Category: Kalahari Facts

Thunderbolt Flower!

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This is Thunderbolt Flower. I love that name and I think it makes it sound a little like a super-hero. But It’s also known as Lady’s Slipper and Wild Sesame and probably 42 other things, which is why you can’t get away with not knowing the scientific names of plants. Grrrrrrr.  So this is Sesamum triphyllum.  Often standing 2 meters tall, it quite literally stands out on the Kalahari dunes. I have a plant book that says you’ll get a ‘flavour-filled surprise’ if you add its oily seeds to a bowl of pap. I’m truly intrigued! So i’m adding it to my list of plants that I want to try to eat.

The stem and leaves of Sesamum triphyllum also work nicely as a soap, so I like to carry a piece whenever i’m travelling across the Kalahari. When you add water to it and rub, It leaves your hands feeling all clean and soft and organic-ish. Once you’ve wiped off all the green ooze…

August 11: August Wind is Windy

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It was another really cold Kalahari night! The day had been ridiculously windy and while I usually shake my fists at the wind (“Grrrrr go away wind…”) it serves an important function. So I let it be. This time.

By the time it gets to August in the Kalahari, it’s very dry indeed. The winds always come at this time of year and they help to spread about all the grass seed that’s been floating around.  And the winds get Tumbleweed on the move, and no sighting beats a genuine Tumbleweed bouncing down the road on a cold morning!

I’m recycling photos here, but this is a Tumbleweed flower from back in the days before they all dried up, broke off at the base, curled up into big balls and started bouncing around the dunes. Beautiful much?

One of my favourite Kalahari relationships is between Bushman Grass and Driedoring bushes. When the winds come, they super-fluffy Bushman Grass is often caught by the super-catchy Three-Thorn bushes. When the rains come, it means the bushman grass grows close by the bushes.  In turn, both these plants help to stabilize the sand and yet more things can grow and more little paws can burrow. Love.

Another recycled photo (red face), but this is a Three Thorn Bush (Driedoring), probably one of the Kalahari’s most important little plants, stabilizing the dunes and providing food and shelter for lots of little things.

It’s also these crazy winds that shaped the dunes over time to the relatively fixed position they’re in today. So wind is excusable in the Kalahari.

The wind may have kept some of the animals tucked up under bushes for the sunset drive, and we saw noticeably less than we’d expect to see. But with endless things to talk about, it was a fantastic drive.

Sunset Drive Sightings:

African Wild Cat
Eland
Sprinhare
Gemsbok
Springbok
Wildebeest
Steenbok
Ostrich
Tawny Eagle
Spotted Eagle Owl

By the night drive, the wind had subsided a little and more nocturnal goodies came out to play!

The drive began with a Spotted Hyena right by the vehicle. We’ve been seeing them frequently the last week, which has been very exciting. This particular one was eyeing up a nervous herd of Eland across the road. Their fears were founded as 7% of Spotted Hyena kills in this part of the Kalahari are said to be Eland calves.

I noticed in this particular herd what I love most about eland herds. The size differences! Unlike other Kalahari antelopes who seem to come in fixed sizes of small and large, you often find the full range of sizes in one Eland herd, from XS to XXXL! And when an Eland is XXXL it’s really XXXL. A full grown male can be larger than a Buffalo, weighing in at more than 800kgs. In the past week we’ve been lucky to see a number of these monster eland close to camp.

An absolutely wonderful drive to end my time in this park. Love Kalahari!

A lovely poignant image. Love Kalahari 🙂

Night Drive Sightings:

Spotted Hyena
Small Spotted Genet
African Wild Cat
Eland
Cape Fox
Bat eared Fox
Black Backed Jackal
Springhare
Dikkop
Gemsbok
Springbok
Wildebeest
Spotted Eagle Owl

August 4: “AAAAAAAAARDWOOOOOOOLF!” *deep breath* “AAAAAAAARDWOOOOOLF!”

