Okavango Delta

At one point in the last 5 months I had my family gathered together in Africa and even had Sadie's good friend Rose here too. Together we enjoyed a week at CCF and then left on an adventure (of a lifetime). We rented a 4x4 club cab truck with two rooftop tents and, with some minor trepidation, we set off for Botswana. 

We were fortunate enough to be able to take a 5 day guided safari trip. We left our truck behind and climbed aboard a safari vehicle. Just the 4 of us, our guide/driver and our chef. They took us to the most amazing places including a mokoro boat trip. A mokoro is a kind of small canoe commonly used in the Okavango Delta. It is propelled through shallow water by a person standing in the stern and pushing with a pole. We took the mokoros to an island where we spent the night in small tents, listening to the hippos and other wildlife. 

The next day our safari vehicle picked us up again and we traveled into the Okavango Delta. The trip in to the national park was long but amazing. We got stuck only once and our guide and chef knew how to get us out. Jack up the vehicle, put brush under the tires, drop the chuck wagon and go for it. Then drag the chuck wagon back to the vehicle, hook up and off you go.

We camped for another 4 nights in the Delta. We had lovely big tents with cots and blankets. Nights were filled with the sounds of lions, hippos and elephants calling. We had small lanterns light around our camp and before getting up in the night you had to listen to hear if there were any animals in camp. Then go out to pee but never alone. We quickly gave up having a beer after dinner and instead sipped whisky so as to avoid too many night time adventures.

Mornings we were up before daylight when Brighton, our chef, or Robbie, our guide, would wake us with a quiet good morning and warm water in camp sinks outside our tents. After a quick cup of coffee and a biscuit we would be off looking for wildlife. We would spend  the next 4 hours out and about in our safari truck then come back to camp where Brighton would have a lovely lunch waiting for us. Afternoon naps, camp showers (with warm water), journal writing and photo sorting until 3:00 and then out for another 3 hour game drive. In the Okavango everyone is required to be back in their camps by dark. We pushed that a few times when we would encounter some amazing new wildlife scene and wanted to stay and watch it. It is hard to leave a lion rolling in the dirt, an elephant softly flapping its ears next to your vehicle or a hyena stopping to look back at you. We always got back to camp as darkness arrived. Brighton would have the table set with a tablecloth and some great meal prepared for us. We did not camp in any campgrounds but were assigned places to camp. We had no other people around. The space belonged to us.

Our "budget, participation" safari could not have been any better. We loved Brighton and Robbie, we loved our camp equipment and camp sites, we loved gathering around the fire each night and reliving our adventures and we loved the Okavango.

Next post - Adventuring on our Own

Seasons

It is interesting to visit a new place and stay long enough to see the seasonal changes. I arrived in Namibia during their summer. I was here for fall when most people I know were welcoming spring  in the US. Time has now marched along and straight into winter. The days are shorter and the nights colder.

Namibia has over 300 days of sunshine per year but that does not mean it is necessarily warm. Nights are now getting down to the high 40s. Daytime temps this week have been in the low 70s. My little rondaval hut heats up pretty well during the day because of the fiberglass roof in the bathroom but by morning it has cooled considerably. We have only an outside dinning area. In the evening folks arrive to dinner wearing coats and hats. When I first arrived at CCF it was shorts and tank tops.

The wildlife has changed somewhat as well. Rarely do we see a snake now and the gecko is no longer living in my bathroom. It seems the baboon population, that lives near the dinning hall, has doubled in size but fewer warthogs are around. There are lots of Red Hartebeest and Oryx but not many Elands. Steenbok and springbok are abundant.

A few nights ago I left a 6 pack of beer outside my door figuring it would get nice and cold during the night. I woke to the rustling of the plastic bag and quickly opened my door to see what was snooping around. A big black and white porcupine had bitten through the bag AND through a can of beer. He was having himself a little party until I startled him and he waddled/staggered quickly away. The porcupines have become regular guest the past few weeks.

