Tag: wildlife vacation

Thursday we did our vehicle game count and it was the first time Vera, Jesaja and I weren’t freezing our whatooties off on the back of the vehicles. It was a welcome change from the near-zero temperatures we’ve had before! We had some really good spotters in this group and it was great to have them on board the vehicles.

After the vehicle game count, each vehicle split off to check the box trap nearest the terminus of their transect. Sadly, they were all empty. Vehicle 2 had a surprise encounter with the elephants on their way back to camp on the main east-west road, and they seemed a lot quieter than they were yesterday. The teams yesterday found them restless and a bit challenging to observe.

Unfortunately we did have one camera trap casualty this slot. The elephants and the baboons tag-teamed the poor trap and you can see how it came back to us. Look closely and you’ll see the teeth marks in the batteries! This is the second camera trap the elephants have destroyed this year.

After lunch all helped with the final data entry and equipment cleaning and organisation around base. Ania, our volunteer pharmacist, ruthlessly organised our emergency medical kits while Brigitte sorted through thousands of camera trap pictures. (Tomorrow look for the best of Slot 3 camera pictures.) Other afternoon activities included box trap duty and the vehicle cleaning detail.

Thanks Team 3 for your hard work over the past two weeks! Not only did you trail-blaze some new tracks for us (and collected our freshest “snack”, er, scat to date) you also gave us some clues as to where we might relocate another box trap.

Continue reading “Update from our working holiday volunteering with leopards, elephants and cheetahs in Namibia, Africa (http://www.biosphere-expeditions.org/namibia).”

In the last few days the elephants have really been travelling! One morning team found them in the mountains at the far south of the farm, and then the afternoon team found them at a waterhole on the north east side. (For those of you reading this that have already been to Okambara that would be in the mountains south of JM house, and then at Boma a few hours later!)

While our new box trap has not netted us a predator yet, we still have been consistently seeing tracks rather close to the trap, which keeps our hopes up for of a capture. We’ve also caught a porcupine (this one was also reluctant to leave the box trap), and another warthog. We also think we’ve solved the mystery of the closed-but-empty traps; tracks in front of a couple of the traps suggest a civet cat is setting them off, their small size enabling them to waltz out between the bars of the trap doors.

We have a couple of avid bird watchers, and it’s been enlightening to go out into the field with Anand and Suresh, because their keen eyes pick out roosting (and flying) birds that the rest of us need the binoculars to see. The duo has compiled a list of 51 positive identifications, and will add them to the expedition “bird journal” that Joe in Team 1 started. Several of us were lucky enough to go birdwatching (birdlearning?) with them on the day off.

Vera received a download from the collar of the leopard captured and collared during the last slot, and the data showed him repeatedly crossing the southern boundary of the farm. Vera immediately sent a team to investigate and they found the hole in the fence that he had been using and placed a camera trap there. Vera was ecstatic when pictures from the camera trap caught him in his patrol. Another good example of how useful it is to have so many helping hands, eyes and ears.

Speaking of camera traps, Sandra B. is such an enthusiast that she arrived with not one, but TWO of her own camera traps, and has added them to our efforts in strategic places on Okambara. One of her traps up north revealed a beautiful adult caracal as well as a very interesting oryx!

Continue reading “Update from our working holiday volunteering with leopards, elephants and cheetahs in Namibia, Africa (http://www.biosphere-expeditions.org/namibia).”

Wednesday morning a sudden change in the elephants’ direction of travel put the elephant team face to face with the entire herd. It was a nice encounter in the middle of the road, where the team was treated to a display of mock fighting between two young bulls. The youngsters were plenty far away from the vehicle, and were nice enough to play out in the open so the team was able to capture some great pictures.

The afternoon camera traps team collected the SD cards from several of the traps around the farm and we were treated to a slide show after dinner. We got to see game animals from some interesting points of view, as well as a visual reward from Team Twos’ legacy: remember the oryx calf kill we used to catch the leopard and then relocated the calf? We caught three klipspringer on the camera.

The trap also revealed three cheetahs that were quite curious about a stick Christian had moved in the roadway a mere hour before the curious cats came along (we caught Christian on the camera trap as well!). As you can see, we can get some very good ID pictures from the minute that they spent in front of the camera.

Further south of that camera another camera trap revealed a very curious leopard (was he licking the trap?) unfortunately too close to the camera for Vera to use for ID pictures.

Wednesday one group walked a new transect in the northeast corner of the farm, which we are now calling Tracks & Scats #12. After hearing about the several tracks and scats that were found, Vera decided to make a new activity on Thursday to re-position one of the box traps there. So all three groups set out in the morning to do box traps – one to check JM South, another to pick up and move the JM North trap, and the third went up to Bergposten to check the trap.

