MAKULU MAKETE BUSH DIARY

FEBRUARY 2005

SEASONS

This year's rainy season continues to disappoint us. Just as we were starting to notice the leaves of the bluethorn trees wilting and turning yellow, a few millimetres of rain was enough to revive them. New shoots of grass which manage to spring up are immediately mowed down by families of hungry warthogs and other grazers. In contrast, the cheetah boma, which has been closed to all other animals for a couple of months, is carpeted with long, healthy grass. Impalas and waterbuck walk past, looking in enviously. It will soon become necessary to supplement the grazers' feed with lucerne hay, grown on the reserve for the purpose. During February the Glen Alpine dam, upstream on the Mogalakwena River, released a large pulse of water which has filled the dams and weirs along the course of the river, drawing much of the wildlife to those areas. The sound of water flowing over the dam wall was welcome, even if short-lived. We do not expect much more rain until November. It will be a hard, dry winter for our wildlife and once again, we will have to take the pressure off the veld by removing some members of the over-prolific grazing species, to be relocated to other reserves where feed is more plentiful. This exercise will be carried out by a professional game capture company, using a helicopter to round up the animals.

CHEETAH PROJECT

Dottie, the first cheetah in our wild cheetah rehabilitation project, is settling in well since her release into the one-hectare boma at the beginning of the month. She spends much of her day in the shade of a tree, lying on a disused anthill, surveying her new domain and taking particular interest in the unwary impalas passing by. Her camouflage is so effective that sometimes it is necessary to use the radio telemetry equipment to locate Dottie inside the boma. The hand-held antenna is waved in various directions until it homes in on the "beeping" from Dottie's collar. With her laptop on a folding table under a thorn tree, our ecologist, Rox, has set up an "office" in the boma, where she sits for hours every day, getting Dottie used to the non-threatening presence of human beings. Feeding time is a different matter. Dottie is always ready for her rations of impala meat, delivered every second day. She demonstrates her wild side by charging at the vehicle and snarling impatiently until the meat is dropped on the ground for her. After her protracted stay at De Wildt Wildlife Trust, she must now get used to having to work hard for her meat. Her jaw muscles will be gradually strengthened as she chews through the skin and sinews of her new diet of whole impala leg. This will enable her to handle her own prey, once she is released to once again hunt for herself.

Shortly after Dottie's arrival, we were privileged to have a visit from Ann van Dyk, Founder of the De Wildt Cheetah and Wildlife Trust, and Vanessa Bouwer, Assistant Director of the Trust. They were pleased to see the cheetah in her new home, having followed her story since her capture on a farm in the Southern Kalahari region. Ann was enthusiastic about Makulu Makete's serious approach to our cheetah project, and gave us hope that our next cheetah would not be long in coming.

We all delight in accompanying Rox into the boma to admire the cheetah's feline beauty. Dottie is quite dark, with a distinctive pattern of four rows of large spots down her back. Being so close to a wild cheetah is an indescribable thrill, which we are looking forward to sharing with our guests. Peter has taken some wonderful photos of Dottie, his pride and joy, which are now posted on our website, www.makulumakete.com.

PREDATOR PROJECT

While they are not as spectacularly beautiful as our cheetah, the brown hyenas are nonetheless extremely interesting animals. They have been called the "connoisseur's hyena", compared with the better-known and more common spotted hyena. Their unmistakable, sloping and skulking shapes can be seen most evenings around our baiting site, just 100 metres from Peter and Jane's house. We continue to put out baits to accustom the hyenas to the vehicle and human activity so that eventually we will be able to tranquillise them with a dart gun, collar them and monitor their behaviour using the same telemetry equipment that we are using for the cheetah. One night recently, Jane and Peter heard an unearthly screaming and screeching, as if something was being murdered right outside their house. Surely only a person in their death throes could produce such a blood-curdling noise. Looking through the kitchen door with the torch, they could see eyes reflected in the light and hear scuffling, under the bushes near the bait. We have read about brown hyenas “neck biting”. The dominant animal grabs the lesser hyena by the neck and shakes and bites it, sometimes for hours. This ritual doesn’t usually result in death, and we believe this is what was going on outside the house. The hyenas all seem to have scars on their necks under the sparse, long hair.

Rox and Jane think they have found the hyenas' den - a complex of well-used tunnels dug into a bank near the river, and surrounded by the old bones and skulls of waterbuck and warthogs. Whenever the hyenas are seen during daylight, they seem to be heading in the direction of the den. Could we be lucky enough to have hyena cubs? So far we haven't seen any evidence of young, but by collaring and following one of the hyenas, we hope to find out more about the habits of these reclusive animals.

GAME VIEWING

All this talk of predators does not mean we have forgotten the bulk of our wildlife. Bushbuck are plentiful along the river and we often see mother and baby combinations delicately nibbling at the greenery along the banks. The impala, with well-grown young which were born in November, seem to be everywhere. A group of five big waterbuck bulls can be seen daily, calmly grazing close to human activity. Their magnificent inward-curving horns, and the black and white "target" circle on their rumps are the signature characteristics of this beautiful antelope. Zebras and gemsbok (oryx) all look fat and healthy, despite the lack of rain, and we regularly come across our oldest and most impressive bull giraffe, George, who seems to be leading the solitary life, away from his companions.

BIRDING

The Soutpansberg-Limpopo Birding Route Mega Birding Tour, spent two nights at our Madia Pala camp during their 10 day tour of the area. The final count for the tour was 378 species which, during a poor wet season, is pretty impressive. The tour added several new species to the Makulu Makete Bird List, including olivetree warbler (Hippolais olivetorum), dusky lark (Pinarocorys nigricans) and harlequin quail (Coturnix delegorguei).

In one morning along the river, Jane and Rox spotted five species of kingfisher - Woodland, Grey-headed, Pied, Giant and African Pygmy. The other two kingfisher species to be found at Makulu Makete are Brown-hooded and Malachite. All the kingfishers have personalities as individual and bright as their plumage. They are charming birds and we will be especially sad when the Woodland kingfishers depart for winter. Their cheeky antics and glorious call are synonymous with the bushveld summer.

LODGE

One of our most recent guests, Tony from the UK, who joined our Birding Skills course in November, came back for a brief visit during the month to meet Dottie. Tony is a regular visitor to Africa. For us, it is always a great pleasure when our guests return to stay with us again. We like to keep in touch with the friends we have made from all over the world and it is very satisfying when, like Tony, they take an active interest in what we are doing at Makulu Makete.

Another second-time visitor during the month was Frank Black, journalist and photographer cum artist, who wanted to photograph our biggest baobab at night for a magazine article he is writing called "A day in the life of a tree". Frank "painted" the giant tree with a spotlight, catching the result on his camera using time exposure. The 15 minute walk to the tree follows a rough path through the bush, and Jane was not at all confident that she would find her way back with Frank and his American niece, Sierra, in the dark, so she cheated and dropped tiny pieces of silver Christmas tinsel along the path which glinted in the torchlight. A new take on the old story of Hansel and Gretel?

Mishaps with vehicles are always the subject of much teasing by the staff at Makulu Makete. February was a bumper (no pun intended) month for such opportunities. Rox parked her bakkie (pick-up) in a hole in the cheetah boma and had to be pulled out. Jane backed into the tap outside her house, created a flood and cut off the water supply. Shawn tried to drive through the drift in the river too soon after the water had subsided and got bogged. Rox, Jane and Peter all turned up to enjoy the spectacle of Shawn being towed out by the Land Cruiser. We have discovered that it is not wise to laugh too loudly at other's misfortunes, because you are likely to suffer the same indignity yourself sooner than you think.