I have not seen a leopard in over two months but people have been spotting them again recently. I am sure they have been around but the grass was so high they were hard to see. Now the grass is dying back. Staff here say that we might not see rain again until December. The waterholes are already drying up. When I was first here we had monitoring cameras up at 10 or 12 waterholes. Now it is down to five and at least two of those will soon be dry.

There are also more young animals around. Today I saw 6 adult giraffes and one young one. Yesterday we saw 3 very young giraffes in a group. Jackals are abundant. We see them out on the reserve and hear them vocalizing every night.

I have only two weeks left in Africa. It is one of the most or (maybe the most) captivating places I have ever visited. My pal, Abi, will arrive in 2 days. I am excited to share this place with her.

It has  been a grand adventure.

Hornbills continued

Hornbills Are Out

If you read my previous blogs you will know that I was keeping track of the Yellow-billed Hornbills that were nesting near the dining hall (fondly known as the Hot Spot) here at CCF.

I watched as the male fed the female for the first three weeks that I was here. Then the mudded in hole in the nest box became slowly bigger over the course of two or three days. I did not see the female emerge but suddenly there were two hornbills flying around and the hole in the nest box got smaller again. The adult birds filled the hole back in except for a small slit through which they shoved caterpillars and other insects. Standing near the nest box one could hear the young bird(s) inside begging for food. This went on for another three weeks or so then once again the hole in the mud started growing. Soon I could see small glimpses of a beak in the hole. The hole was enlarged over the course of many days. The parents began sitting on branches of the snag and calling out to the young in the box. It is actually a rather long drop out of the box to the ground so the best course of action for a young bird would be to launch itself into flight when leaving the nest. No hopping about on nearby branches for these birds.

I watched the nest box as much as possible hoping to see the chick or chicks emerge. No such luck. We have however seen a chick in the trees nearby. It seems that only one chick fledged. The chicks can be distinguished from the adults by the color of their beak. Young chicks have a brown beak which begins to change to yellow shortly after they fledge.

While I did not capture the moment of nest departure I did capture photos of the chick as it began to look out onto the big world beyond its small nest box. I also watched an adult hornbill catch a caterpillar and proceed to wack it against a log before taking it to the nest box. 

Game Counts

Game Counts Night and Day

Since Jim’s arrival in Namibia I have found myself busier and less inclined to update the Blog even though there is always so much to share.

Jim came to CCF about a month ago, around the time of the monthly game counts. I love this monthly event.  It consists of five days of driving specific routes around the reserve and counting targeted species. Day one is the count for “Circuit B3”. It is a long count that takes about 3 or 4 hours to complete depending on what is seen. Day two is also Circuit B but it is a night drive. The next three days are counts on the main reserve conducted on the same three roads each day.  Different people at CCF are assigned to participate in the counts.  Jim and I were lucky enough to go on the night count and all three of the following day counts.

Night counts and night drives are done with the use of using spotlights held out each side of the truck. The spot-lighters move the lights back and forth scanning for eye shine or movement. When something is seen you shout out to the driver to stop and then everyone tries to figure out what is out there in the darkness.

We were about 5 km into our drive when Jim spotted two pairs of eyes and had our driver stop the truck. We all looked carefully trying to figure out what was out there in the bushes. It seemed cat-like but we could not be sure. Then of course they moved and we lost sight of them. I suggested we inch forward with the truck, keeping the spotlight focused on the area and just maybe we could find where they had moved. We moved forward 4 or 5 meters and saw a pair of eyes again. This time we could all see it was a cat. Serval! This is a medium sized cat that is rarely seen. Richard, our driver and the coordinator of the game counts had never seen a serval. We all got good looks at it before it turned and moved deeper into the brush. Servals frequently prey on birds and are known to leap into the air to take birds in flight.

The excitement of spotting the serval kept us all motivated to continue scanning and searching over the next hour when we saw limited numbers of animals. As we moved to the more open areas the game picked up and we saw Oryx, red hartebeest and springbok. Oryx are usually found in the greatest numbers during the counts. We often encounter groups of 40 to 60 animals at night.

