Tembe dag 14: Coming back from the Muzi camp.

Zondag 18-11-2018

Tembe dag 14:        Coming back from the Muzi camp.     

Dieren vandaag gezien / Animals spotted:

·         Common reedbuck

·         Giraffe

·         Nyala

·         Impala

·         Yellow billed kit

·         African wild dog

·         Wooley necked stork

·         Kudu

·         Golden-breasted bunting

·         Purple-crested turaco

·         African harrier-hawk

·         Bateleur

·         Francolin

·         Broad billed roller

·         Black chested snake eagle

·         Elephant

·         Brown hooded kingfisher

Today was my last turn for scanning. After a short night we left at 4.15

At the first camera trap we found out that Katherin still had the key, so we couldn’t do the camera traps. This changed our purpose of the trip. We decided to drive through a part of the reserve Ben hadn’t been before. This meant that we drove along the fence line  across the border with Mozambique. It is a very hilly road and you can look for miles. Especially this morning when the weather is good and the sky is clear. We tried to find one of the maintenance roads that was going to the Hlahleni beacon. It was overgrown a bit so we missed it the first time. After driving for a while we bumped in a pushed over tree. To get passed this one we had to remove it. Ben used the axe and we used a hand saw. It didn’t take long to get the branches of and we could pass. A real team effort. On our way there we saw some kudu’s and some birds. We arrived at the beacon. This was a bit of a disappointment. It was about 3 meters high, but I had to climb it of course. The view was nice and there were some great flowers at this place. Kari and I both photographed them. On our drive back to the fence we saw some more birds.

I still didn’t find any lions. There was no signal for them. We put up a new camera so I got to slashed some grass. This is always a nice work out. When we arrived at the boma I had signal for the males.

We checked the dogs. First we couldn’t find the females. Till we saw that the fence that separates the 2 boma’s was pushed open, just a little bit. The females were on one side and males on the other side. Females had been digging holes.

We left the dogs behind and did some scanning for the males. They were not to far but of course in the bush where we couldn’t see. We went back to camp and arrived around 11 am. I went to bed straight away. I woke up after about 2 hours.

For our last session we left at 3 pm. The first thing we had to pick up were rocks and poles to close holes in the boma. Ben had picked up the 2 carcasses before so the back was quite full. At the boma I opened the fences for the boma so the car could drive in. Back on the car to kick of one of the nyala carcases. Then I open the gate in between the 2 boma’s. This was not as easy as it looked so Ben helped me. Back on the car again. We could see the girls digging, sand was going everywhere. We kicked of the impala carcases. The females didn’t take too long to find it and started eating, the must have been hungry. We started to close the holes that they have been digging. In the mean time I tried to get some ID shots. The males entered the boma and started to chase the girls. They ran and tried to hide in between the boma’s. Sadly for them the boys found out how to get in there as well. On of the females got cornered and was attacked by 3 of the males. She defended herself fiercely and the males backed off. After watching them for a while we decided to leave them to sort them self out. We got back to the spot were we last had signal for the male lions. They were together with F70 but we couldn’t see them. Ben tried to find them for us but after driving up 2 different roads we had just missed them. This was a pity but that can happen. We drove to the Malasela pan. Here we had our last sundowner drinks. It was a wonderful way to finish off our session.

Back at camp the fire was going for our goodbye bray. There were some extra people around: Phil, Leo, Alex, and an other guy who worked for Phil. The girls prepared some lovely food. After dinner I did the dishes and sat down at the fire. This is where I stayed till I left at 00.30 am. Ben, Sini and I were the last ones to leave. We had talked about all sorts of things so it was a nice way to finish this project.