News Update from March 2006
Once again we had 4 students on the course, 2 of them from South Africa, 1 from Botswana and the other from Mozambique. 2 of them passed the course while the other two didn't only because their theory marks let them down.
The course turned out to be a great success though with all involved leaving saying they had enjoyed the experience immensely and would recommend the course to anyone. For a couple of them the intensity of the studying was a bit much at times but then we have always maintained that this course is intensive and that there is a great deal of material that needs to be studied before anyone can claim to have enough basic knowledge to enable them to enter the industry with any confidence.
We had a couple of interesting walks close to the centre when we were able to track down a breeding herd of elephants and watch them from a distance. They had stopped in some fairly dense bush and so we retreated and went in search of them again but from the vehicle, where we were able to get much closer and have a good look at the young calves.
We also had some good sightings of giraffe and waterbuck during the course. On a number of occasions we also came across leopard spoor close to the centre and lion and hyena spoor down towards the Olifants River. The bird life was also still very good as the migrants have not yet left and there were a number of very good raptor sightings to be had. Yet again we had several days when we saw the spoor from an aardvark that lives close to the centre, but he still manages to evade us and we have still to have a visual sighting of the animal itself. On another morning we had a good lesson on why we don't stand in front of warthog holes. It was only the previous week we had spoken about the subject, when as we were talking about porcupines making use of this particular hole, that a family of 3 warthogs suddenly burst forth and left us all a bit shaken. Fortunately we were a good 6 or 7 metres from the hole!
This course can probably be the first to boast about seeing the "Little Five"; comprising of Red-Billed Buffalo Weaver, Leopard Tortoise, Ant Lion, Rhino Beetle and Elephant Shrew. Admittedly the shrew was found dead on the road to causes unknown (nice to know that they are around the centre though).
This course we went into the Kruger National Park for the camping section and we spent 3 nights at Shingwedzi camp in the northern part of the park. This proved to be extremely successful and rewarding and will become a regular fixture from now on. Other than a few impala the first sighting we had was of a couple of male lions and 1 female. The 2 lions gave a good account of themselves, one of them roaring away, while the other proved to my students as well as the other tourists why it is important to give a bit of respect to mating predators.
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We sat at a reasonable distance and on numerous occasions were able to witness the speed at which a lion can come out of a bush and charge a stationary vehicle from a lying down position. Needless to say the occupants of all the other vehicles were a little shaken by the experience with some of them nearly landing on their partners laps on the opposite side of the car. One man though seemed to ignore the warnings and decided to stand up through the sunroof of his car before I informed him that he was breaking the regulations and that he had better sit back down again before the lion reinforced my message!
While we were busy watching the lions we were joined by a bull elephant which was an absolute joy for the students and a great start to 3 days of game viewing. We had several other elephant sightings over the next 3 days and had a couple of bulls in "musth" to contend with. This again was a good learning experience for the students in how to approach such animals. We again had exceptional bird sightings including several groups of Ground Hornbills and two sightings of a Kori Bustard- the heaviest flying bird in the world! The grass cover in the park was very dense and this made sightings of predators extremely difficult, although we were fortunate enough to view some baby hyenas and the adults within a couple of metres of the vehicle one morning.
We also had the opportunity of taking a photograph of the students as they entered the Tropics at the Tropic of Capricorn. For some of them this was the furthest north they had been in South Africa and was a new experience.
We also reinstated the visit to the reptile park on this course and this proved to be very popular. The park has improved greatly and we will continue to offer this visit on future courses. The students were able to get up close to some of the reptiles and were also exposed to a feeding session with the Green Mambas, which gave an insight as to exactly how efficiently their neurotoxic venom works.