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.
Gwango Heritage Resort, just outside Hwange National Park.
While walking around the place we came to this scene that reminded me of some very large leeches I saw in swampy areas of Western Ethiopia that attached inside the mouth of cattle.
Clearly the elephants were having a drink from the pool to dilute the muddy water they got from the waterhole!
The following sequence of the encounter of two youngsters, a crocodile and a waterbuck, was captured by Julio A. de Castro and I believe that it does not need any explanation to see the funny side!
Again, timing is critical and both a fast photographer and a good camera can produce great sequences like this one!
I have somehow neglected writing posts as I have resumed writing a novel I had shelved years back. This activity has taken more time than I thought and I am now determined to finish it to resume other writing projects, including the blog.
Despite the above, we still travel to the bush and, a few days back we had the visit of friends and relatives with whom we travelled to our favourite spot in Zimbabwe, Masuma dam in Hwange National Park, where what we saw brought me back to the blog.
It is rather amazing how cold it can get at night in Hwange. We had already experienced this earlier and came prepared. However, I still needed to put on my polar jacket to be able to gain some warmth. In any case, we survived.
The night before our visitors had agreed on an early game drive and I heard them departing the camp at about 06:00hs. I like to get up early so by 06:30hs I was at the viewing platform where I met the two ladies in charge of the camp, doing the daily cleaning before other toursits arrive. The dam was quiet and the sun was starting to warm things up so, seeing the prevailing peace, I decided to go back to the camp (about 50 metres towards the back) to make myself a cup of coffee.
I had just put the water to boil when one of the ladies came running to tell me that “the painted dogs have chased an impala into the dam and a crocodile ate it!”. Cursing my coffee idea and after shouting “wild dogs” to my frozen wife (she came in a flash, happy to leave the cold tent!), I run back to the dam. As expected, I could not see anything apart from the usual pod of about twenty hippos that were still where I had seen them earlier.
It was an upset Bushsnob that my wife found when she appeared. “I cannot believe what I missed” I said, “for a cup of coffee!”. Sensing the mood, she went out of the viewing platform to have a better look as we could still hear the dog calls coming from the nearby hill at the back of the camp!
Then, the amazing thing happened. As if a second take was needed by some nature director, galloping sounds came from the hill behind the camp and another female impala jumped into the dam again and started to swim away from the dogs. I managed to get the camera in video mode and register the last seconds of the impala’s life as well as the amazing sight that it was calm again a few seconds after the event! (please note that it shows a scene that some may find too strong!).
After recording the impala´s demise, I focussed on the disappointed wild dogs (about eight of them) that had worked hard for a meal and twice lost it to crocodiles. They were watching the water and, after some of them drinking, they departed again to find another prey and we did not see them again.
The above sequence shows the dogs after arriving to the dam, contemplating their prey disappearing!
Do I need to add that the early birds that had gone for the game drive and seen the usual herbivores were rather surprised and disappointed when they hear our news on return?
This Christmas we decided to spend it in Zimbabwe, camping at Masuma dam and Robins Camp in Hwange National Park.
Our camp at Masuma.
Already in the rainy season our expectations of a green Hwange were confirmed, a marked change from our usual visits that take place in September, during the dry season. We also knew that the animals would not be so dependent on the permanent water holes and that they would be scattered in more remote and unreachable areas of this very large park. Finally, there was a good chance of having daily showers. Despite these drawbacks, it was a suitable time and place for a family reunion so, we took the challenge.
We prepared well for a wet camping experience adding a large awning to our usual dry season gear and packed our rainproof jackets, just in case. As it happened, the latter precautions were only useful for the first two days when we had a couple of showers as, luckily for us (but not for the park!) the weather continued being dry over us although there were some spectacular rainstorms around us.
We counted twenty-three hippos and about half a dozen crocodiles at the dam as well as a large population of geese (both Egyptian and Spurwing) as well as a few Knob-billed ducks. The few resident Senegal thick-knees were there, busy protecting their nests against the threatening advances of the monitor lizards.
Senegal Thicknee vs. Monitor lizard. Picture by Julio A. de Castro.
Numerous impalas, waterbuck and greater kudu frequently visited the dam, mainly to graze on its now lush green shores as they were drinking in safer places, avoiding the dam´s crocodiles. So, we did not witness any of the crocodile ambushes to drinking herbivores that we had witnessed before (See: https://bushsnob.com/2015/02/22/hippos-from-hell/ and related posts). Below there are pictures of some of the animals we saw:
Riding in comfort. A young baboon on mum´s back. Picture by Julio A. de Castro.
