News Update from May 2006
This latest course was absolutely fantastic from an animal perspective. We had 5 students, 4 of them local and 1 woman from Japan. Unfortunately only 2 of them passed the course although they all benefited from the experiences that we encountered.
The reserve was inundated with elephants from day 1 as well as many days with lions present on the reserve as well as some small herds of buffalo. There was hardly a day that went by when we didn't either walk or drive into a herd of elephants or have them visit the waterhole in front of the centre. On some days we saw up to 20 animals in a breeding herd enjoying themselves. One bull even ventured up to the Baobab tree and tried to strip the bark from it. The baobab tree is only 4 metres from the classroom door. There were even occasions when the waterhole would be fully occupied and an elephant would decide to quench his thirst from the swimming pool instead.
The students enjoyed many sightings at the waterhole of zebra, wildebeest, giraffe and buffalo coming down to drink. There were the daily warthogs as well that the students soon came to recognise and a large flock of Helmeted Guineafowl that were there every day if not twice a day.
On the one walk, we tried to get close to a group of elephants that were only about 300m from the centre. One of the elephants took a major exception to our presence and the students were able to experience first hand what it felt like to be charged by these large animals. Needless to say everyone's legs were a little wobbly after the experience and once we had moved away a short distance we stopped to discuss the whole episode and learn from the experience. We were within sight of the centre and the waterhole at the time and were then exposed to a breeding herd coming down to drink at the waterhole. I think everyone felt that had had enough of elephant for that particular walk and so we moved off to concentrate on other matters instead.
One student was lucky enough to experience what it felt like to be driving the landrover and having to deal with an elephant trying to show his dominance. Fortunately it was just a young elephant and it was more show than anything else. It is probably the best way to start learning. I think Riaan may have been a bit more nervous had it been a real display of dominance. Emile also had to deal with elephants when he was taking a drive. In this case it was more a case of dealing with looking directly into the sun and not being able to see everything clearly. Once we had moved a few hundred metres forward though we were able to position the vehicle better and start to relax and enjoy the whole episode.
On a couple of occasions we were able to walk into a herd of buffalo, which fortunately for us were much better behaved and took no exception to us. We also came across fresh lion tracks on a number of drives and a couple of walks but we were never able to catch up with the pride before they moved into areas where we couldn't follow. We were able to listen to them regularly throughout the course as they roared during the night trying to establish their new territory and let others in the area know they were around.
Other animals that we encountered included the usual giraffe, zebra, wildebeest, waterbuck and warthog along with some nice sightings of a pod of hippo in the river.
Our visit to the Kruger Park this time was again a major success. We stayed at the Satara Camp in the middle section of the park and had a good sighting of a pride of lions with their cubs, several sightings of elephant, a very large herd of over 200 buffalo as well as many other smaller groups. Some of the students were lucky enough to see a few hyena close to the fence of the camp during the evenings. We also just missed a leopard as it crossed the road. Another visitor told us about it, and we had only come down the road a couple of minutes ahead of them. That's the name of the game I suppose- being in the right place at the right time. We had a lucky lion sighting on our way home though when the lioness crossed the road in front of us. Again a couple of minutes either way and we wouldn't have known she had been there.
On the birding front we also had success with at least 11 Kori Bustards (the heaviest flying bird in the world!), 6 Martial Eagles (the largest Eagle in Africa) and several sightings of Ground Hornbills.