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I try as often as possible to tell people on my drives that aardwolf’s eat 300,000 termites each night. Because I never see aardwolfs, I have to find other ways to sneak in the little fact I love so dearly…

…“Bat Eared Foxes eat termites, but not as many as an Aarwolf does! An aardwolf eats 300,000 in one night”…

… “See this Brown Hyena? It’s kind of like a big Aardwolf, except it’s not at all and Brown Hyenas don’t eat termites, but Aardwolfs will eat 300,000 in one night!”…

…“The African Wild Cat has distinctive stripes on it’s legs. You know what else is stripey? An Aardwolf. And Aardwolfs will eat 300,000 termites in one night!”…

Tonight, I got to tell my guests that “Aardwolfs will eat 300,000 termites in one night!”, except this time, an actual Aardwolf heard me say it. Cool? Very.

The drive hadn’t gone tremendously well to that point. While we’d seen a huge variety of nocturnal goodies (see epic list below), we’d also driven far afield in search of lions who weren’t there and my guests had disagreed with me at a Wild Cat sighting, insisting it was rather a leopard. They’re still convinced.

As I was starting to let my mind wander to the peanut butter cookies in my kitchen, I casually glanced to my right. And there was an aardwolf. Right there. Just meters from the truck, and staring back at me with a face i’ve only ever seen in mammal books.

I won’t go into my exact reaction. It involved a lot of gasping and squeaking. I told my guests that this was my first ever Aarwolf sighting and that they were lucky enough to see one of Africa’s lesser-seen safari stars. And of course I told them about the 300,000 termites. There were smiles all around, but I suspect they were more in response to my reaction, which progressed from gasping and squeaking to hand clapping and jumping up and down in my seat as the reality of the situation sunk in.

Seeing something new is always such a rush. Technically speaking, i’ve had two aardwolf sightings before this one. My most recent was by the side of the road as the truck I was in sped by at 140km/h, leaving me thinking, “goodness me, was that an aardwolf?”. My first sighting was on my field guiding course. I remember feeling like my life was complete, that I could die now that i’d seen an aardwolf. Perhaps a tad dramatic, but the feeling was indescribable. Only when we got back to camp did our photos prove the ‘aardwolf’ was in fact a Bat Eared Fox. But never mind, i’d still had the experience of seeing an aardwolf.

So tonight was extra special. You never even hear about aardwolf sightings in this part of the Kalahari. Everyone knows they’re here, but they’re a little like pangolins and black-footed cats– kind of mythical.

An unforgettable night.

Did I photograph tonight’s aardwolf? Noooo… but I do have a grainy 3 second video of a blurry blob moving up a sand dune. I did photograph this Spotted Hyena half an hour later, another animal I hardly ever get to see in the Kalahari.

Sunset Drive Sightings:

Aardwolf
Spotted Hyena
Eland
Small Spotted Genet
African WIld Cat
Cape Fox
Bat Eared Fox
Black Backed Jackal
Springhare
Scrubhare
Steenbok
Springbok
Wildbeest
Gemsbok
Ostrich
Verreaux’s Eagle Owl
Spotted Eagle Owl
Tawny Eagle
Pale Chanting Goshawk
Kori Bustard

The night drive was rather more sedate with less squeaking and hand clapping. The highlight of the drive was a Spotted Hyena just as we came in through the gate. Love that feeling of hopping back into the truck after locking the gate behind me, only to find that a large predator had been watching all along.

Night Drive Sightings:

Spotted Hyena
Eland
African Wild Cat
Bat Eared Fox
Cape Fox
Black Backed Jackal
Springhare
Scrubhare
Steenbok
Gemsbok
Spotted Eagle Owl

August 2: My ‘Welcome Home’ was a tree full of Hornbills….

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After two weeks away from the Kalahari i’m home! And the best sighting on tonight’s sunset drive, happened before I pulled out of the parking area. A tree full of Yellow-Billed Hornbills! Joy. Love. Cookies. It felt a little like a Kalahari welcoming party, even if they were just there to scope out all the hottest food joints.

A Whole Tree Full of Hornbills. Love.

Hornbills don’t have a brood-patch. Most birds have got a special fluffy bit of feathers on their chests to help them to incubate their children when they’re still eggs. It’s called a ‘brood-patch’. Hornbills don’t have one. I already said that.

