MAKULU
MAKETE BUSH DIARY
JUNE
2008
SEASONS
Clear winter skies mean cold, starry nights and sunny, warm days. So far this year, our coldest night has been a frigid 3 degrees Celsius (about 37 degrees Fahrenheit), but the daytime high can get up to 27 degrees C (about 80 degrees F). When Jane goes birding in the early morning on the quad bike, she has to rug up in several layers of sweaters, jackets and vests, with gloves and a beanie, and sunglasses to stop her eyes watering in the cold. With so much thick padding, wielding her binoculars becomes difficult. By 9.30 a.m. it is warm enough to peel off the outside layers and bask in the sun. The birds are harder to identify these cold mornings. Fluffed up to keep warm, their plumage looks quite different. A small herd of female kudus with their calves has moved into the bush around the lodge, where there are more leaves on the trees than in the dry bush because of the run-off when the lawns are watered. These elegant and gentle antelopes stand stock-still as we walk past, just a couple of metres away. Their dun-coloured coats and vertical white stripes provide perfect camouflage. Their huge ears, always alert for danger, are lined with soft pink and their big, soft eyes follow us carefully. A white line between their eyes and a thick white line above their top lip, like cappuccino foam, add extra character to their lovely faces as they browse close by.
CHEETAH PROJECT
There has been a sad and unexpected development in our “rewilding” project. After Dr. Peter Caldwell performed gastroscopies last month on the two male cheetahs, Scruff and Bones, who were scheduled for release on 25 June, they were both pronounced healthy and in excellent condition. Both cheetahs were relaxed and eating well and showing interest in the animals that walked past their boma (enclosure), which boded well for prospective hunting skills. On the morning of 11 June, only two weeks before their release, we were therefore shocked to find Scruff dead in the boma, with no obvious cause. Both cheetahs had been seen the day before, acting normally. A post-mortem examination on Scruff’s body was inconclusive. Bennie, who is doing her Master’s thesis on the rewilding project, Narinda, our conservator, and the team from the De Wildt Cheetah and Wildlife Centre were at a loss. After consultation with all parties concerned, it was decided to release Bones on his own and not try to bond him with another male cheetah at this stage. So Bones was released on schedule just last week.
Perhaps because he was used to having his buddy, Scruff, with him all the time, Bones was nervous all by himself. In the first couple of days he charged Narinda both in her bakkie (pick-up) and on foot, and chased our fencing man, Frans, on his motorbike. Narinda immediately started intensive work with Bones, to get him more settled and less anxious about people and vehicles. This seems to have been successful. Narinda took Jane, a relative stranger to Bones, into the bush with her to test Bones’ reaction. Jane was armed with a powerful water pistol in case of trouble, but Bones was completely relaxed and showed no signs of anxiety or aggression. Jane, the “bait” in the exercise, was especially pleased about this. We were concerned that five days after his release Bones had probably not found any of the waterholes and would be thirsty. He had explored quite a wide range, up to 10 km from the lodge but he had come back to hang around outside his locked boma, where he knew there was water. He had not discovered the lodge waterhole, just a hundred metres away. Narinda managed to get Bones to follow her bakkie to the waterhole, where at last he crouched down for a long, long drink of water. Later that day, Bones surprised us all by making his very first kill right opposite the boma – a fully-grown impala ram, equipped with horns capable of inflicting injury on a novice cheetah. Well done Bonesy!
Meanwhile,
BIRDING
A rare African finfoot was sighted twice in
the last two months – just days apart – at the drift. Narinda disturbed the bird, or birds, as she
drove across the remnants of the
Jane is continuing her SABAP bird atlassing project. It is rewarding to look at the SABAP species map on their website and see a red spot for a particular species, recorded by Jane, far from any others. It is easy to see Jane’s sightings on the map because there are no other birders in the surrounding areas. Jane feels as if she is a bit of a pioneer.
THE VELD (BUSH)
We have another new, baby giraffe. It’s a female, which was spotted with its mother who is a very dark giraffe, and a dark male giraffe. It’s so tiny that its ears barely reach the top of its mother’s tail and its umbilical cord is still visible, though dried up. It’s hard to imagine anything cuter than a baby giraffe.
In January we reported the purchase of a
new tractor, fitted with fire fighting equipment, in preparation for the
forthcoming dry season. This month a
small fire broke out in the bush near our “main” gate and the new tractor was
put to the test. The high-powered hoses
and sprays on the tractor were instrumental in putting out the fire quickly and
efficiently, with hand-held beaters as back-ups. A 750 litre water tank, permanently installed
on the back of Narinda’s bakkie, was used to refill the tank of the tractor
during the fire-fighting operation. Our
staff handled the situation with professionalism and the fire was soon under
control.
THE BAOBABS
There are more than 200 baobab trees on MM,
and most of our guests have walked our baobab trail – a six kilometre marked
trail around the base of Kremetartkop, linking thirty of the biggest baobabs on
the reserve. The “piece de resistance”
is our prosaically named “Big Baobab”, which stands alone about 800 metres from
the nearest vehicle track. At 21 metres
in circumference, it is one of the biggest baobabs in