Two weeks or so after the game counts we went on another night drive around the reserve with some friends.  Highlights included having a great look at a genet in a tree. Genets are small carnivores that remind me of a raccoon or ring tailed cat. They spend most of their time in the trees and are excellent climbers. We also spotted two different species of owls, the tiny Pearl Spotted owlet which is much like our pygmy owl and the larger Southern White Faced owl which can be identified in part by its huge orange eyes.

Game counts will be starting again on Sunday. This time Sadie is also here to participate and I will be driving one of the vehicles on some of the counts.  

Camera Traps are one of the other ways CCF has for monitoring the wildlife species and numbers found here. Check out the photos from some of our camera traps.

 Game Counts Night and Day

Since Jim’s arrival in Namibia I have found myself busier and less inclined to update the Blog even though there is always so much to share.

Jim came to CCF about a month ago, around the time of the monthly game counts. I love this monthly event.  It consists of five days of driving specific routes around the reserve and counting targeted species. Day one is the count for “Circuit B3”. It is a long count that takes about 3 or 4 hours to complete depending on what is seen. Day two is also Circuit B but it is a night drive. The next three days are counts on the main reserve conducted on the same three roads each day.  Different people at CCF are assigned to participate in the counts.  Jim and I were lucky enough to go on the night count and all three of the following day counts.

Night counts and night drives are done with the use of using spotlights held out each side of the truck. The spot-lighters move the lights back and forth scanning for eye shine or movement. When something is seen you shout out to the driver to stop and then everyone tries to figure out what is out there in the darkness.

We were about 5 km into our drive when Jim spotted two pairs of eyes and had our driver stop the truck. We all looked carefully trying to figure out what was out there in the bushes. It seemed cat-like but we could not be sure. Then of course they moved and we lost sight of them. I suggested we inch forward with the truck, keeping the spotlight focused on the area and just maybe we could find where they had moved. We moved forward 4 or 5 meters and saw a pair of eyes again. This time we could all see it was a cat. Serval! This is a medium sized cat that is rarely seen. Richard, our driver and the coordinator of the game counts had never seen a serval. We all got good looks at it before it turned and moved deeper into the brush. Servals frequently prey on birds and are known to leap into the air to take birds in flight.

The excitement of spotting the serval kept us all motivated to continue scanning and searching over the next hour when we saw limited numbers of animals. As we moved to the more open areas the game picked up and we saw Oryx, red hartebeest and springbok. Oryx are usually found in the greatest numbers during the counts. We often encounter groups of 40 to 60 animals at night.

Two weeks or so after the game counts we went on another night drive around the reserve with some friends.  Highlights included having a great look at a genet in a tree. Genets are small carnivores that remind me of a raccoon or ring tailed cat. They spend most of their time in the trees and are excellent climbers. We also spotted two different species of owls, the tiny Pearl Spotted owlet which is much like our pygmy owl and the larger Southern White Faced owl which can be identified in part by its huge orange eyes.

Game counts will be starting again on Sunday. This time Sadie is also here to participate and I will be driving one of the vehicles on some of the counts.  

Camera Traps are one of the other ways CCF has for monitoring the wildlife species and numbers found here. Check out the photos from some of our camera traps.

Jim's report on the Waterhole Count - Gee Willikers!

The Waterhole Count

Sunday, 13 March 2016

Every couple of months, CCF does a set of four all-day ‘Waterhole Counts’, in which two observers are stationed at each of four ‘hides’ (blinds), and record the mammals they see in and around the waterhole located about 50 meters in front of them. The hide is a simple concrete box with a corrugated tin roof and a wide slit in the front, out of which the two people can sit in plastic chairs and view the scene as it unfolds. Donna and I started at 650am and finished our work at 615pm. We recorded the following mammal species:

MAMMALS

Warthog                      Eland               Red Hartebeest           Oryx

Zebra                           Giraffe             Steenbok

Of these seven species of mammals, by far the most numerous were warthogs, of which we saw dozens of individuals, almost all adults or sub-adults. We saw zebras on two separate occasions, a total of about 30 individuals, and while most were adults and sub-adults, we did see two tiny one-week old foals during the herds’ second visit to the waterhole. We saw three giraffes on two occasions. On the first occasion, a single sub-adult appeared, and she was very shy at first. She lingered behind a large acacia tree for several minutes, and then slowly emerged out from behind the tree, first her head, then her neck and then her flank. For me, that moment was so special, because it was the first time I had ever seen a wild giraffe, and the sight just took my breath away.  Donna said later that I kept exclaiming, ‘Gee willikers!’, and ‘Oh Gosh!’ – it was one of the highlights of my wildlife-watching career for sure. The second group of two giraffes arrived a few hours later, and it was special to see them slowly work their legs apart to get close enough to the water to drink. On one such occasion, an eland actually tried to get a drink between the legs of the giraffe – the various species of ungulate are obviously tolerant of one another. When a giraffe wants to come back up from the drinking position, it tends to snap it’s legs up to vertical in one quick movement, which was quite an unusual behavior to see. I guess that behavior makes sense, since it allows the animal to ready itself quickly for flight should a problem arise.

Even though we were only required to record mammals during our 11+ hour day, Donna and I managed to identify a number of bird species as well:

BIRDS

Red Billed Spurfowl                Ground Scraper Thrush                       Scaly Feathered Finch

Red Crested Korhaan              Black Chested Prinia                           Blue Waxbill

Cape Turtle  Dove                   Merico Flycatcher                               Red-Headed Finch

Laughing Dove                       Crimson Breasted Shrike                    Violet Eared Waxbill

Namaqua Dove                       Cape Glossy Starling                           Black Faced Waxbill

Grey Go-Away Bird                Cape Sparrow                                     Green Winged Pitilla

Great Spotted Cuckoo             S. Gray Headed Sparrow                   Yellow Canary

Dideric Cuckoo                       Southern Masked Weaver                  White Throated Canary

Common Swift                        Long Tailed Paradise Whydah            Golden Breasted Bunting       

Swallow Tailed Bee Eater       Shaft Tailed Whydah                          

Of these 29 species, a little more than half (15) are finch-type birds, starting from the Cape Sparrow, and ending with the Golden-Breasted Bunting, indicating that most of the species we saw were seed-eaters of various kinds. This is consistent with what we generally see as we walk and drive around the CCF property.

The other three pairs of people saw somewhat similar species as we did, though perhaps not quite as many individuals. However, one of the groups got a special treat: between 1000am and 300pm that day, a sub-adult leopard visited their waterhole, climbing in and out of a nearby tree, taking a swat or two at visiting warthogs and zebra, but generally being unsuccessful at catching anything it saw. In fact, they said that the wildlife generally exhibited little respect for this young leopard, probably judging that it was inexperienced. Yet perhaps the mother leopard was nearby, and this was a lesson for her kid. That realization kept the two observers in their hide well past the time when they would have liked to have made a visit to the bush to relieve themselves. 

Leopards, Mambas and Mud

Leopard sightings are always shared around the lunch or dinner table here at CCF. People see them on the way out to feed the cheetahs that are in the more remote enclosures or when they are out on the reserve checking one thing or another. I knew enough not to expect to see a leopard while here but I hoped that with four months to spend at CCF I might get lucky and see one.

One way to get out on the reserve is to volunteer to help on different projects. Lately I have been helping on Mondays with collecting the memory cards from the camera traps located around CCF at the different water holes. It is a great way to get out and now that I know the routine I can actually be helpful.

Just as we pulled into our last camera trap site of the day last week we spotted a leopard moving away from the water hole. We caught two good glimpses of it and then it disappeared. We watched for it in the area as we checked the camera, collected the card and changed the batteries. We stuck together when we took measurements on the size of the water hole just to be on the safe side. I saw my first leopard exactly one month after arriving in Africa. One week later, at the same site we watched a black mamba snake emerge from the water, slither out onto the bank and disappear into the grass. The snake was not very big around but was somewhere around 2 meters in length. My first leopard and first venomous snake sighted at the same location just one week apart.