Instead of a brood patch, a mother Hornbill will pluck nearly every feather from her body to make a warm soft duvet for her eggies. But you can’t just sit down in the middle of the street and pull out all your feathers. It would be both freezing and embarrassing. So mom and dad Hornbill first choose a suitable hole in a tree. Then mom goes inside. Then dad rushes away to find mud so he can totally wall her into her little hole. She’s allowed a tiny hole somewhere in the mud-wall where dad can drop off an occasional snack. But it’s only big enough to deliver little things like worms and seeds, nothing awesome like cheeseburgers or quiche, which dad secretly gorges on while he’s away.

Photographic evidence obtained from Tshokwane Picnic Spot: what dads do when their family is locked away in a dark dark tree.

Eventually, the kids are born and kept warm by feather-less mom’s discarded feathers. It takes weeks and weeks for her feathers to grow back. When dad is finally satisfied that his wife and children are presentable enough to leave their tree-hole, he comes and breaks the wall down. It’s amazing Hornbills survive at all, given all the opportunities for serious error in their breeding plan.

Then there was the rest of the sunset drive. We saw a lot of Eland trying to dream their way over the camp fence and 932 Bat Eared Foxes.

Oooh there’s too much Amarula in my hot chocolate tonight…

Sightings:

Kudu
Eland
African Wild Cat
Black Backed Jackal
Bat Eared Fox
Cape Fox
Springhare
Springbok
Steenbok
Wildbeest
Gemsbok
Spotted Eagle Owl
Giant Eagle Owl
Dikkop
Tawny Eagle
Yellow Hornbill
Fiscal Shrike
Kori Bustard
Striped Mouse

July 21: Love Cape Town

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And now for the first time in nearly six months, i’m not in the Kalahari! I’ve seen green things today.

Yesterday was a day of roadtripping, watching the Kalahari fade away. At first, it filled up with Quiver Trees, then those were replaced by some little orange flowers, before the whole place became the Karoo and eventually the Cape.

The long road trip begins….

Still Kalahari…

And still more Kalahari…

The enchanting town of Springbok

Somewhere south of the enchanting town of Springbok

I do have a thing for Quiver Trees.  They’re not really trees; more like a fabulous giant aloe plant. They work well in the dry parts of the country, because they’re like giant water containers. One ‘tree’ can hold up to 100 litres of water! And i’m happy to announce that Quiver Trees are NOT going extinct, as was once thought. They’re  actually thriving according to the latest issue of Wild Magazine. I don’t have to get all teary when I see them anymore! Long live Quiver Trees.

QUIVER TREES!

I also passed through the town of Pofadder for the first time, fulfilling a life long dream of mine. Okay, not really.

Pofadder. Dreams come true.

You know you’re close to Cape Town when it’s rainy

And now i’m here in Cape Town wondering when rain will cease to be this exciting! I’m thinking never. It’s water and it falls from the sky! It’s totally awesomesauce. And it makes rainbows. Love rain. Love rainbows. Love Cape Town.

Sunshine, rainbows, puppies etc…

(All photos on this trip were taken with my phone. There’s a sticky smear of Stoney Ginger Beer and some cookie crumbs on the lens, hence the general cloudiness. I had my camera with me, but it was heavy.)

Sightings:

Black Eagle
Dassie

July 17: Grass-Eating Vampires

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 For some reason, everything seemed to be afraid of the dark tonight. Almost all of our sunset drive sightings happened before the sun went down, with the exception of our only Springhare. A Springhare wouldn’t be caught dead in sunlight. They’re like the vampires of the rodent world. Except they eat grass. Not like those vampires who call themselves ‘vegetarians’ because they only eat bears and wolves and not people. And Springhares don’t sparkle in the sun. At least I think they don’t, but then i’ve never seen one in the day, because they don’t come out in the day. Hence the point i’m trying to make. (I may have spent the day watching those ‘Twilight’ films for the first time. I’m not proud of it. They weren’t good and they’ve affected my thought processes.)

It’s so hard these days to find new birds to add to my terribly dorkish Kalahari bird list. But today I got two new birds, and both in the same tree! While i’ve seen plenty of Gymnogenes elsewhere, i’d not seen one here before. My other new bird was the Grey Hornbill.They’ve been taunting me for months with their call, but tonight I finally got to see one. Love.

