News Update from January 2006
There were unfortunately only 4 students on this course, but this did not seem to make much difference to the running of the programme. Unfortunately only 1 of the students made it through. A couple of the other came close, by passing one aspect of the course and not the other. As expalined to the students when the arrive, they need to pass both the theory and the practical components of the course as this is what is expected of them to obtain the national qualification too.
The summer rains had arrived during the Christmas break and in fact the rains we have had so far have been the best for at least the last 6 years. The bush is looking much lusher and greener than at anytime during those 6 years and it is a welcome relief after the long drought years. However,as can be expected after a prolonged drought the grass species are more often than not, of the pioneer varieties and annuals. This means that come the dry winter months much of the cover may disappear again. It will take a couple of seasons of good rains to get the grass varieties to change to predominantly perrenials which will yield year-round cover.
With the arrival of the rains, though meant the disappearance of much of the large species of game such as elephant and so we only experienced elephants during the last week at Letaba ranch. The lions that were traversing over the reserev during much of last year had moved back across the river and with the river rising due to the rains, they were unable to cross back and so we will probably have to wait until the winter again before we see their tracks again on a regular basis. The wildebeest gave birth to a number of calves despite the tough conditions the mothers must have experienced during their pregnancies. The zebras were looking heavy but had still not produced anything by the end of the course. There was a baby giraffe that seemed to spend a great deal of time with its mother in the immediate vicinity of the centre and on numerous occasions we were able to get close on foot and in the vehicle.
Amazingly the reptiles were few and far between with only a couple of snakes being sighted around the centre during the entire course. The one snake Darren found was an Eastern Tiger snake- one of my personal favourites because of its beautiful colours.
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Allison
with the Tiger Snake
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Darren
and his new friend
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The bird life was pretty good too as should be expected during the summer months beofre any of the birds have started their long migrations back home. As always we concentrated on the brids during the week at Letaba ranch and we notched up about 130 species over the 4 days, including a new species for myself- an Olivetree Warbler.