News
Update from July 2004
This course was only attended by 5 students unfortunately. However the
course was still extremely successful and all but one of the students
got through. The students were from all over the world as always and
most of them were around the thirty something mark.
From a wildlife point of view the course proved more fruitful than of late. I am convinced that the winter months here are better suited to game viewing, although the other aspects of the course are more difficult to teach. The elephants at long last returned to their winter feeding grounds and we were given a few days of joys watching them. However there were also many mornings of frustration when it was discovered they had visited the centre's waterhole during the night and everyone had missed them. The giraffe also made a reappearance and we often saw the zebras coming down to drink at night. We had some great game drives with lots of waterbuck, bushbuck and a few impala and warthog showing themselves. The pod of hippo were regularly seen in their favourite pool in the river. We also discovered fresh evidence of a springhaas. This was a first for the reserve and will be keenly watched in future. Some of the students were also lucky enough to catch a glimpse of a leopard harassing some vervet monkeys on the other side of the river.
The visit to Letaba Ranch during the last week of the course also proved very fruitful, the highlight being a honey badger in broad daylight. We also managed to clock up 123 species of birds over the 4 days averaging around about 75 species each day. We were also treated to some superb sighting of buffalo and elephant, but the main objective was to observe the birds. Some memorable sightings included 3 Ground Hornbills on 2 consecutive days, a Martial Eagle posing beautifully in a tree close by as well as several new bird species for everyone involved.
The group enjoyed eating from the fruits of this Baobab Tree which we found during one of the drives in Letaba Ranch.
4 of the students went on to write the FGASA exam at the end of the course and 3 of them passed. Congratulations to them and Antares wishes them all well in their quest for work as guides within the industry afterwards.