Not even slightly a Gymnogene…

Note: A few days later and upon closer Inspection, I find my Gymnogene to be rather a Brown Snake Eagle. In my defense, it was far away. So no Gynogenes for me.

Sightings:

Gymnogene (except it was a Brown Snake Eagle)
African Grey Hornbill
Eland
African Wild Cat
Jackal
Bat Eared Fox
Steenbok
Striped Mouse
Springhare
Springbok
Gemsbok
Wildebeest
Spotted Eagle Owl
Tawny Eagle
Pale Chanting Goshawk
Black Harrier
Black Chested Prinia

July 17: In the Aftermath of the Lion Storm

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Last night it was quite impossible to sleep through the raging ‘lion storm’. There seemed to be countless lions calling from all directions, and for hours.  It’s what I love about this place. In the aftermath of the storm, still with the occasional distant rumble, people in the campsite would be forgiven for thinking that lions would be a guaranteed sighting this morning. But it turned out they weren’t…

No one saw the lions this morning… except us! That’s what you get for booking a morning drive and getting a good head start.  Even if if was well below freezing when we set out. Listening to the lions before we left, I could hear they were moving south very quickly. I decided to take a risk and not drive down a road where I thought they might be, rather choosing instead to see if I could intercept them on the main road. For once it paid off.

The sound of a nearby lion made us stop.  It took a few minutes before he finally emerged from the long grass. Very happy to see one of my favourite lions again after a few months away!  The gorgeous black maned lion was on a mission and headed right for us, crossing the road just behind us and disappearing into the dunes. A moment later we heard the second lion. When we saw him, he wasn’t in such a rush– until he heard the rest of his pride calling from far away. Immediately he changed course and started running in their direction, this time crossing the road in front of us.  We were lucky bunnies. And they were pretty lions.

The second lion to cross our path this morning. He was very pretty…

I learned that a good Lion sighting can physically warm up cold toes.  And with each good sighting, we all got just a little warmer. Some would say the rising sun had something to do with it… But it was all down to good sightings.Later on we saw both kudu and eland, which are the two rarest antelopes here and always wonderful to see.

At a waterhole, a friendly Cape Glossy Starling named Fred came and sat on our mirror. He wouldn’t leave! Eventually, it wasn’t until we were moving that he flew off.

Friendly Fred

Love friendly Fred

And I couldn’t have predicted that the lions would be dwarfed by some Striped Mice! Not just any Striped Mice, but a pile of 14 Striped Mice, clambering over each other trying to get a spot a few millimeters closer to the sun.  This sighting now ranks as one of my very best Kalahari moments. Love.

Maybe the best sighting i’ve ever had in the Kalahari…

After the mice, I told my guests that sightings-wise, this may have been my best drive yet in the Kalahari. And I meant it. But it gets better!

Nearly home again, I stopped to look at a Pale Chanting Goshawk.  As I began to explain to my guests why we always stop for Goshawks (1), I saw them and I gasped. And then I got really excited. And I squeaked and clapped my hands together in the way I do when something truly exciting happens. Geek.

HONEY BADGERS! Mummy and teenager. Because Badgers are indestructible and unstoppable, we didn’t get to see them for long, but it didn’t matter. Even a quick glimpse of a Honey Badger can keep me going for months.

(1) Why we always stop for Goshawks:  Pale chanting Goshawks will sit low in trees trailing Honey Badgers. You almost always see the Goshawks before you see the badgers. Badgers are good diggers but not always good catchers and the little critters who manage to escape the Honey Badgers are grabbed by Goshawks or Jackals. Essentially if you’re a small mammal, an approaching Honey Badger spells doom. If the badger doesn’t get you, someone else will.

Morning Drive Sightings:

Honey Badger
Lion
Striped Mouse
Kudu
Eland
Steenbok
Black Backed Jackal
Springbok
WIldebeest
Gemsbok
Secretary Bird
Kori Bustard
Bateleur
Cape Glossy Starling
Yellow Canary
Pale Chanting Goshawk
Gabar Goshawk
Lanner Falcon
Ostrich

July 16: Yummy Chunks of Wildebeest

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A really fun sunset drive tonight with wonderful guests. It was exciting to see both Kudu and Eland! 

