Kwa Maritane Ranger Diary: 2004/2005

16 Jul

Something for the humerous and adventurous people out there.

Now often we get asked the question what the field guides do in their spare time. What spare time? But serious we are quite busy and gone are the days where guides used to come back from a game drive and dissapear for the rest of the day.

Here at Kwa we are very busy with all kinds of things ranging from serious, academical, scientific and even illegal. (Just joking)

Now every year Kwa Maritane has a "Employee of the Year Award" ceremony and this year the game department had to show all that they are still the best when it comes to new ideas. So after many ideas and lots of beers, we decided what we were going to do this year. The CALENDER BOYS 2006!!!! Now the final result came out spectacular but the making of it was quite funny if not nerve racking at times.

Lets start with some of out serious mishaps. Picture this. Cicily, 1934.... No just joking. The one photo was supposed to be where 4 of the guides are getting ready for the day. Of course they are all stark naked except for the items covering the ugly bits...Now they all got undressed and were about to position themselves in and out of the water. I was shouting left right and centre for them to stand so and so. Mr. Hippo then decided that he wanted a closer look. The dam where we were supposed to do this photo had this very nosy male hippo and he could not have picked a worse day to come swimming closer. Shouting at him didn't help and he of course had a full view of what no one else will ever get. Every time one of the guides slowly went close to the edge of the water, this hippo started displaying with his mouth wide open. Now I say he was not displaying but rather laughing at what he saw. And trust me in the middle of winter size does not count because there is nothing measurable. Eventually we had to abandon the whole idea of the dam and decided to do a walk instead.

So off we went to the next location. We walked into some thick bush, got undressed for the perfect shot when elephants were spotted not far away. At that stage I was half naked as well but for my shirt, when a vehicle passed us very close from the road. I really thought we were further from the road. So instinctively I fall down not to be seen but falling on spear grass without any shorts is a painfull experience. TRUST ME. We eventually took the shot of three of the guides doing a walk, but every movement or sound made us jump thinking it was a elephant or a black rhino. Can you just imagine seeing a black rhino chasing a naked ranger through the bush.

Trying to do the Bush School photo was even funnier. The guides were sitting on their haunches looking at some dung. As we started taking the shots we realised that the result did not look that effective and it looked as if these guys had the worst toilet manners ever. Trying from all angles made no difference and the antelope droppings just kept on coming into the wrong position on the photo. We eventually decided to look at a book explaining spoor.

Another phot was taken of a guide sitting at the bushbraai fire. The idea was to light the fire for some smoke in the background. Now this was seven o clock in the morning and nothing wanted to burn. We eventually tried throwing some paraffin on the wood to get some smoke. And did that work well. The problem was then to try and get rid of some of the smoke. Throwing water on the smoking logs made more smoke and ashes were spread all over the poor guide. He looked as if he was standing in the snow. One solution...wash down....in winter !!! The guide got himself clean and came back with a lot of protesting.

Another photo was taken with one of our guides climbing up a rock face with some ropes. At midnight, after we waited for some guests to finish the longest tennis match ever, we got ourselves positioned to take some photos. All the ropes and climbing gear were put on only to discover the underwear were also still on. The guide of course thought he was clever and tried to get rid of that piece of clothing by pulling it over the ropes and gear. Everything got tangled and messed up. The "model" fell down a couple of times and seeing two white buns in the middle of winter looking like a caterpillar wriggling around was quite funny.

One thing is certain....to attempt a photo shoot with guides in the bush is not the easiest thing to do. Preparation is a understatement. The result was phenomenal and we are now selling the calenders to support the owl-project in the area, since many of them are killed by cars speeding etc. But guides will do anything if it is for a good cause, and what could be more rewarding than to see orphan baby owls growing up to be strong adult birds.

TILL NEXT TIME
CHEERS WOUTER

27 Jan

One of our oldest and most important cow elephants in the park called Owala, has died.

Owala was the first elephant cow that was brought into the Park. The amazing fact is that she was a circus elephant when she was brought into the park. The circus trainer, Randall Moore decided it was time for this elephant to go back to the bush. He himself spent many months in the park trying to teach this elephant what to eat and what trees are nice and delicious. She quickly adapted and became one of the key elephants in the park.

