did not seem to be any obvious signs of poverty although the amenities and living conditions were still quite basic.
But there seemed to be more small brick houses as opposed to tin shacks although I am sure there were more further out. Those worst off are definitely the Zimbabwean refugees, and they are happy to talk to you about their experiences. I mentioned in my last posting that some have been known to cross over into the reserve, where they hope to find work, and it is thought that some have been eaten by lions.
We had the opportunity to buy some Zimbabwean dollars and I bought 50 billion, 25 billion and 5 billion notes for 10 rand. Some of these notes are already out of date.
I should probably finish by mentioning the incredible birds here. We have the beautiful lilac breasted roller (the national bird of Botswana lilac and blue), the black headed oriel, the kori bustard (heaviest flying bird who mates for life), the shrike (who catches insects, impales them on thorns in a larder in his nest and returns later to eat them), many different owls (one of which the pearl spotted owlet also known the orgasm bird for his distinctive ascending and staccato call each morning), yellow hornbills (flying bananas) and various eagles to name only a few.
They have become our daily alarm call, with no snooze button option, and they go off at 5am mixed in with the sound of screaming monkeys.
* Christelle promises pictures soon
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