Kudus at sunset

We were also lucky to find a huge female lion with a rather large chunk of wildebeest. She paid no attention to the circling jackals who periodically dove in and stole smaller chunks of the bigger chunk. This particular female lion (did I mention I can’t stand the word ‘lioness’?) seems to have been on her own for a while now, and we don’t know why. Lions have complicated families, just like we do. They disagree and fight and break up and make up, just like we do. I like this girl because she’s strong and making it on her own. And she had a great big chunk of Wildebeest to prove it.

Incredibly, not a single Springhare to be seen tonight! The sky is falling.

Sightings:

Lion
Kudu
Eland
African Wild Cat
Gemsbok
Springbok
Wildebeest
Bat Eared Fox
Black Backed Jackal
Bateleur
Secretary Bird
Kori Bustard
Lanner Falcon
Red Necked Falcon
Barn Owl
Spotted Eagle Owl

July 15: Arguments With Owlists

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A Sunset drive tonight with more high quality sightings. The kind where the animals are up close and doing things. Tonight was all about the owls. Oddly, the only big Kalahari owl we missed out on was the Spotted Eagle Owl, which is by far the most common!

In the Kalahari, a lot of our Spotted Eagle Owls have orange eyes. This is a problem because Spotted Eagle Owls are supposed to have yellow eyes. It’s the easiest way to tell the difference between the Cape Eagle Owl (with it’s orange eyes) and the nearly identical Spotted Eagle Owl (with it’s yellow eyes). This had lead to more than a few arguments with serious birders on my drives, who insist we’re seeing Cape Eagle Owls. But actually, we’re seeing a rare ‘rufous morph’ of Spotted Eagle Owl– with orange eyes. But try telling the birders that.

Sightings:

Small Spotted Genet
African Wild Cat
Cape Fox
Black Backed Jackal
Bat Eared Fox
Steenbok
Springbok
Wildebeest
Gemsbok
Springhare
Scrub Hare
Southern White Faced Scops Owl
Verreaux’s Eagle Owl
Barn Owl

July 12: There’s No Shame in Calling Things ‘Cute’

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 A delightful sunset drive tonight, with some high quality sightings and a wide variety of cool animals to look at. Just look at how long tonight’s sightings list is!

And I do hate to be such a girl about this, but the Kalahari is home to more impossibly ‘cute’ animals than anywhere else. Take tonight, when a cute Cape Fox started digging frantically in the sand, to create a cozy new bed for itself. You could actually see the bliss on it’s face when it snuggled down into its little bed. There’s nothing wrong with calling something ‘cute’, if it’s really very cute.

Also snapped a quick and blurry photo of a Black Backed Jackal trying to catch a scent. It was also rather cute.

A cute Jackal

And finally, this Spotted Eagle Owl. Not tremendously cute, but it was eating a mouse. The mouse would have been very cute once.

Not a cute owl, eating a once cute mouse

Did you know that Owls can lift their food up into their mouths with their feet? It’s very dignified and it beats just ripping it up with their faces, like raptors do. The only other birds who can do this are parrots.

Sightings (i’m still really into gestation periods):

Brown Hyena (Gestation 90 days)
Meerkat (65 days)
Slender Mongoose (63 days)
African Wild Cat (65 days)
Black Backed Jackal (60 days)
Cape Fox (56 days)
Bat Eared Fox (60 days)
Springhare (77 days)
Scrub Hare (42 days)
Steenbok (7 months)
Springbok (5.5 months)
Gemsbok (9 months)
Wildebeest (9 months)
Spotted Eagle Owl
Giant Eagle Owl
Gabar Goshawk
Tawny Eagle
Pale Chanting Goshawk

July 11: Can it Be? Did I Finally See a Lion?

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I was really excited before tonight’s sunset drive. Like really, really excited. Word spread that there were lions back in our area, and i’d seen the camera trap images to proved it. Today they’d been roaring throughout the early hours of the morning. I slept through it, naturally. Fail. And while i’ve seen lions on my trips to other parts of the Kalahari, it’s been many months seen i’ve seen one at home. Tonight, I was going to find a lion.