This week I have been fortunate enough to also go out on two night drives with a visiting scientist, Kristine. She has been studying Caracals (a medium sized wild cat) in South Africa for the past three years and knows a tremendous amount about African wildlife. I learned quickly that she is always up for an adventure. On our first adventure together we took her land rover, crammed six people in and headed out to explore. Before we had traveled three kilometers we spotted a leopard off to the side of the road. I was able to keep the spotlight on it or just to the side of it as we watched it move through the tall grass. It was behaving like it wanted to cross the road so we turned off the car and stayed quiet. Sure enough it came out of the grass and moved across the road where we watched it for several more minutes until it disappeared. Two leopard sightings in one week!

The night drive continued with views of Oryx herds, Red Hartebeest, Springbok and Steenbok. Then we had another great sighting of an Aardwolf.  This nocturnal, hyena type animal is not very common. In fact, until last month I did not even know they existed. They are usually seen at a distance but we were close enough to get good looks and could see the hyena shape along with the dark stripes that run down the side of the body. Aardwolves feed almost entirely on termites and can eat 250,000 a night.

After spotting the Aardwolf we headed for home but at the last minute decided to take a quick detour to one of the watering holes to see what might be hanging out there. It turned out to be a longer trip than expected when we became stuck in a mud hole and had to spend 90 minutes or more in knee deep mud, in the dark, digging and pushing ourselves out. This also had to be done barefoot as the mud kept sucking off our shoes. Admittedly thoughts of cobras and black mambas passed through my mind. With six of us floundering around and making noise I was not so concerned about leopards. After lots of digging, laying down a carpet of tree branches, pushing and strategizing we managed to get ourselves out and head home. 

Two nights later Kristine and I decided to go out again taking three others with us. Just a km or two past our previous leopard spotting site we saw something on the edge of the road. When we got up to it we could see it was a leopard cub. The first feeling was absolute excitement followed by wondering just where the mother might be. Then we spotted her too. At that point we did put our windows up a bit as she was not far away and we knew that a female leopard with two cubs had been seen on camera trap photos. We were lucky enough to watch the adult leopard for several minutes as it sat in the grass watching us before moving farther back from the road. We did not see a second cub but that spotting made four leopards in one week for me. Really kind of unheard of even here. It is nice to be the new person on the block who is envied because of her luck with leopard sightings.

My fellow adventurer, Kristine, has returned to South Africa now but Jim will be arriving here in just four days and I know he is always up for an adventure too.

Red Hartebeest

Snakes

So, I am not really too afraid of snakes. I have had one pet snake or another for over 30 years. Of course, my snakes have been captive snakes and they are not venomous. Even when our current snake went missing in the house for 5 weeks I worried more about him getting outside and lost than I ever worried about him showing up in some unsuspecting place in the house, like my bed.

I have a little bit different feeling about snakes here in Africa, especially this week. I am not afraid of snakes here but I am certainly more aware and alert. Maybe it is because the rainy season is starting or maybe it is because I am new here and just hearing more about snakes but they seem to be being seen kind of frequently. Three reports on people seeing Black Mambas last week. All of them seen on the road but all of them as long as the road is wide. I looked up Black Mambas, seems they are the most feared snake in Africa. It is not just their bad bite it is their aggressive behavior. These snakes can lift 2/3rds of their body off the ground. People worry about them jumping into open car windows. Seems a bit of a stretch but on our night game count last week our driver said "just be ready to roll your window up fast if we see a mamba PLEASE". My thought, "we need power windows!" Came back from a different afternoon game count and the driver said "please put your windows up." So I say "yeah, it looks like rain." "No, he says, it is to keep snakes from getting in the truck."

Well, no Black Mambas for me yet. I would like to see one from the safety of the truck. I did find a 6 inch snake in the garden when I was watering. I looked it up and it is just a friendly, little, harmless snake.

