Newsletter Trails Guide Course

March – April 2016

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The first trails guide course of the year yielded successful results for us, with everyone passing ARH, level 2 FGASA, and even a full trails guide assessment. Early in the course the Balule was teased with some rain and the grass has started to come back reluctantly in some places.

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On our very first drive we saw a bull elephant sauntering through the bush. We stopped a little away from a puddle on the road and watched him make his way towards us. When he came out of the bush he looked at us with a start—he had only just seen us, he must have been lost in his thoughts! In his surprise he gave us a little headshake, splashed himself in the puddle, pretended to feed a little and eventually sauntered off. What a lovely welcome to the bush. This sighting was quickly followed by the largest gathering of Amur Falcons we have seen on Struwig, there must have been over a 100 of them swooping and catching the flying termite elates. What a fascinating sight watching these small raptors fly and grab the insects in their talons and then literally throw the prey into their mouths all on the wing (in flight).

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The brief respite of the rains did bring out the wildflowers and interesting mushrooms. Finally, the flowers were getting a chance to bloom, but also the game were getting a much needed nutritious treat ….. The non-palatable wildflowers like the String of stars and the Wild lavender, providing a pretty ground cover in the veld. The terrapins and tortoises have also been active with the arrival of the rain and we would see tracks all over “Holy water” and tortoise tracks criss-crossing the roads as they foraged, we even saw really young tortoises walking around. A great sign for the tortoise population.

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For a while a few temporary puddles and wallow pits filled up and the elephants enjoyed some fresh water. The hippos suffered the most, every day we would see hippo tracks kilometres away from water. One morning we came across a listless hippo walking through Dundee dam which was completely dry. Despite having a wallow pit of water near it, the hippo would walk around dragging its chin and move from one side of the dam to another. The hippo finally made its way to Dungeni pan which had ankle deep water and remained there for a few days. The research group at Struwig saw the hippo on its side, in the water, completely still. And of course the natural thought was that the hippo finally met its end, however; to confirm this the guide approached him carefully bit by bit. At this moment the hippo charged at the guide who escaped narrowly back to the car. Hippos are tough animals and this exact situation are how many people find themselves on the wrong side of a one tonne animal. A few days later, another walking group discovered the hippo dead in the drainage line near the pan, the carcass was already opened and the vultures were starting to come in. We went out that night to check the predator activity and spotted most of the hyena clan making its way to have a sumptuous hippo dinner. The smell of rotting carcass lingered for most of the week, and we definitely avoided the area on our walks.

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Lezahne joined us again to get her Advanced Rifle Handling Qualification, and she spend her time really focussing on the dry handling and was determined to get her ARH certificate. She also joined us on a few walks and trails. After a few days of practice, Lezahne did her ARH assessment, shot like a pro and passed all the exercises the first time. Well done Lezahne!

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For a change we decided to go to another section of the reserve, called Lisbon, which we hadn’t been to before. Frikkie and Natasha came with us to show us around and it was a beautiful area with more open plains which is different from the thicker bushveld at Struwig. We had some fabulous sightings! The lesser grey shrikes are back! We also saw an ostrich and black-backed jackals. The highlight of the drive was when we rounded a corner and saw this big leopard in a Marula tree, out in the open. The leopard hopped off the tree and sauntered over to another Marula as effortless as taking a stroll. At first she wasn’t sure of our presence but within moments she relaxed and settled comfortably in the tree. As twilight passed she climbed out of the tree and headed towards the dams. We tried to keep up using the alarm calls of impalas as markers of her location. She crossed the road behind us and we drove around to try and relocate her closer to the dams. By now night had fallen and we used a spotlight to pick up eye-shine. She was in this small bush and we did not realise it until she was about 5 m from the vehicle. We moved along slowly, pretending we did not see her and watched as she quickly passed behind the car again. She seemed more skittish with the spotlight and so we decided to let her be; she gave us a wonderful opportunity to view her and we were all grateful for the experience and just the fact that we got to see this beautiful big cat.

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We did have some interesting walks with smaller animals. Struwig is a great place to see Sharpe’s grysbok and on one of the walks a grysbok noticed us and then continued feeding, nonchalant about our presence. We were able to observe him for a while till he walked out of view. It is always a humbling experience to watch animals on foot, and they behave completely at ease with us. Walking in the bush also allows us to observe smaller and more elusive aspects of the bush. On a rhino trail, we spotted tracks of lion cubs, a promising sign of predator activity in the area which renewed our hopes of seeing lions with some cubs as well! We also saw strange things like a squirrel that was hanging dead in a tree with no wounds or any sign of predation. It appeared as though it had fallen out of the tree and got its foot stuck in between the branches and it ended up starving to death.

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There seems to be some interesting lion dynamics happening at Struwig. One lioness has cubs, and a pair of males have been moving through the property but they have been stealthy and quiet when they are here. We do not hear roaring, but we have trailed them moving through. The history of lions in Struwig have always been fluid with some lions regularly moving through, and then some lions missing from the usual group. It is a tough world for lions, the “King” of the bush, as lionesses have to protect their young and hunt for meals, males need to constantly defend themselves from other males, and the highly successful hyenas in Struwig. Lion tracks were seen everywhere but their activities were kept quiet. On one trailing session we found where two males had laid down and then the next day we trailed (likely) the same two males for four hours. We trailed them with help of Vusi , an experienced tracker from the Sabi Sands who is now a guide with Struwig. Every time we were very close to them, they just kept out running us! The next day we decided to go to another area and low and behold we saw signs of a fresh buffalo carcass killed by the lions with tracks of male, females and lion cubs! How exciting! It looked like the cubs were being introduced to the rest of the pride! Hopefully, soon we may be able to see all of them together as the mother lion feels more secure with her cubs.

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James did his Level 2 assessment drives. He took us out on two drives and wowed us with his knowledge of the bush and also traditional folklore. Some tales of the animals seem farfetched but they were colourful and cheerful and always gave us something to ponder. Needless to say James did very well on his drive, even if his second drive had some rambunctious though very fun guests. He handled himself and the guests well and was a consummate professional. Well done James!

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A few of James’ assessment walks held unexpected surprises. We had heard that buffalo often hang around the north-western part of the property and so it was decided that we would walk over there in hopes of picking up a trail, but the terrain was too rocky to actually follow a trail effectively, so James kept wind and sun direction in mind and lead us on a bush walk. After a couple of hours, we were trudging up this hill. It was relatively open area with only a few bushes scattered on the hill. The next thing we see is this bush move and a silhouette of a buffalo emerging from the bush and running away from us! None of us had seen him, the buffalo was perfectly camouflaged in the shadow of one bush. And judging from his reaction, the buffalo did not hear or see us until we were almost on top of him! Luckily he lunged away from us in his surprise and no one was in any real danger. We slowly backed out of the area and headed back to the car, we walked on the main road and suddenly we hear this low growling. We had found male lion tracks on the road, and I guess we were hot on his trail, but the lion did not seem altogether pleased with that. Once again we slowly backed out with the lion growling at us for a full five minutes. We ended up walking over 20km that day, and we were rewarded with some great encounters for our efforts.

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So that was our courses for this season. Next we are on to the winter season with our regular University groups and some new ones . We are definitely looking forward to some cooler weather, meeting new people, and seeing old friends again. We will keep you updated on our future bush adventures!

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