We we lucky enough to find a herd of thirty Eland at a waterhole and while watching them in silence, we hear a lion roar. It wasn’t close, but it was enough to prompt me to turn the truck around and head out over the dunes in the direction we’d hear it calling from.

No luck with the lion. The road i’d hoped to find it on was quiet and trackless. Every so often i’d turn off the truck and listen, but we never heard it again.

Eventually we arrived back at the same waterhole where we’d seen our Eland and this time…. there were fresh lion tracks! It didn’t take long to spot the BIG blonde-maned lion on the road below. When we pulled up next to it, it languidly stood up and walked away, without a glance back.

Finally, I see a lion…

I moved to intercept him on the main road and when we did, we got to watch him scent marking and rubbing some Blue Bush by the roadside. Eventually he flopped down in the grass just feet from us.

It was fabulous. I think people think that as a guide, I see lions every day. I don’t. It’s a rare and special treat and not something that i’ll ever take for granted.

I left that gorgeous lion in his cozy patch of grass by the road. We were all pretty touched by the experience. I thought I might catch up with him again on the night drive later that night, but he had moved on. Love.

(So, I had spent the day studying my spiffy hand-made mammal gestation periods chart. I’m going to be the crazy girl who randomly knows everything’s gestation periods. It’ll be my party trick. If I ever get invited to a party again. Which I won’t. Because i’ll know everything’s gestation period.)

Sightings:

Lion (gestation 110 days)
Eland (9 months)
Cape Fox (56 days)
African WIild Cat (65 days)
Spring Hare (77 days)
Scrub Hare (42 days)
Steenbok (7 months)
Springbok (5.5 months)
Gemsbok (9 months)
Wildbeest (9 months)
Verreaux’s Eagle Owl
Kori Bustard
Dikkop

July 10: The Meerkats are Back!

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We had a morning drive this morning. Morning drives are somewhat of a rarity around here and it’s always nice to see some of the animals that we can’t see on a sunset or a night drive.

To begin with, it was -8 this morning and I struggled to see through the truck’s icy windscreen. I’d scrape it off, and then have to breathe again, and the condensation would freeze as well.  Until the sun rose and began to warm the lovely red Kalahari sand, we didn’t see too much. But when we did…

A photographer’s worst nightmare: Photo taken through a frosted windscreen, into the sun, with a blade of grass carefully obscuring small meerkat. Love.

The Meerkats are back! Meerkats will use a den site for a while before they exhaust the local food supplies and their burrows are hopelessly infested with little biting bugs. When it’s to much to bear, they move on to another den site within their territory. My favourite meerkats have been away from their den by the roadside now for a few months, but today they were back!  Welcome home, dear Meerkats (with a gestation period of 65 days).

Morning Drive Sightings:

Meerkat
Ground Squirrel
Whistling Rat
Springbok
Steenbok
Gemsbok
Wildebeest
Ostrich
Pale Chanting Goshawk
Verreaux’s Eagle Owl
Kori Bustard
Red Necked Falcon

 

July 6: Some Cute Little People Meet Some Cute Little Animals

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This week i’ve found myself doing a few new and different things in the Kalahari! With school holidays on, i’ve been running a series of ‘Movie Nights’. They’ve been really fun and have been pretty popular too. Interesting to see some of the things that have been filmed here…

But this morning I took a very special drive… I got to take some local school children on a mini-safari! Love. Fortunately for them, I only did the driving while some highly talented others did the speaking. Although a truck full of kids might have really enjoyed me trying to pronounce things like ‘Bleeksingvalk’ or ‘Kameeldoring’.

In preparation for their safari, the kids had watched the Lion King and had each made some extremely snazzy binoculars. I particularly loved this girl’s binoculars because they had pink-polka dots on them. Swarovski would be good to take note of this. I would be first in line to buy pink polka-dot binoculars.  The other kids had equally fabulous binoculars in all sorts of colours and patterns. It made me want to buy crayons.