The rare Roan antelope. Picture by Patricia Ruiz Teixidor.
A male lion in good condition walks in front of the car. Picture by Julio A. de Castro.
A rainbow skink sunning itself. Picture by Julio A. de Castro.
Yawning before going grazing. Picture by Julio A. de Castro
Elephant fun. Picture by Patricia Ruiz Teixidor.
Elephants arriving at Masuma dam. Picture by Patricia Ruiz Teixidor.
Masuma dam with resident hippos, crocodiles and Egyptian geese. Picture by Patricia Ruiz Teixidor.
A curious giraffe. Picture by Patricia Ruiz Teixidor.
An elephant bull.
Although the elephants did not come in the we see in September, they still came, particularly during the days when fresh water was pumped into the dam, either they had a way of knowing this by the pump noise or they exhibited an amazing sense of smell! The later is more likely as the pumps are operated by solar energy and they are quiet!
Although we spent many hours at the water edge, we failed to see any predators coming for a drink or a possible kill. We did see a couple of young lions mating near Kapula Camp, and a family of two lioness with four cubs and a male on a buffalo kill, just opposite the Shumba picnic site. We heard them and hyenas almost every night at camp and Mabel heard the unmistakable rasping cough of a leopard while it walked up and down the new (rather weak) fence that now encloses the picnic area.
We had some nocturnal excitement on our first day. After midnight Flori and her boyfriend Giacomo (new at camping in Africa) were rudely awakened by very loud banging noises coming from the ablution area. The following morning a large hole was found in the fence through which an elephant had entered the enclosure, probably in search of clean water. His adventure got interrupted by the appearance of the camp attendant that stopped it from doing more damage. The elephant retreated, not through the entry hole but crashing the gate!
We needed to work hard to find large game but luckily had more luck in the bird department. We were able to watch and photograph a shaft-tailed wydah, a bird that we had not seen for years. We also watched several bee-eaters, rollers, and orioles, among other small birds. We were happy to see several groups of ground hornbills, including one feeding their young at a nest.
Great take of a flying Lilac-breasted roller. Picture by Patricia Ruiz Teixidor.
Carmine bee-eater. Picture by Julio A. de Castro.
Carmine bee-eater and beetle.
Yellow-billed stork. Picture by Patricia Ruiz Teixidor.
Grey Crown crane. Picture by Julio A. de Castro.
Grey Crown cranes. Picture by Julio A. de Castro.
Finally, on Christmas day we had some of a reward for our efforts. Flori, Giacomo and I went to have a look at Little Toms, a small stream near Robins Camp. I did not have much hope to find anything special based on earlier experience. I was wrong! Perhaps two hundred metres before we got there, we caught a glimpse of many elephants in and around it. Although we approached the water very slowly, to our dismay, they started to move back to the bush.
We were disappointed but we remained very still and quiet, waiting. After a few minutes of uncertainty, a few of the larger animals turned and started to come back. Soon we had a couple of hundred back at the water.
As I am not able to do justice to what we witnessed, I present you with two videos that Flori and I took of this truly magical thirty minutes!
When living in Mozambique we drove a couple of times to Swaziland (from 2018 renamed Eswatini) to spend time in its national parks. Among these, we visited the Mlilwane Wildlife Sanctuary where we spent some time walking as there are no dangerous animals, except crocodiles as the following sign warns.
Checking the waters edge, we did find a couple of large crocodiles and another sign that was rather confusing.
Usually wildlife has right of way but to prohibit members of the plant kingdom is baffling! I wish to believe that there is a missing line in the sign that should have said “Removal of …”
After this surprise, I Googled for a definition of the word wildlife and what I found both in the Oxford and Webster online dictionaries was very similar: “Animals, birds, insects, etc.that are wild and live in a natural environment” and “living things and especially mammals, birds, and fishes that are neither human nor domesticated” respectively! So, it seems that plants and trees are not part of wildlife!
But things do not end here! In 2020, Carly Cowell (1) of the Kew Gardens highlighted our inability to recognise plants as wildlife known as “plant blindness” and discussed the consequences of this for the conservation of the plant kingdom!
