My Ultimate Capture

I have had this video in my collection since September but being at Ulovane I never got around to actually using it on a post which is strange as it shows the animal which I most want to see in the wild. When I was checking through the videos with my family after collecting it in Blue Hills I nearly dropped my drink. I was extremely excited and had to put my drink down before watching it again. 

It is a shot of that elusive creature, the honey badger. And not just one but two!

After watching it is obvious that the second one is a youngster and it is following its mother. You can see the youngster check the camera out before realising its mother has just carried and runs off in pursuit. Young honey badgers may stay with the parents for over 2 years and since this guy is pretty big he cannot be far off leaving. 

During my whole time out there I never once saw the honey badger. I captured this video, seen damage they had done to a bee hive a few days before and on a morning walk during tracker duties at Shamwari there where fresh honey badger prints on the road out of camp. I have come so close so many times but I will not give up my search. I will return to find the honey badger.

An Ant-Bear

So a few weeks ago I captured footage of a cape mountain leopard. On the camera there was also another interesting individual, the aardvark or ant-bear. This gut was in the same location as the leopard, just a week later. The area seems to be a busy place so I have returned my camera there to try and capture my number 1 animal, the ratel or honey badger. 

The aardvark wondered around in the distance in this first video probably looking for its favourite food, termites. The aardvark tears a termite mound apart with its sharp claws and then has easy access to the little guys inside. 

The next video shows the strange animal much closer. If you refer back to my post on the leopard (link) you can compare the sizes of the two animals as they both stand in the same location. 

The termite mounds all around the area are filled with large holes created by these guys but smaller holes just a few mm wide are scattered all over the mounds. These give the mounds a pitted appearance and are made by another creature not termites or aardvark. These are made by the ground woodpecker. They use their bills to poke about inside the mound and pick out some juicy termites.

Ground Woodpecker

How to Set up a Camera Trap.

Over the last few days I have put together a short film on how I set up my camera trap. The video includes a few hints on sighting the camera as well as the settings which I most often use. All the footage was captured at Blue Hill Escape. There is some new footage from the camera trap in the film, a few very special species. A quick hint as to what it is, it is a predator. Watch the video to see what it could be. I enjoyed making the introduction which I am quite proud of. I hope you enjoy the short film.

More footage of the secret species in my next post (although if you watched the video it wont be secret anymore).