Imfolozi dag 11: Escaping dogs and a black rhino encounter

Donderdag 29-11-2018

Imfolozi dag 11:     Escaping dogs and a black rhino encounter

Dieren vandaag gezien / Animals spotted:

·         Cheetah

·         Blue wildebeest

·         Impala

·         Tawny eagle

·         Zebra

·         Warthog

·         White-throated robin-chat

·         Southern masked weaver

·         Southern black tit

·         House sparrow

·         Black rhino

·         White rhino

·         Black shouldered kite

We were told we would leave at 3.45 am today. This was to make sure that Kat and Jordan were in the car on time before 4 am. We left at 3.50 am. Again we were trying to dart the Omar to contracept him. We met up with Roan. When we started scanning it seemed that they were very close to the fence. To see if they were there we drove along the fence line. They were not there. Back again and up to marker 27 to see if we could get signal. No  signal at all, and back again. We decided to stop the call up because Roan had some other stuff to do. When their collar checked in they appeared to be outside of the fens. We had to see if this was true so we left the park to scan outside. And yes it seemed that the were. At this moment we couldn’t do anything about this so after a big consideration Ryan and Fi decided that we would move on to find us some cheetah’s.

We scanned for CF17, CF21 and CM13. For all of them we had signal so we decided to look for the twins (CF21 and CM13) first. We pinned them just  a bit further than yesterday but they had a moving signal. We scanned, scanned and scanned the area but couldn’t see them. Then back to CF17 to see if her gremlin is still alive. We roughly knew where she was but didn’t get to see her. Back to the twins. In the end Jordan found the CF21 one and Doug found CM13. He seemed to have a leg injury because he was limping. This was our first cheetah sighting while being on this project. After waiting and watching them for a while lying down we left them behind. We did some fun driving again. I’m just loving this.

Back at camp I did some data and worked on my journal.

We left at 3 am this afternoon. An early session. It was also the last time I had to scan. We drove to Mpila hill to scan. I did get some signals but of course it was windy again and this means a lot of interference. While going down the hill it felt like another rollercoaster ride, this is the best way to go down this hill. We drove to the south side of the park again and tried to find us some cheetah and the Bhejie Pack of course. Because it was hard to find signal we drove up the hill near point 26. It was bumpy and after a while Jordan fell of the bench. We were all shocked but it was funny at the same time.

At the top of the hill there was a black shouldered kite hunting. It is just incredible how long they can hang in the air totally still. He came close to the car so I actually got the chance to film this. After Ryan made me scan for a few animals he had a go at it. Then I took over after he was finished with scanning for the dogs. We didn’t really got any good signals so back down again. We scanned for F19 and got some signal that wasn’t to far away. We waited for a while and then decided to go home. Something special was waiting for us on the way back. A black rhino was standing not to far from the road. Ryan tried to get him to come closer. This took a lot of effort because the rhino was very chilled, which is rare for a black rhino. In the end it worked but we got disturbed by a car. When this one left Ryan had another go and he came closer. It was not exciting as the other rhino but still great to see.

Back home we the fire was on and Fi was preparing the braai for tonight. It was a lovely night. We talked about our experiences, had a great meal and Ryan played songs on his guitar and sang with it. He even made a song up for our group, every person had it’s own section. It was lovely and very entertaining.

I went to bed around 11 pm after packing up half of my stuff.