Interestingly, confusion between members of the animal kingdom also seems to exist as this sign from Hwange National Park shows:
I believe that the intention was to repace the word “mammals” for “animals” to make the message clearer to all visitors of the potential negative impact of such practice!
After our time at Kennedy One and Main Camp, it was time to have some more comfort so we headed for Robins Camp, to the relief of our visitors. It was nice to be back to a very nice place with welcoming staff and to be able to relax without the chores of camping, particulalry cooking and washing-up!
Robins Camp at dusk.
The bats that inhabit the tower were there although we did not spot the dwarf mongose group that we had seen earlier. We had our compensations as we watched other interesting birds in the camp and nearby.
Every morning we found this Pearl-spotted owlet next to our bungalow.
A pair of young Ground hornbills.
The bushsnob having a good look at a Glossy starling.
A male Red-headed weaver reaching its full breeding plumage.
During our earlier visit to Hwange National Park (HNP) after the Covid pandemic (See: https://bushsnob.com/2022/04/03/zimbabwe-post-covid/) we visited a place known as the Salt pan and we were lucky to have a glimpse of a rather shy cheetah family that took off as soon as they saw us. We also “discovered” a salty water dam with several interesting water birds. Grey herons were the dominant species but there were also little grebes and the beautifully brittle stints with their very long and thin pink legs that seem to be unable to support even their very light weights. So slender the legs are that the water is almost still when they wade through.
At the time we also found a small family of hyenas and many vultures perched on the trees surrounding the dam, a sign that kills were frequent there.
So, during our present trip, the first morning at Robins Camp we started early and headed for the Salt pan.
Three of the adult spotted hyenas.
This time we did not see the cheetah but, on our way to the pan, we met with a group of spotted hyenas composed of seven adults and two youngsters, the largest group we have seen so far in HNP and Zimbabwe. As they are one of the favourite animals of our daughter Flori, we stopped to watch.
One of the hyenas was probably carrying a chunk of meat and moving away from us never to be seen again. The rest of the adults continued walking and they tolerated our presence. We have had literally hundreds of daylight encounters with spotted hyenas over the years and they have always been rather unconcerned by our presence, keeping a considerable distance from us, either on foot or inside our car.
Although one of the young hyenas continued walking with the adults, the second either did not hear the adults‘ warning or it was an “infant terrible”, so it stayed behind, rather curious of our presence. At first it stopped to watch us but, not totally satisfied, it decided to come to have a close look at our car and its occupants. It approached us while loudly sniffing the air until it stopped at about one metre from us.
It remained there watching us intensively until, perhaps following some inaudible signal from the rest of the clan, it started to move towards the adults and we thought our close encounter was over but suddenly, it retraced its steps and repeated its exploration of the car a second time. Clearly satisfied with what it found and not showing any sign of concern, it finally moved back to the adults and the group moved off leaving us with the beautiful image of a young and curious animal.
We then continued our journey to the Salt pan area and found some interesting water birds such as grey herons and stilts, among others. There were a couple of dozen grey herons at the dam and we saw at least two pairs nesting there.
During our recent trip to Hwange National Park we spotted this beast. Can you see it?
You will agree with me that it was a rather easy find as the following video taken by Mabel shows:
This rather large flap-necked chameleon (Chamaeleo dilepis) resides in the dining area of the camp. One evening it was perched on the white canvas windbreaker almost as white as the canvas! THe following day it was spotted drinking water from the garden sprinkler! See it in action through another of Mabel´s videos below:
It was a good entertainment to see it almost daily and I hope it goes on living there undisturbed.
After two days camping at Kennedy 1 and, as usual, feeling that we should have stayed longer, we travelled to Main Camp to stay for a couple of nights. Main camp has seen some improvements recently and we stayed at some of the refurbished bungalows that were in good condition and very suitable.
Aiming to impress our visitors, as soon as we could, we headed for the Nyamandlovu pan where we always find elephants. Not this time! Although we stayed for a few hours, the pachyderms did not make an appearance. We then moved to Dom pan and drew another blank. We have not experienced the absence of elephants during all of our earlier visits when both pans have always been visited by sizeable numbers.
We do not know the reason for this but possibly the rains were good this year and there was still food and water available to the elephants in other areas of the park.