About 6 years ago a hippo attacked Owala and her leg was badly injured. Parks Board knew that they would not be able to treat this elephant medically on a continuous level because the drugs would be negative on the long run. They got hold of Randal Moore that has not seen this circus elephant for many-many years. Owala was of course in tremendous amount of pain and no one could get close to her. Randall was the only one. This amazing elephant recognized him purely on his voice when he spoke to her, and she went up to him and put her trunk around him. She recognized this one man 16 years later purely on his voice. She trusted this one man. The vet could also treat this elephant purely because Randall was there the whole time comforting her and holding onto her. By giving her old circus commands such as “hold the leg”, “lift the leg”, they were able to treat this elephant with virtually no anesthetic and a wire brush. She recovered fully, was pregnant throughout her whole ordeal, and she has calved another two times after that.

Sadly she has now died from a miscarriage and a major infection within her uterus. Some of us guides that have known this elephant for years feel it very deeply. We are putting up a memorial plaque for her, and I promise you we have all shed a few tears.

Till next time

Wouter

14 Jan

One of these animals is named Amarula and we are talking about a very obnoxious self-centered elephant. Now this elephant is in his late 30’s and has no tail. Maybe that is why he is so full of nonsense. (He lost the tail a couple of years ago through an infection... I personally think he lost more than his tail)

Now at the moment this elephant bull is in musth. This basically means that he feels he “must” mate. At this stage your elephant bulls are loaded with testosterone and they are very aggressive. This is also the time they are doing their hanky panky thing with the females. You can normally smell a bull in must before you can see him. There is a dark liquid running down his face coming from a temporal gland. He also releases a lot of urine which continuously dribbles onto the road. The trunk often gets dragged on the road, which is a good sign that they are irritated.

Now Amarula has been in musth since before Christmas. He has been chasing everyone up and down in the park, and many of my guides have been forced lately to seek an alternative route because he is blocking the road. It is always quite exiting when you get an elephant running after a game drive vehicle. Some guests enjoy the thrill of having an elephant storm towards the vehicle and some see this as the end of the world.

Now the other day I was driving along when this big grey thing that calls himself an elephant ambushed me. Seriously... he ambushed me. Standing behind a tree and then jumping onto the road when you about to drive past. Now because the bush is very thick at certain places, and you don’t see this elephant before he pounces onto your truck, your heart rate misses not only a beat but a whole cycle. I managed to reverse quickly and he started running after the truck. Because the road has a lot of S-bends in, you don’t really know when this elephant has stopped or not. Every time he appears around the bend in front of the truck my guests would start yelling to me “He is still coming!”... Now I can see he is still coming otherwise I would not still be driving backwards. After about 20 minutes he decided to leave the comfort of the flat road and go into the bushes. I just managed to get past when he stormed again. This time he came in full force with ears out and trumpeting. Going uphill and having to avoid certain potholes in the road this elephant stuck to the back of the vehicle. I could not lose this elephant. At stages the trunk actually banged against the back of my vehicle. Few guests actually realize that when an elephant runs at full speed it is not slow. I myself was starting to get a bit nervous. This elephant chased me for ten minutes, which felt like hours. When I eventually stopped, the truck was silent and not a sound from anyone. My mind was in overdrive thinking about the complaints, and guests that were going to raise their opinions what I should have done, but nothing.

I felt this finger tapping on my shoulder and thought, “here it comes”. When I turned around all my guests were wide eyed and silent. I had a little 5-year-old girl sitting in the front row. She had her thumb in the air, one eye close and showing me WELL DONE. That broke the ice and people started breathing again. The little girl later said to her mom, which I overheard. “Mom I should have been driving. The guide is very good, but no elephant is gonna mess with this chick... I only smiled.

25 Nov

It started out as a normal afternoon drive. The guide (from Kwa Maritane) who did the drive was expecting it to be a quiet afternoon drive. Little did he know!

It all started with the francolins (birds) that started acting very nervously close to the vehicle. Now these birds are known for acting very erratically and spontaneous. No wonder most of the time they run into one another, and look quite surprised when they fall over their legs. The guide described them as running around in circles, bumping into each other looking like they were playing hopscotch. Suddenly the grey body of an African wildcat shot out from the grass. The cat missed and only got a tuft of grass in the end. The francolins were gone by now but you could still hear them screaming blue-murder, and protesting their disturbance. The African wildcat walked off when he almost got trampled by a small herd of zebra, appearing from no-where. Now these zebras were full of panic probably because they had little ones with them. No wonder because the next moment a cheetah came sprinting past the vehicle and after a couple of seconds he took down one of the little zebra babies. Now you had the francolins and the zebras exercising their vocal capabilities.