Then a few nights ago there is all this commotion after dinner. Someone in the dorm building saw a cobra by her door. All the biologist type folks decide to go looking for it. Of course, not to be left out, I went too, but first I went home and changed out of my flip flops into more sensible Tevas! I figured I could run faster in Tevas.  I also made sure to follow behind someone with a flashlight and boots. My heart was racing and I had the thought that it would be an interesting way to end my time in Africa, but alas no cobra. The very next night however, another spitting cobra was seen in the yard next to the dorm. I have been moving a bit more carefully at night. Looking along the path, checking in front of my door, closing my screen door tightly, using a light when outside.  So far, so good.

We chat at dinner about our various adventures. Top story so far -
While camping in Mozambique, one of the guys did not get his tent zipped up tightly. That night when he crawled into his sleeping bag he felt a snake in the bottom. A big snake. He whispered "please be a python, please be a python." He remained very still as the snake crawled up his leg. He then managed to slowly unzip his bag a bit and the snake, 2 meters long, emerged from the side. He still had his headlamp and he had it on the red, night setting. He clicked it on and there beside him was a cobra (so much for divine intervention). The cobra crawled out of the bag and on to the tent floor. He then reached back, carefully unzipped his tent and tossed the light outside.  The cobra slowly moved outside toward the light, leaving my friend shivering uncontrollably in the corner of his tent. Lesson learned, ALWAYS zip up your tent tightly.

So, it seems Africa has many species of venomous snakes. Some are aggressive and some are docile. There are many types of cobras. I am assured that if you remain calm and do not move the cobras will just slither on their merry way. I am hoping I do not have to check out that theory.

Life on the Farm

Life on the farm is kind of laid back. I love that. Everyone at CCF gets 6 days per month off. Not much but when you live where you work life is simplified and especially when town is a 40 minute drive away. Not to mention the fact that most people here do not own a car.

We went on outreach to schools last week. Stephanie, the education manager, arranges with schools to provide them a 45 - 60 minute presentation on "A predators role in the ecosystem". We visited seven schools in three days. The difference between state schools and private schools was immediately clear. Our first state school did not have an auditorium or any room large enough to hold the 600 1st through 6th grade students. So the students were directed to form lines, crowded together in the courtyard. Stephanie gave the presentation as she stood a bit above them on the walkway. This was not her first rodeo as we say out west. She has created large canvas posters of many of her PowerPoint slides. As she spoke to the kids her husband Bobby and I flipped the posters. All went amazingly well.

The next day we were at a private school. Seventy five students in grades 6, 7, 8 gathered in a nice board room. There were comfortable, matching chairs for the older students to sit on while the younger students sat on the floor. The school had a computer and projector set up and ready for us.

The next school had an auditorium for the 500 students to gather in but no electricity that day. It was back to a poster presentation. And so it went for three days.

I chatted with the principal at one of the schools. She has 570 kids in the secondary school and the primary school has 600 kids. Many/most of the students are from rural farms. The school has boarding space in a hostel for 60 secondary students and 50 primary students. Not nearly enough to meet the demand for housing. Students not in the hostel try to find families in the small town who will take them as boarders. You can imagine the troubles that occur. Some families take the kids but do not feed them. Others have the kids working. One student told the principal she was not coming back after break because the family made her work in their bar at night serving beer. Another girl was found to be sleeping in the field behind the truck stop because her family kicked her out. Teachers live in a dorm situation too with four or five to a dorm room. Their building has no running water. There is a shower house and for drinking water teachers must go outside to the pump. The principal was worried about the kids, worried about money for text books and worried about housing for her teachers. School is now free in Namibia for all secondary students as of this year. It has been free for primary students for a few years. The government needs to fund the schools, the books and the teaching materials but there is not enough money. A familiar story. I found myself thinking that the problems she described were not much different than the problems we face in US schools and likely the same problems faced in schools the world over.

