Baboons!

Here in the mountains at Blue Hill there are plenty of baboon although they are very wary of humans due to being shot by farmers. They are very unlike the Cape Point baboons.

Using my camera-trap set right in the hills miles from the house and managed to capture some natural baboon behaviour (although I was hoping for a leopard).

Below are two videos from the camera trap followed by a few photos.

The baboons run at the first sight of people.

 Here they are keeping an eye on me.

And this guy didnt make it, maybe prey to a leopard?

Arrived in South Africa

Well here I am in South Africa staying at the Blue Hill Escape. I have had my camera up already and seen plenty of signs of the cape mountain leopard, spoor and scat. 

The baboons are quite a frequent sight but much more nervous than the peninsular ones. Probably due to the fact they have been hunted here and shot as vermin. I am on the bird survey at the moment having set off today with bavianskloof nature area next up. 

Birdlife is everywhere with sunbirds singing meters from where I stand. Redwing starlings, my favourite bird, nests in the roof above my room.

The location is so remote at night it is absolutely deafening with the quietness. This also has the effect that the sky at night is unbelievable which this time-lapse I created shows.

 

Images unfortunately will be in a future post as I have limited internet and they are all in RAW format at around 30mb each.

My camera trap has captured some nice baboon behaviour as well as some species of buck and kudu. These will be up soon.

Finally an image not in RAW for you to show the starts. 

Milky way showing the southern cross and pointers in the top right.  (30 second shutter, 3200 iso.)