The guide thought this was great and settled down to wait for the cheetah to start eating. A pair of jackals now got onto the scene but kept their distance. The cheetah started to tear the skin of the zebra but did not get very far when the brown hyena appeared as if he was beamed to earth by the Starship Enterprise. The cheetah hissed at this new intruder, but started eating anyway. After a while the brown hyena just ran up to the carcass. The cheetah retreated back and you could see he was not very happy because his meal was now interrupted. Cheetahs are very nervous and they often loose their food to other animals. He eventually got the hyena to run off (with a huge piece of “zebra steak”).

And then it happened. The hyena was running like the wind, and the cheetah first had a total nervous breakdown before he started running away. Lions everywhere, coming out of the thickets from all directions. There were 5 lions (2 young males and 3 females). They were chasing the cheetah and the brown hyena. In the meantime the two little jackals tried to creep to the carcass, but had to quickly retreat when the first male lion walked up to the carcass. Being a baby zebra, the carcass did not last long between the lions. By now it was already getting quite dark, but the francolins were still trying to bugger up the quietness of the bush. And they were making a huge success of it.

Of course the guide never expected all this action and felt good about the drive. His whole bubble of happiness was shattered when one of his guests came to him afterwards and said “the drive was alright I suppose, but it would have been nice if we had a better view of the elephants.” One of the other guests went to the guide and asked “we had 20 elephants not further than 20 meters from the vehicle. Where did she want the elephants... on her lap!”

Regards

Wouter

2 Nov

The Wildcam viewers have now become accustomed to the hide picture, but what is it like inside the hide?

Well you have to first walk for about 300m to get to the end of the tunnel and then there are two rooms on either side with chairs where you sit out and look throughout the window.

Often you sit in the hide and there is no one else but you and your shadow. You almost fall asleep because of the tranquility when this giant mass of muscle suddenly steps in front of the window. An elephant… I have seen a guest that was so in awe that his false teeth literally fell to the floor. When the elephant walks in front of the window you are about 2 meters away from it and you can literally touch the animal…(which is not a good idea). Because you are so close to the animal you are not able to see the whole body unless you crouch down to look up. Of course should the elephant be on the other side of the dam then you see the same as what all you guy’s see on the Wildcam pictures.

When lions approach the hide and walk in front of the windows many a guest have tried to claw their way up the brick wall behind them, forgetting that there is an exit door. No animal will come into the hide because from the outside it seems like a dark strange entity with strange smells and noises. Animals will not venture into the hide.

If it is quiet enough and people do not drop their cameras, baby bottles, binoculars or false teeth then the animal seems undisturbed. There have been cases where people made such a noise that elephant bulls often charge the window; covering the guests in a cloud of dust…you should then see what chaos is. (Please take note that the hide has no windows, and that it is only an open square area with a bar in front of it.)

Nighttime can sometimes be a bit of a nightmare, especially in summer when there are hordes of insects. They do find their way into your eyes, nose, pants and underwear (and definitely not polite to try and scratch). It can be a battle zone out there when all the frogs hop around on the grass in front of you chasing all the crickets, moths and other insects.

The hide can be very quiet or can be a buzz of events. But of course the best way to experience it is to come and see for yourself!

Cheers

Later

31 Oct

Another weekend has passed and again we saw some amazing stuff in the park. Even more amazing was the following:

• A whole family entered the park. Dad had a poodle on his lap. Mom had the cat. Daughter had something that resembled a combination between a squirrel and a mouse. And the son had….yes..wait for it…..you won’t believe it………….a fishbowl with fish in it. As far as I know you come to the Pilanesberg to come and see animals…..not to bring animals to the park. How they got past the gates with all the animals I do not know. Now that’s what I call a Family Outing!
• Quite funny was the wildebeest (gnu) that ran in circles and tripped over a fallen tree stump. It was quite funny to see this wildebeest fall down…..quite disgusted because the stump moved in front of him!
• One of the private vehicles in the park had a flat tyre and the wife was trying to get the spare wheel out of the car while the husband was……yes wait for it…..you won’t believe it……..reading a book.
• You are in any case not allowed to get out of your vehicle in the park. Luckily these people stopped at one of the designated picnic spots to fix the flat wheel. It was just funny to see the little lady dragging the spare wheel while the husband was reading his horoscope! Luckily one of the guides went over and helped the couple. They did not even thank him. Next time he won’t help fix the one tyre…. he’ll shoot the other three.

