hiking

Curious night visitor

Most camps in Zimbabwe are unfenced or, if fenced, the wires are missing, allowing most animals to go through.

Usually, while camping, we place a camera trap to know what goes around camp after sunset. I have posted some of the results earlier (https://bushsnob.com/2022/09/24/night-visitors/ and https://bushsnob.com/2017/10/25/night-visitor/).

We try to place the camera pointing at a used wildlife path that nocturnal animals are likely to use, usually on the way to the water.

Probably because they smell different, camera traps attract attention from some of the passing animals as it happened in this occasion.

We were camping at the Masuma dam picnic site, one of our favourite places in the Hwange National Park where a new fence had just been placed in an effort to separate campers from large mammals. So, as usual, before midnight, we retired to bed after placing our camera pointing at a path that followed the fence towards the dam. “That should be a good spot.” I remember commenting with my son. It was…

In the early hours of the morning, apart from the usual hyena calls, a lion started to roar nearby, a futile effort to compete with the louder noise the elephants were making at the water edge closer to the camp.

The following morning we went to collect the camera and it was not there! We searched for it until we found it a few metres away from its original place. The strap had been chewed and the protective carcass was cracked! We collected the pieces and, anxious to look at its memory card, we returned to camp.

It took a bit of study to understand what had taken place. (The first 4 pictures are stills from the short videos taken by the camera).

First sign. Dust that indicates that an animal walks past.

The camera being moved.

Camera still in movement and the culprit appears briefly.

The camera is dropped on the floor and lies pointing towards the fence.

Although the camera was on the ground by now, the unmistakingly shape of a lion flank can be seen. The animal moves from top to bottom.

Finally, we recovered the camera. Luckily, we managed to recover the memory card and reconstruct the events that had taken place.

We have camped in this same spot for several years without nocturnal incident showing once again that tents are safe.

Wet creatures’ day

Before I describe the events of the title, I wish to explain why I have been absent from the blog. Luckily, it was not a health issue but a literary one.

A few years back, I hatched the idea of writing a historical fiction novel, without realizing what kind of work this implied. In short, the result was that all my spare time was taken by the writing as I needed to get fully immersed in the work to be able to make sense of it! Fortunately, although is not yet completed, the novel is suffciently advanced by now and, while the editor works on the final touches, I have some spare time to get back to my neglected blog. (If I manage to publish the novel I will let you know!)

So, here we go.

As every year at this time, we are spending time in Salta at our small “wildlife” farm. We have had sustained rain for the last week and yesterday there was a break and we went out to explore the surroundings and to assess any damage the rain may have caused to our entrance road,. We also needed to see if the small stream that usually looks harmless but gets quite lively with the rains, had damaged our fording place.

The water was still running quite fast but our road had suffered no damage. While checking it, we came across a sight we do not see very often.

Rococo

The toad was there for a purpose, probably to get some insects. As soon as we looked another way, it quickly disappeared.

After this distraction, we decided to check our water well as, when there is a lot of rain, the water surges up submerging the pump and ruining it.

Luckily, the pump was still way above the water but, we found another unexpected event. A small snake, probably a brown “culebra” (Paraphimophis rustica) had fallen in the water and it was swimming around without much chance of claimbing the vertical and smooth wall.

A rescue operation was organized.

After a tricky “fishing” exercise, the snake was finally retrieved and released.