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