It was great fun to see a bit of the country, get away from the farm, stay in a guest house with AC, no ants and a TV. Nice going out to dinner and running a few errands but at the end of three days I was ready to come home to CCF. I was delighted to see warthogs as we drove down our 40 km of dirt road. The Tawny Eagle and the Black Snake Eagle were at their usual posts in the top of the acacia trees. The cheetahs were moving about in their enclosures and my friendly bathroom gecko was here to great me when I returned to my rondoval.

The 4  rondovals. Mine is the one in the foreground.

African Sunset

The gecko in my bathroom. 

From Extraordinary to More Ordinary

Anyone that knows me will probably not find it too hard to believe that I have become involved in the CCF gardening project. There is a nice garden here that seems to have gone through times of production and times of being ignored. Today I joined forces with two CCF staff members and two of the Namibian workers to plant, transplant and harvest the garden. Cantaloupe, beans, tomatoes, and greens were planted. Chard, cukes, basil, carrots and beets were harvested. It is summer here in southern Africa.

One of the things I pondered as I went out to water the garden this evening was how some of the more extraordinary things here have become more ordinary. As I was moving hoses and sprinkling plants, on the other side of the path (and behind a fence), 10 feet away were four cheetahs. They all came over, wandered along the fence, checked me out, then found their own spots to lay down. It is not often one gets to garden with cheetahs hanging about.

Each morning, as I walk the path to my office, I go past three cheetah enclosures. The enclosures are big, maybe 5 or more acres. There is no guarantee that you will see a cheetah but most days I do. It has become more ordinary, not expected or taken for granted but ordinary. It has also become ordinary for me to see things such as Crimson breasted shrikes and Go Away birds. It is normal to see the warthog family with the male, female and two young go past the dining hall at dinner time. I have grown accustomed to encountering the gecko that lives in my bathroom. I am used to the smell of the thatch roof of my rondovel. I know that every day will bring a stunning sunrise
. Dung beetles, bazillions of butterflies, ants from tiny to giant, have become a normal part of my life.

Yesterday, on the way out to feed cheetahs, some of the staff saw a leopard run across the road. Last night the farm manager had to kill a cobra that kept coming up to his front porch. Tomorrow the director and several of the staff, along with a film crew from CNN, are headed out to track a cheetah whose radio transmitter batteries are getting low. They need to find her, tranquilizer her and replace the batteries. Extraordinarily ordinary events that occur as part of our everyday life here in Namibia or at least at the Cheetah Conservation Fund.

The Story of the Hornbill

Hornbills at CCF

I have been checking the Yellow-billed Hornbill's nest each time I walk past. By my calculations the female could emerge as early as next week which would mean the chicks should be making some noise. I do wonder, since the mom is with them all the time and it must be fairly dark in the box, if they would have any reason to make noise.

The male and female Hornbill work together to get the box or cavity ready for the nesting season. They carry the sticks and debris into the box then begin to mud the opening closed. When there is barely enough room for the female to squeeze through she enters the box and finishes closing the entrance. She may or may not start to lay her eggs right away. Once she lays all of her eggs she molts all of her feathers. Everything! Tail, wings, head. She is just a bald bird. The male does his duty by bringing her food all day and carrying away her waste. If something happens to him she will die too as she cannot fly.

It takes about three weeks for the eggs to hatch and the female stays with the chicks roughly three more weeks. The male must really be hustling at that point as I see him coming at all times of the day now. Once the female opens the hole and climbs out she and the male mud it in again. Then they both feed the chicks for another three weeks. Finally the chicks break open the mud and emerge into the light of day.

This behavior has allowed Hornbills to be one of the most successful cavity nesting birds. There is not much other than a snake that could get into the nest to eat the eggs or the chicks. And with that bill maybe a snake will not even tangle with the female Hornbill.

Life in Africa

Life in Africa

Keep thinking I will Blog every day but the time slips past so this first Blog will be a one week impression of Namibia and life at the Cheetah Conservation Fund (CCF) which are two very different things.

