Go Springboks!! I am a Rugby fan now and am slowly grasping the positions, terminology, and strategy of play. The commentators are sometimes confusing because every now and again they speak in Afrikaans or so quickly that I can't catch what is said through the accents. Banana fritters and whiskey are my new choice of game watching pleasures. We have also somewhat kept up with the World Cup. Germany plays U.S. soon, mom and dad!
I learned a lot of new birds this week from a teenage student who stayed here for a few days. In just a few days he listed 74 species, confirming some questioned ones on the Reserve's list. I really liked the magnificent Purple Crested Lourie and the chatty gathering of Redbilled Woodhoopoe.
I have a large python skeleton that I am cleaning and piecing together for MNR to have for education. I love anatomy, but have forgotten so much from those long hours in the Herp lab. Internet is limited so I cannot browse for a good python skull with bone i.d. It's a really fun puzzle. We also answered a call for a rock python captured, and brought her back to the reserve for release. She has some nasty injuries, and has been recovering along the vineyard fenceline the past few days. I worry about her on cold nights, when she is suppose to be aestivating in a deep hole. In this natural battle, I hope she wins.
Andy did a tracking how-to with Tobias and I. Off the bat he followed a trail that led to a porcupine den at the cliff base. They are funny little bone hoarders, gnawing on skeletons for the Calcium needed for their quills- which are found everywhere. We set up the camera trap overnight and were rewarded with a porcupine fashion show.
For the big cats I've seen leopard prints by the waterfall, fresh caracal scat with a duiker hoove in it, and lots of blackfooted cat prints. Those prints are itty bitty, and these cats are the wild descendents of the ones the Egyptians eventually domesticated into our present day kitties. Dawwwww. I've seen most of the mammals, if at least on the camera we set up. But I haven't seen the cats, a civet, genet, aardwolf or bushbaby. All nocturnal and elusive.
Saturday was a fairly packed morning of adventure. A while ago a human skull was found wedged in a horizontal crack near the base of one of the far of cliffs. Andy and I hiked to take a look. Yep. It's a human skull. And some other human bones. Someone was buried between two rocks, and some of the remains washed into the horizontal crack via an opening. It's atypical apparently for any of the known tribes dating back thousands of years in the area. And no signs of artifacts, which are usually left in/at the burial site. So....the wandering mind drifts towards murder. There was also a cat skull placed in another adjacent crack....I have made up several outrageous theories about the two being linked. Zebra calls were heard the entire day through.
We found relief from sun and all the cattle patties on our return by descending in the dried, jungly river gulley. Andy did trail clearance ahead while I stayed back to drool over tiny tree orchids and bonsai plants growing out of the dolorite edges. It was a most beautiful and quiet gulley. As we popped out and back onto a main trail, Louries and zebra were calling out around us.
Britt- the no bake cookies were a major tasty success, mainly between Tobias and I. Thanks for finding me a recipe!
I learned a lot of new birds this week from a teenage student who stayed here for a few days. In just a few days he listed 74 species, confirming some questioned ones on the Reserve's list. I really liked the magnificent Purple Crested Lourie and the chatty gathering of Redbilled Woodhoopoe.
I have a large python skeleton that I am cleaning and piecing together for MNR to have for education. I love anatomy, but have forgotten so much from those long hours in the Herp lab. Internet is limited so I cannot browse for a good python skull with bone i.d. It's a really fun puzzle. We also answered a call for a rock python captured, and brought her back to the reserve for release. She has some nasty injuries, and has been recovering along the vineyard fenceline the past few days. I worry about her on cold nights, when she is suppose to be aestivating in a deep hole. In this natural battle, I hope she wins.
Andy did a tracking how-to with Tobias and I. Off the bat he followed a trail that led to a porcupine den at the cliff base. They are funny little bone hoarders, gnawing on skeletons for the Calcium needed for their quills- which are found everywhere. We set up the camera trap overnight and were rewarded with a porcupine fashion show.
For the big cats I've seen leopard prints by the waterfall, fresh caracal scat with a duiker hoove in it, and lots of blackfooted cat prints. Those prints are itty bitty, and these cats are the wild descendents of the ones the Egyptians eventually domesticated into our present day kitties. Dawwwww. I've seen most of the mammals, if at least on the camera we set up. But I haven't seen the cats, a civet, genet, aardwolf or bushbaby. All nocturnal and elusive.
Saturday was a fairly packed morning of adventure. A while ago a human skull was found wedged in a horizontal crack near the base of one of the far of cliffs. Andy and I hiked to take a look. Yep. It's a human skull. And some other human bones. Someone was buried between two rocks, and some of the remains washed into the horizontal crack via an opening. It's atypical apparently for any of the known tribes dating back thousands of years in the area. And no signs of artifacts, which are usually left in/at the burial site. So....the wandering mind drifts towards murder. There was also a cat skull placed in another adjacent crack....I have made up several outrageous theories about the two being linked. Zebra calls were heard the entire day through.
We found relief from sun and all the cattle patties on our return by descending in the dried, jungly river gulley. Andy did trail clearance ahead while I stayed back to drool over tiny tree orchids and bonsai plants growing out of the dolorite edges. It was a most beautiful and quiet gulley. As we popped out and back onto a main trail, Louries and zebra were calling out around us.
Britt- the no bake cookies were a major tasty success, mainly between Tobias and I. Thanks for finding me a recipe!
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