Later

26 Oct

• Walking in long grass, and a francolin suddenly flies up in front of you. Many a guide has almost shot himself in the foot or knocked a guest off balance. Your heart skips ten beats and you’re on a buzz for a long time
• When you on a walk and a guest says “I think I just saw a baby lion or leopard”. Knowing that the mother is always close by, this is the last thing a guide wants to hear on a walk, and your brain goes in overdrive.
• Walking through the bush and suddenly walking right into a rhino. When it is a black rhino, you just hope you packed an extra set of undies! You know that rhino is going to charge you and you just keep on watching where the closest escape route is.
• If you were chased up a tree by a rhino or buffalo. The branch on which one of your guests is sitting suddenly starts cracking.
• When you run from something (except lions) and one of your guests falls down or gets hooked on a thorn tree.
• When one of the lady guests on your game drive vehicle suddenly says “I think my water just broke” You first wonder how she got onto the truck without you seeing her and then where the heck are you going to get towels, water and a box of Calmets.
• Vehicles block you in and one of your guests says, “We have a elephant bull behind the truck that stinks and looks unhappy.” You know this will probably be a bull in musth and you know you are in for a hell of a time.
• When you are almost at the lodge, returning from a game drive and one of your guests says, “I think we are missing someone!”
• When you are on a walk and you suddenly hear the distinctive growling of a leopard

25 Oct

We had 3 brilliant sightings of leopards, right next to the vehicles. With big patches in the Park that has short new grass (after the burn) these cats are a little easier to see at night.

Elephant sightings were great and we had a breeding herd with a little baby about a week old. Still pink and hairy. It caused a lot of excitement, and I am sure the one lady would have put it in her handbag if she could. Then again there would have bee no space in the handbag because she had somehow managed to squeeze all her belongings as well as that of her fellow guests in this handbag.

Lion sightings have been great all weekend. It is becoming a blood battle out there. Not between the lions but between the guests that are hitting each other with canes and handbags, and binoculars, just to get a better view.

Again some one asked the question whether we herd the animals back to camp at night. The “camp” is 55 000 hectares and there will be no herding of any animals, thank you. THIS IS NOT A CATTLE RANCH!!! (Although our buffaloes do look like cattle)

Snakes were in abundance over the weekend. One python, 9 spitting cobras, 3 pufadders, boomslang, and a few other brown jobbies that were difficult to id.

22 Oct

One of our guides has found three abanded spotted eagle owl chicks. He has done a great job in rearing them. They are now big enough to find their own food. The one owl is already going out every night to find food for himself. He very seldom comes back these days. The other two fly off at night but they still return the next morning to there home-made box. It is good to see that some guides have the patients and the energy to feed 3 little chicks. They are just like human babies, and need to be fed every couple of hours. Very little sleep.

The game office at Kwa Maritane is undergoing a major face-lift because we are ripping out many of the old displays and putting up new ones. All the guides have their own little projects and displays that they work very hard on. When you come and visit us, you must come and see.

It is very hot here and there is very little water. We hope the rain comes quick and in buckets.

There is an elephant at the hide as I am typing to you. He is a big bull drinking water. First one in two weeks here at Kwa.

We are in the process of working on a bat-hotel. We might then be able to study these animals more. Hold thumbs that it will work.

We have a Brown Hyaena that has become a regular at the water hole, yet I have seen very few photos on the Wildcam site. He is here often enough to capture him.

Young resident female leopard at Kwa had two cubs.

Talk soon again

Wouter

September '04

When tracking, its often difficult to distinguish black rhino dung from elephant dung as well as white rhino dung. There is, however, a key which settles the debate.

A black rhino crops twigs and shoots with its cheek teeth, leaving them snipped neatly at a 45 degree angle.

Fragments of these twigs, with their telltale ends, are the most reliable way of distinguishing the dung of the black rhino.

Talk soon again

Wouter

May '04

The hide has been very quiet over the past few days especially because there are still a lot of water in the park and the animals are not forced to come down to the hide and drink.

We had a pack of wilddogs meandering past the hide not so long ago but the visual was very quick.

We have a big number of bats in the park but no research has been done on them. I know the one we get here the most is the yellow bellied fruit bat and then we also sometimes get eppauletted fruit bats here.

In the past two months we had a few kills from the lions including a giraffe, a zebra and an eland. Also a porcupine killed by a leopard which was quite rare to witness.

Lots of snakes at the moment getting ready to hibernate for the winter and especially spitting cobras are still often seen.

We are also getting ready to change our office (Wahlberg centre). At the moment we have just over 100 different displays with fully descriptive detail and we are changing quite a number of them and bringing in new ones.

The big white rock in front of the hide is called a saltlick and we only put it out in winter.

During winter the animals come to drink anytime during the day because it is not so hot during midday.

Talk soon again

Wouter