The Bergposten team of Gary, Sandra, Suresh, Anand and Alisa arrived to discover a very displeased honey badger in the trap. After conferring with Vera, the team went back to release it. Thanks to Suresh for his nerves of steel (no doubt due to his Army training) for liberating the annoyed animal. The fierce honey badger at one point climbed up and was hanging onto the top of the cage from the inside trying to get to Suresh (honey badgers have been documented as even making a lion back down). Yet once the trap door was opened, the honey badger left Suresh behind and made a run for freedom.

When finished, the honey badger team joined the other two box trap teams, who had just finished the lovely new corral. This relocated box trap is just east of the lodge for those of you reading that have been to Okambara. Hopefully the new location will prove fruitful and we will catch a leopard!

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Our third team has arrived. They’ve brought along with them good luck and some strange weather. The first night, right on cue after the daily briefings, a rhinoceros family arrived at our waterhole. It’s always fun to watch the comings and goings just outside base camp.

Speaking of watching things, team member Sandra B. even brought her own camera trap, and while she caught mostly images of cows, she did manage to capture a couple of curious jackals sniffing out the trap. We haven’t seen last night’s visitors yet, but just as everyone was going to bed the elephant herd came to our water hole, and I can tell you it was a reverential event. Joerg Melzheimer, the biologist who brought Biosphere Expeditions to this beautiful study site and now makes sure from the wings that our science does what it’s meant to do, had just finished giving his presentation on the elephants and their behaviour, when all nine Okambara elephants arrived. I know we’re not supposed to use smart phones out here in the bush, but I for one am glad he rang them up and invited them 😉

The elephants proved a little more elusive during the day today as the morning team couldn’t quite locate them. It would seem they were on the move all day long, because the afternoon team found them, but they were almost 8 kms away from where we’d tracked them in the morning. Also this morning Vera gave us a presentation on how box traps work, and Gabi volunteered to give us a live demonstration on how the trap works.

Then Suresh took the initiative to get inside and get the job done. The group then split into three teams and we went about our morning activities.

All afternoon it felt like a storm was brewing with dark clouds, shifting winds, and we all got excited when we felt the first raindrop. But after two more drops the rain went away, and we were left with dust storms all over Okambara. It has been two very interesting days!

 

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Vera and I were reminiscing about the first two groups and we decided to have a look at the expedition journal. We’ve had some really original input from team members so far, and it makes us remember you fondly. Thorns? What thorns? Dust? What dust? Waterhole roulette?

Here’s some of what the first two teams wrote, and we look forward to sharing this with the coming teams. Team 3, see you on Sunday!

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Continue reading “Update from our working holiday volunteering with leopards, elephants and cheetahs in Namibia, Africa (http://www.biosphere-expeditions.org/namibia).”

Wednesday we performed our normal activities in the morning, and the box trap team liberated another curious warthog from Frankposten. The schools here in Namibia are on break this week, and in the afternoon we picked up the farm children and the team took them on a game drive. They all enjoyed the outing, but I think we enjoyed the children’s company more than the game drive. Barbara and Dianne had a sing-along with the children and it was really fun.

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Apparently me vs. meerkat was the highlight of the afternoon for Shelagh, since she immortalized the event in the Expedition Journal for every team hereafter to read about: The farm workers have a tame meerkat, which considers them its “family”. When we were picking up the children the meerkat took offense at my presence and attacked my boot, and I clambered up the side of the vehicle. Preposterous as this seems, I’d already seen it attack Vera’s boot the week before, so I was having none of it. (I note with irony that the meerkat didn’t like Claire’s boots any better, but SHE did not get immortalised in the journal!)

Our second Vehicle Game Count was Thursday, and again the teams were ready and eager. Sightings were plentiful and all three teams noted the abundance of oryx calf sightings in the morning hours. While it’s late in the season for the oryx to be calving, apparently they have the ability to postpone delivery while waiting for better feeding conditions, but only for so long. The last rainy season was quite meager (I’m told 70 mm as opposed to the “normal” ~450 mm), and the vegetation is sparse. If we’re, lucky the rains will begin early in December, but that’s a long time to wait. And they may not come early at all. It’s tough conditions in the savannah right now.

Friday morning we said good-bye to Team 2, and after one day here alone I can tell you are sorely missed! I checked all the traps all by myself yesterday, and it was very time-consuming. All the volunteer work here is so important; without you, we simply do not have the reach into the field activities that we do when you are here. So a hearty thank-you to you all! I look forward to meeting Team 3 next week!

Continue reading “Update from our working holiday volunteering with leopards, elephants and cheetahs in Namibia, Africa (http://www.biosphere-expeditions.org/namibia).”