Back in Africa

The Waterberg Plateau

You know you are in Africa when you wake up at the airport lodge on the edge of a capital city and stepping out from your room you come face to face with a bird that towers above you. Ostrich aside the dry heat of the Kalahari leaves you in no doubt you are in Africa.

I am in Namibia where I will be for the next two months. I am working on a cattle farm in the Waterberg plateau that is part of a greater nature conservancy. I have already got my camera-traps out, hopefully snapping away as I write. The idea is to look at how camera-trap spacing affects the chances of recording smaller mammals. There are plenty of those here, bat-eared fox, jackal, caracal, mongoose, pangolin, hare and aardwolf to name but a few.

The great thing about using camera-traps is that now they are up I have some weeks to wait before moving them so I have plenty of time to immerse myself in the African bush. I have already clocked up over 100 bird species in less than a week, its taking a while to get my ear back in gear, I keep hearing tantalisingly familiar calls but can’t quite remember who they belong to. It is the start of the rainy season and subsequently the breeding season so there is an awful lot of activity. The binoculars are back living on my shoulder and in use every few minutes.

The bush here consists of a lot of small bushes and trees interspersed with small open grass patches. Plenty of sickle bush, raisin bush and buffalo thorn. I forgot how hard it is to walk through, constantly getting hooked up on vicious thorns that grab at you as you pass.

The best bit of the trip is living in a tent, ok afternoon naps are impossible in the heat but you get to wake up early to the birds calling. The francolins and spurfowl are calling before the sun even rises. There are white browed sparrow weavers building nests in a tree near the tent that have the loveliest melodies. Then there is the night shift. It is pretty hard to fall asleep sometimes when the noises just make you want to get up and investigate. So far I have come face to face with a honey badger sniffing around our fire and several genets. The jackal’s shrill call is omnipresent but the one I listen out for is the rasping call of the leopard. I haven’t been disappointed, every other night that sound rumbles through me.

My internet connection is not so great but I should still be making regular posts for Snapshot Serengeti and there are still plenty of images to classify. We would like to run season 11 in the New Year if we can get season 10 completed. I may even have the odd camera-trap image from my Namibia project to share. Watch this space.