Watching wildebeest with Pink Polka-Dot Binoculars

The drive was lovely, and as if nature knew that there were tiny people on the truck, it gave us some tiny animals too, starting with this young Steenbokkie:

Young Steenbok

You can tell this one is a young male, because of his short little horns. A grown-up Steenbok’s horns can be as long as 20cm! Not bad for the Kalahari’s smallest antelope. The Steenbok is also one of the only antelopes here where the girls don’t have to have horns. Because they spend so much time close to cover, and they’re small enough to duck under a Three Thorn bush, there’s less need to defend themselves. Most of the other antelopes here (exception: Kudu) need both the males and the females to have horns because of the open, arid landscape.  Girls have to stand up for themselves in the Kalahari…

We also found a Verreaux’s Eagle Owl sitting on its nest, which in turn was on top of a Sociable Weaver’s nest! These owls will often nest on top of a Sociable Weaver nest. It’s a ready-made and secure platform, and because the Weaver’s nest is usually pretty warm in winter, it’s like having underfloor heating. It sounds like an ideal place to set up home, but Sociable Weavers never shut up. Ever. No thanks.

One of the kids with astonishing eyesight pointed out this little Pale Chanting Goshawk, camouflaged up in a tree. This young bird throws a lot of visitors to the Kalahari because it looks absolutely nothing like the adult form. I get asked about it a lot! Not helping matters, most bird books don’t show the juvenile. The real giveaway is the bright orange ‘spray tan’ legs.

Juvenile Pale Chanting Goshawk

Another surprise… a baby Gemsbok! Okay, not the youngest, but a special sight anyway. You’re very unlikely to ever find a newborn Gemsbok, because mom hides it in a secret place for the first 6 weeks. To help, it’s a lovely brown colour which lets it blend in to the Kalahari’s red sand. The one we saw still had a ridiculously cute covering of brown fuzz.

Fuzzy baby on the left…

At the waterhole, we saw a small ostrich family- Mom, Dad and just one baby. Only one left. Small ostriches are relatively easy meals in the Kalahari, if you can get it past mom and dad, who’ll usually try to lead predators away by doing a really silly (but apparently irresistible) ‘broken wing’ dance. And then there’s the ostriches kicking ability, which has killed grown men. But whatever happened, this sweet little family was down to one.

A brilliant drive and it was such a privilege to be a part of it…

When I got out to circle some Hyena tracks…

Sightings:

Springbok
Gemsbok
Wildebeest
Steenbok
Lined Mouse
Verreaux’s Eagle Owl
Pale Chanting Goshawk
Ostrich
Sociable Weaver
Violet-Eared Waxbill
Kori Bustard

July 2: Bruised, Battered and Pronked

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When guests are on a sunset drive and they see something of interest, there are a number of tactics they employ to get my attention. Most commonly used is the traditional ‘Stop!’, yelled just loud enough to get my attention, but not loud enough to alarm any animals. This is good. Then there’s the hushed ‘stop’, which by the time it’s reached the front of the truck has left an animal several hundred meters behind thinking it’s got away with it. This is not as good. Towards the more irritating end of the scale are the whistles and the hands banging on the side of the truck, but even that’s okay. Once, someone even yanked on my ponytail to draw my attention to a Jackal.

But tonight I came across two entirely new ways to alert a guide to a sighting! On the left side of the truck was a small boy who upon seeing anything, would begin a series of full-voiced violent screams. Eventually, with some gentle persuasion to be just a ‘little quieter to not scare the animals away’, he calmed. But much more interesting was the woman seated directly behind me. Instead of using her voice to get my attention, she used her hands… to hit me… anywhere she could reach… and not always lightly.

I soon learned to watch her spotlight closely and lunge forward out of reach whenever I saw something. And while i’m feeling a little battered tonight, i’m just happy that she was so darn excited to see animals. I’ve just never thought to add, ‘Oh and please don’t hit me’, to my pre-drive briefing.

insert default springbok image

But anyway, even with random violent outbursts, tonight was a great drive with a truck-load of great guests. Tonight’s gold star goes to the Springbok.  We watched as about 60 of them launched into a pronking session. I’ve never seen it on that scale before and it was mind-blowing. Pronking is when they pop up into the air with their legs straight out beneath them. It’s something unique and special to Springbok. Other antelopes can ‘stot’, but that isn’t as cool.

