And so another year rolls in, and it seems we move from strength to strength! We hope you all had a great party on New Year’s Eve, but now we are already back in the thick of things, and training up our newest recruits! Ryan (Canadian), Jamie (English), Vlam, Tom (English), Riette, Barries, Christo, Luan, Hansie (Tanzanian), Munnik and  Ross and also the short course crew with the Natural History Unit which includes Veronica, George (English), Ally (English), Sebastian (Gabonese/French) Gerhard and Ben! Well, full we are, so no time to play around! This month there will be about 18 separate lectures, (excluding the first aid and practical sessions), so a huge amount of info to absorb! But all work and no play would make Ryan a grumpy boy, so we have had lots of other fun activities too! Where we find the time I don’t know, but read on to see what else we got up to!

Our six month crew and the film Academy gang!

Our students have had a mind blowing first month, with many Guest Lecturers, activities, lessons, trips and night activities as well as walks and the usual drives, Andrews first aid course went really well, with Riette managing to get 100% for the written test. Very well done!!!

Our trip to the Makapans Caves went really well, as it was linked to a visit by a bat interest group, so the students got to see some of these small mammals up close and personal, as well as learn about bat detecting equipment and nets.

Alida with her grin on, and Hansie, looking intently into the cave! It is virtually pitch dark in the caves, and the torches in hand or on the helmet are all that allow the camera to find focus, so you often catch the guys with goofy looking expressions on their faces!

Chats and discussions outside the caves, as well as loads of info from Stan! Stan usually explains the history of the siege of Makapans cave to the students at this point, just outside the cave entrance where the Boer Leader Pieter Potgieter died. More information about this cave can be obtained from Lee Gutteridge’s South African Bushveld field guide.

A group photo is the order of the day when we exit the caves, but this rear view may be pushing it a little bit! Muddy bums are standard issue when caving in the summer, but the guys still took a plunge in the Fig Tree Cave, in the underground lake.

Birdlife this January has been amazing, with mad sightings all round. Here are some of the best images of the months birding taken by Lee.

The Squacco heron from Squacco dam is back, as well as plenty of Black shouldered kites and Woodland kingfishers, with one seen here plunge bathing.

A female African comb duck stretches her wings, a Roufous naped lark leaps off a tree branch and a Southern masked weaver drops from his partially completed nest.

A brisk walk into the mountains is always fun too, so we took the gang up to pottery cave, and into the caves at White Snake River. It was a great experience, and the fear of heights was put to the test on several occasions. A fine collection of scratches, bruises and twists was put together too! The view of Hanglipberg through the rock crevice is always a pretty sight, and it feels so isolated and alone up there that you can’t help but feel like an explorer.

The old pots, climbing in a cave and the beautiful view!

No less awesome has been the mammal sightings this month. The game is playing along, with the lions in camp for the whole first half of the month. A bit dodgy by night when you are walking around on the walkways but great when they start roaring while you are snuggled into bed! Nothing sounds more African than a lion roaring 30 metres from your room! Anyway, they have been up to the usual, with one great encounter where they tried to catch one of our sub-adult rhinos!

This is a part of a sequence of images where the pride surrounded two young rhinos, and had a good go at bringing them down, but the rhinos were not taking any of it. They stood rump to rump and charged repeatedly, making the lionesses scatter in all directions!

Other sightings included this Brown hyaena, which was enjoyed by Lee and his Family, and the Elephants, who have been more than visible in the reserve too. The mammals on the reserve have done their part, and the students are enjoying their bush time immensely, even though they have been hard at work in the lecture room preparing for FGASA level 1.

Zebra, Cheetah, Woodland dormouse and Giraffe were all on the list for the month!

We also had a special guest visitor or two during the month, with well known Zambian Birders, Derek and Sarah Solomon coming to visit for a few days. They brought a whole load of specialised equipment with them to channel and record the sounds of the bush, and were lucky enough to see a near miss by the lions, who tried to catch a wildebeest!

Derek and Sarah, having fun on a hot day, and Derek with his sound equipment!

Another visitor was Dr. Marieka Gryzenhout, a mycologist by profession (Fungus expert), who has been working as a Post-Doctorate fellow at the University of Pretoria, with a group of her own students. She made the time to come and visit the school, presenting a lecture on Mushrooms for the students, and then lead a short walk for Lee the next day while the students went to Makapans caves. It was fascinating, and below are images of one or two of the remarkable fungi they saw on a short walk around the camp with their most likely identities!

Left: Possible Crepidotus mollis Middle: Stereum hirsutum Right: Dacryopinax spathularia

Left: Auricularia sp Right: Schizophyllum sp             

Frogs also featured in our course, after the amphibian section of the FGASA level 1 syllabus, so we headed out to Mangwa pan and Squacco dam to see if we could find some interesting species, but due to the cool evening we only managed three species! This is much less than usual, and we will try again on a warmer evening soon.

On the way there and actually searching for the amphibians! Lots of standing still, followed by listening to calls and trying to locate the frogs by sound takes place, although the snoring puddle frogs were not calling at all!

The three species we found were the Bubbling kassina (Left), a plain, unstriped form of the Snoring puddle frog (Centre) and a Common river frog (Right).

We also found an interesting Katydid, busy ecdysing, and while we watched it was slowly drying and hardening its newly exposed exoskeleton and wings, as it hung from the old undersized one. Quite amazing to see. Chef Pieter giggled at us for going out and looking for frogs, I think he is under the impression that we are all a little crazy, and, perhaps, he is right!

Jens also came in to do some snake handling for us as usual, managing to show the students some beautiful species, such as a Boomslang and a Snouted cobra. Riette also managed to get up close and personal with a Flap necked chameleon. The guys have been looking after the reptiles in the snake room, and Tom has had several encounters with the Anaconda’s there, as has Barries, but they are really getting to know the reptiles well, and are looking forward to the next feeding session!

The guys also squeezed in a short lion capture session with our local vet and Arrie from the game breeding centre. One of the white lionesses had an injury which was bothering her so Arrie opted to err on the side of caution and call in a vet to see what was wrong. It turns out that the lioness had been bitten by one of her mates, and it was a good thing that the vet came in as it was a severe wound which needed anti-biotic treatments and cleaning.

We also took a big walk into the mountains and slept out to see the sunrise over the escarpment. This was a good experience for the guys, and it was well received all around. It was a great learning experience, but so much happened it will need its own newsletter! See articles for the January big walk newsletter for more on this experience! Everything from swimming chameleons to a leopard imitating baboon! Here are two pics from the walk of an elaborate camp and an amazing sunrise.

Well until next time, keep the home fires burning,

Lee and the ENGTS team