BirdLife Botswana Monitoring Week

This week is the Novermber count for BirdLife Botswana's Population Monitoring Programme, which we take part in four times a year with both the general bird count and the wetland bird count. More pics to follow in the next week. See link if interested in finding out more about Birdlife Botswana.

A pair of Bennett's Woodpeckers.

One Fat Cat!

We found four very fat lions with a zebra stashed deep in the bushes nearby, to hide it from vultures. This lioness, Stompy, named apptly for her stumpy tail, actually has an amazing story. Her back legs are deformed and from seeing her walk I assume that running is not an easy task for her either. She is not a young lioness and has obviously been carried by her pride for a number of years which shows just how strong pride bonds are, especially between the females. Yet she continues to live a normal lion life and from the photo you can see its a cushy one at that.

Atmospheric Electrostatic Discharges

The evening started with a few lashes of innocent lightning, building up to a storm like I have never seen before. It set the bush on fire around our camp and putting us and Dog Camp (a few kms away) at high risk of loosing everything. We were over joyed and relieved when the storm graced us with rain that lasted hours and put out the fire.

Pants on Fire

Aerial photo of the fire - Photo by Orty Bourquin

There is something about witnessing a beautiful scene that makes you feel like you should be able to take a picture of it and treasure it always. They say a picture tells a thousand words, but sometimes a thousand words are just not enough. Moments like this evening, when Chellak, one of the male leopards in the area, decided to amble into camp and take a long and satisfying drink from the pool. While leaning on my car watching him, amazed that I had previously imagined this scene in my head, one of those long, incredibly bright shooting stars went whizzing across the sky. After having the worst day it was definitely a sight for tired and weary eyes!

Chellak by the pool - Photo by Orty Bourquin

Its moments like this that I bring to my head often in the coming week, reminding myself why I am here. You see while many of you know that I live in paradise, not all of you understand that paradise comes with its costs. Living in the bush is not for sissy’s and can be tough. Fighting fires, as we have been doing recently is no joke. When you wake up in the middle of the night with smoke invading your senses, the first thought through my brain was certainly NOT “aaaahhhhh paradise”. October, or “Suicide Month” as it is fondly known, is not only the month of unbearable heat, the onslaught of insects and all things crawly but also the month of fires. Grass and dead trees, pushed over and spread around by elephants are ready to burst into flame without so much as a warthog fart or impala sneeze. So once one starts it’s very difficult to stop or put it out. What further aggravates the problem is elephant dung. Yes, elephant dung. Normally who would think of such things when there is a fire threatening your livelihood? But what most of you don’t know is that elephant dung burns for hours and can never be put out…or so it seems after endless stomping, spraying of water and beating with sticks or anything you can find. The little embers smirk up at you, knowing full well that a whole lot more effort is needed to stomp them out of existence and looking around at all the piles of elephant dung is no encouragement.

One of the brave fire-fighters - Photo by Orty Bourquin

Thankfully, there have only been a few fires that have caused worry lines and being able to fly and see the fire from the air has helped us immensely. And by stress I mean blisters, sore backs, cuts, flat tyres, sleep depraved nights and occasional panic. We also know now that we not only have to watch out for normal fires but fires started by lightning. This lesson was learnt after a dead tree was set on fire during an impressive thunder storm a few days ago. We have bets on how long the tree will smolder for, for as try as we might we have not been able to put it out despite half of it collapsing. Fires causes you to look with new eyes on dry grass, dead trees, elephant dung and farting warthogs.