There are some good theories about Pronking and why they bother to do it. The most plausible is that it’s used as a big show of fitness, both to other Springbok and to predators who may be watching. Kind of like saying, ‘dude, look what I can do, it’s awesome and i’m awesome so don’t even bother trying to catch me’. The word ‘pronk’ literally means to ‘show off’ and ‘strut’.  And surely they also pronk simply because it’s fun. Being able to pronk must be like having a trampoline built into your shoes. Kind of like those ‘Moon Boots’, but way better.

Love Kalahari. Love trampolines.

Sightings:

Springbok
Ostrich
Wildebeest
Gemsbok
Steenbok
Springhare
Scrub Hare
Small Spotted Genet
African Wild Cat
Bat Eared Fox
Cape Fox
Yellow Mongoose
Northern Black Korhaan
Tawny Eagle
Spotted Eagle Owl

June 30: One Cheetah, One Brown Hyena and One Very Muddy Wildebeest

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Tonight’s sunset drive was taken by our fabulous new student guide. She did a great job and had some rather insanely good luck with sightings too!

First up was the Brown Hyena that ran across the road in front of us.  I may have mentioned this before, but Brown Hyenas will travel as far as 40km in just one night searching for food. The fact that we see them at all is incredible.

Not posing for photos….

On the way back we were surprised to find a huge cheetah by the road! Yet another cheetah sighting at night and in the dark, where cheetahs aren’t supposed to be. We didn’t stay with her for long as she looked like she may have been on the lookout for a snack. And as we know, Kalahari cheetahs don’t bother to read the mammal books and often seem to hunt at night.  Even more interesting, is that here they’ll hunt hares and springhares as well as little antelopes.

Before the sun went down, I snapped a few photos from the passenger seat. I do love this bad photo of Ostriches taken into direct sunlight….

Ostriches

And who doesn’t love a muddy Wildebeest?  Here’s a new fact I learned last night: The Wildebeest’s extra long face is an adaptation to eating very short grasses. So even if your face is right to the ground, you can still watch out for predators. Their long face is also adapted to making them look funny (not ‘ugly’, funny). Try looking a wildebeest in the eye without smiling and giggling. Can’t be done.

Muddy, muddy Wildebeest…

Sunset Drive Sightings:

Cheetah
Brown Hyena
Black Backed Jackal
Bat Eared Fox
Scrub Hare
Springhaas
Springbok
Steenbok
Wildebeest
Ostrich
Gemsbok
Yellow Mongoose
Kori Bustard
Pale Chanting Goshawk
Scaly Feathered Finch
Verreaux’s Eagle Owl
Spotted Eagle Owl

June 29: Not-a-Fox Facts

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Both a sunset and a night drive in the Kalahari tonight. I shall be economical with my word count, as my fingers are too cold to type. I really shouldn’t have written all of that if I was trying to be economical. Or this. I should stop now. Or while i’m on a roll, here are some Bat Eared Fox Facts along with a photo of tonight’s star- a Bat Eared Fox.

Photobucket

Not a Fox.

Did you know…

A Bat Eared Fox can hear insects crawling around as deep as 30 centimeters below the surface? That’s why they have crazy-big ears.  Also, they’re primarily insectivores, rarely eating other mammals like mice. That said, I once explained this to guests on a night drive and a moment later, a Bat Eared Fox appears in the road carrying a big fat rat. Guide fail.

Oh, and a Bat Eared Fox isn’t actually a fox.

Sunset Drive sightings:

Small Spotted Genet
African Wild Cat
Cape Fox
Black Backed Jackal
ScrubHare
SpringHare
Springbok
Gemsbok
Wildebeest
Ostrich
Steenbok
Striped Mouse
Northern Black Korhaan
Barn Owl
Verreaux’s Eagle Owl
Spotted Eagle Owl
Kori Bustard

Night Drive sightings:

Small Spotted Genet
Bat Eared Fox
African Wild Cat
Black Backed Jackal
Cape Fox
ScrubHare
Springhare
Springbok
Steenbok
Gemsbok
Wildebeest
Spotted Eagle Owl
Verreaux’s Eagle Owl