Rhinos at the Picnic

The drive ended at a vlei or waterhole with a meal of salad and apples. I enjoyed the salad, which is very odd for me who likes to have some form of meat in a meal. It was probably due to the location than the actual food though. The vlei was located in the middle of a large plain a few kilometers wide encompassed by towering cliff faces on all sides of sandstone and limestone creating a mini crater. The center of the plain contained a depression of a almost circular bowl around 100m across which is where our vlei sat.

Enjoying our picnic

We left our trusty landrover on the road behind a bush some 50m from the vlei and headed to the waters edge. Our “guides” for the evening served up the food from a small pop up table on the waters edge where we sat eating and listening to the calls of frogs just waking from there slumber to begin the deafening night chorus. From the aptly named babbling kassina’s who sound like a bubbling water to the pain inducing pierce of the painted reed frogs we had them all.
Once everyone had polished off there first helpings and collected there seconds or an apple we gathered round the table to debrief and give feedback to the afternoons guide and tracker before handing over to me for my first night drive and my tracker. It was a normal feedback session with the standard comments of “ The drive was a bit bumpy” or “Make sure you know what the species we are looking at is”. These can be of great importance and help you to develop your guiding skills if they are not taken too personally which unfortunately for some they did.
After I had said my piece I felt an urge to look around before the last of the light faded. Coming over the rim of the small bowl containing the vlei not 20m away from us was a female white rhino and calf. We where in the open with the safety of the vehicle in the direction of the rhino. As calmly as possible I casually said “Rhino” so as not to panic everyone. I am sure they thought I was on about the rhino sighting from the drive and about to give feedback. It didnt sink in so I pointed to the rhino slowly plodding along directly to where we stood.

Rhino approaching our picnic

Rhino have very poor eyesight but extremely good hearing and smell. Lucky for us in the fading light its vision was greatly reduced even more and the wind was in our favour. Being in the bowl next to the frogs steadily increasing calls our talking was lost in the croaks and rattles. Once everyone was aware of the very close mother and calf we dropped everything and slowly moved off. Walking rather than running is a golden rule with wildlife but feels wrong especially as what you are trying to escape is keeping pace.We circled out away from them and around to the safety of the vehicle. Wesley stopped to take photos to which Mike wisely made him put down the camera and keep walking.

After spotting the table

We made it safely up the slope, around the bushes and back to our trusty landrover, Eleanor. The rhinos walked casually towards the exact spot we had just been sitting. The had not even known we had been there and was only when she basically bumped into the picnic table they she became aware of our presence. She panicked, jumped back and the two took flight over the far rim of the bowl while we watched from behind the bush in Eleanor. Once they had disappeared from view we returned to our picnic, finished the last of the food and packed it all into Eleanor. We then got back on with our plan of looking for frogs in the dark.

Off they go

The mothers print

A Cheetah Wakes Me Up

Sleep outs where a highlight of the course for me and our last one was the one I will remember the most.
Our last practice drive turned out to be one of the best so far. We headed out with a plan to focus on mammals and animal behaviour but since it was also birding big day and the only half the group that came where the birders we also tried to get over 100 birds in a day. We had a very successful day spotting 110 birds by the time we went to bed. The 100th bird was a special, an amethyst sunbird, only the second we have seen here so far. A few days later we learnt that we had set an Amakhala record beating the previous record of 104 birds in a day which made us all proud.                                                                                                               

       As it was the last group sleep out we looked for a special place to stay and we settled on a camp site in amongst the thicket with close enclosed borders but very open and spacious inside. It was like it had been built for us by nature with black backed weavers and green wood hoopoe nesting in the trees and a spongy ground covering of soft leaves and grass. Since the rhino, buffalo and elephant where in the area we blocked all entrances off with branches, not to stop the animals but to give us a warning. As such we had to be very vigilant on night shift because of the close proximity of big game. Fortunately we had no visitors durning the night except for an inquisitive barn owl. As dawn broke we all woke to listen to the bird calls of the dawn chorus and ate breakfast. Since night shifts had been so intense we all had a 2 hour sleep and since it was daylight no-one stayed on watch.

The cheetah who said hello

After a sleep I woke to a rustling in the thicket nearby. Everyone else was fast asleep in the middle of the thicket. I slowly lifted my head to check what the sound was and I saw a male cheetah had entered camp and was 5m way from my roll mat! My first thought was “Leopard!, oh no its just a cheetah.......It’s a cheetah!”. I tried to get the attention of Mike, our facilitator, in the most silent way possible by whispering as loud as I could. Mike sat up quickly wondering what was going on and as he did the cheetah saw us, took fright and bounded off through the trees. I don't know who was more scared, us or the cheetah. For the next half hour Mike and I could not stop laughing and returning to sleep was out of the question for us.

I'm Back

So I have not updated here for a long time and the reason is I have been way too busy. Since my last post way back in September I have been at Ulovane training to be a field guide. I was so busy revising, learning to guide, sleeping in the bush and jumping off stuff that this blog had to take a rest.
Now with being back on Pudding Island I have time to update here and I am going to tell you all about my adventures. From having a picnic interrupted by rhino to a cheetah in camp and many other adventures too.
So to get you interested I will start with the end. Our graduation video. This shows some of the fun times we had and some of the wildlife we saw. I hope you enjoy and check back soon for some tales from the bush.