Life at CCF has settled in quickly. I started work the second day here and we work a real 8 – 5 schedule. I am working in the education program and they have numerous things they would like me to accomplish. I wonder if I will actually be able to get any of them to completion in 3 months. Currently I am trying to find out what the education standards are for students and how accountable teachers are to those standards. Hopefully I can arrange some meetings with principals next week. I will also get in touch with the universities in Namibia that offer education degrees and try to meet with some of those people.  So that is the work situation.

CCF owns a huge amount of land. There are 7 different farms. Goats and cows are raised here as are livestock guarding dogs.  There is a creamery – Dancing Goat Creamery - where they make feta and chevre cheese along with ice cream. These are sold here at the café and also in town at the farmers market. The main center for CCF is the area that has the visitors’ center, café, gift shop, offices and supporting facilities. There is a veterinarian clinic, genetics lab, education center, animal husbandry office, library, museum, and barns. The Namibian workers here at CCF are given a weekly ration of 2.5 kilos of game meat. The animals are hunted here on the property. I was in the barn one day when they brought in several warthogs and an Oryx to butcher for the workers.  This is to keep them from poaching and it is part of their pay.

The captive cheetahs, most of which cannot be released, are all kept around the main site which is also where most of the staff and volunteers live. Only 5 cheetahs are in an area that can be seen by the public. The others are in 4 or 5 different enclosures a distance off. There is the area for the old cheetahs, 3 of them being 16 and one who is blind. There is also an area for the cheetahs that might be able to be released at some point. They see very few people. The problem with releasing cheetahs is not the cheetah, it is having a place for them. Imagine trying to rehab a wolf and then finding a place for it in eastern Oregon. Like wolves, cheetahs are thought of as livestock predators and many people have no love in their hearts for them. We have 33 cheetahs on site.

The cheetahs are feed horse and donkey meat. Farmers throughout Namibia sell or donate their old animals. These are held on site, butchered when needed, cut up and big chunks feed once each day. I think they go through around 5 donkeys a week. The cheetahs here at the center know when it is feeding time and start coming in from the far reaches of their enclosures. There are two young girls who are a pair and a sibling group of one male and two females. These are the cheetahs the tourists see. They can pay extra to be allowed in the enclosure when the cheetahs are being run.  There is a system based on the Greyhound dog racing system that is used to get these cheetahs exercise. They are the only ones run like this. I was in with the cheetahs and that is where I got my first good pictures of them. Pretty exciting actually since they come within 2 meters of where you are standing. The others are run in their much bigger enclosures. Those cheetahs follow the truck as it races around the area. Then the truck stops, they get a treat (liver bits) and off it goes again. Treats are thrown out the window. I got to do this one day. At the end of the runs the cheetahs get their big chunks of meat.

Most of the staff and volunteers live down the road a bit from the Visitors’ Center. It is maybe an 8 minute walk. We have a dining area, 4 rondovals like mine, a dorm with 6 double rooms and a wash room, 4 double duplexes and another rondoval.  These are scattered far enough apart that it does not feel crowded. My rondoval looks out onto a termite mound, an open field and some trees across the field. I have seen lots of birds and warthogs at my door. Someone saw a jackal in the field yesterday. A yellow billed hornbill, Africa’s version of a toucan, is nesting near the dining hall in a nest box. The female gets mudded into the box by the male with just a small little opening big enough for the male to poke food through. She is in the box sitting on eggs. It will be quite exciting when the eggs hatch. The male comes and goes all day long.

Sunrises and sunsets here are astounding. I got the most amazing photo of a giraffe with the sunset behind him. This was one night when I went for a drive with two of the staff. We went into the “reserve” area.  It is 15,000 hectares. The animals are free to come and go but it is a protected area which hopefully means little or no poaching. That night we saw several Oryx, steenbok, duiker, two pairs of ostriches running, black backed jackals and most exciting of all an aardwolf. Aardwolves are thought to be the smallest hyena although there is some discussion about that. They are insectivores eating primarily termites. They can eat 250,000 a night.

The ants are bad, the food is not great, the wildlife is unbelievable and the work will be interesting. I have gotten new lifer birds every day.  It is green because the rains have started. 
So this is life in Africa.