The second night -our last in Main camp- we had another BBQ of excellent Zimbabwean beef and sausages accompanied by a good Pinotage. It was a lovely night with an almost full moon and, more rested, we decided to set up our camera trap close to our BBQ place to see what its meaty whiff would attract. We were confident to have night visitors as the camp´s perimeter fence offered several “unofficial” entry points!
So, we placed the camera approximately thirty metres behind the BBQ grid, about twenty metres from our bungalow and hoped for the best! [1]
The following morning, after collecting our camera, it was time to resume our safari. We left Main Camp early as we needed to travel more than 100 km, the distance that separated us from Robins Camp in the northern part of the park. Although the road started well enough its surface soon turned red and became heavily corrugated. As happens in these cases our vehicles started to shudder badly. Familiar with corrugated roads both here and in South America, we tried all our tricks, but the shaking continued until, near Shumba picnic site, the road became narrower and the going smoother.
We arrived at Robins camp in the afternoon, and we rested until dinner time. In the meantime our son checked the memory card of the camera and decided that it was worthwhile having a game at guessing what animals had visited our BBQ area the night before. So, while having our sundowners, we each chose an animal we guessed that could have been there.
Species chosen were hyena (Mabel and Brenda), jackal (Roberto), African civet (Florencia) and honey badger (myself) [2]. Julio A. and his girlfriend Pat dis not participate as they had selected the pictures.
The following are the pictures of the animals that came in order of appearance. Please note that at the time we set the camera its clock was four hours ahead of the real time.
A genet being cautious! (Corrected time 23:18hs.)
The genet was still around ((Corrected time 23:23hs.)
A spring hare. We see these often at Main Camp (Corrected time 01:22hs.)
The spring hare returned (Corrected time 03:07hs.)
A genet again (Corrected time 03:43hs.)
A spotted hyena. We expected the hyenas to come earlier. (Corrected time 04:49hs.)
The hyena stays for a while sniffing around (Corrected time 04:53hs.)
An early impala passes by (Corrected time 05:03hs.)
Another impala. This time in colour as it visited during daylight (Corrected time 06:26hs.)
After the picture show´s comments had subsided, our son called our attention again and showed a final picture:
It is probably a female leopard (Corrected time 23:49hs.)
At 23:49 hours a fully grown leopard had paid a visit. It is quite common that leopards inhabit the vicinity of camps, sometimes busy ones. Although it could have been attracted by the BBQ smell it is also possible that it felt the movement of the other animals and came to have a look. Whatever the reason for this visit, it gave room for a lot of comments and it made our visit to Main camp memorable!
[1] I overlooked that the camera clock was 4 hours ahead of the actual time so, I have corrected the times that appear in the pictures.
[2] I had seen honey badgers at camp in an early camera trap experience so I tried to take advantage of this but failed!
The Covid pandemic left a backlog of bookings in most national parks in Africa and Zimbabwe was not an exception. For this reason we could not get our yearly spell at Masuma dam in Hwange National Park (HNP). We did manage to get a few nights at Kennedy 1 and Main Camp followed by four more nights at Robins Camp in the northern part of the park.
This time we were lucky to have our two children with us, our son´s girlfriend Pat and a couple of friends that visited Africa for the first time, Brenda, and Roberto from Spain. We rented another car to accommodate all of us and the rather impressive amount of luggage, camping gear and food that we took with us.
As usual when traveling to the HNP we divided the trip in two parts. During the first day we got to Bulawayo traveling at a slower pace than usual to allow our visitors to see the place as well as to adjust to driving on the left side of the road. We got to the Hornung Park Lodge (http://www.hornung-park-lodge.com/) where we were hosted by its friendly owner Fredi (Rita was away). The lodge is very nice and quiet, and we were treated very kindly by our host.
The following day, after an early breakfast we moved on and managed to arrive at Kennedy 1 in mid-afternoon to set up our camp. As we needed four tents, preparations took quite a while before we had our camp ready. The two new tents and additional gadgets brought by our children took some time to assemble and we finished just before nightfall.
Yellow hornbills watching us preparing our camp.
At my ripe age I refuse to sleep on the ground, so I carry a camp bed for these occasions. Its assemblage is now “infamous” with the family as it requires quite an effort. So much so that four of us climbed on it while trying to fit all pieces together, something that finally happened with a “twang” that indicated success! This time there were no injured fingers.
While camp was being prepared, we noted many lion footprints in the sand and Terence, the nice and young camp attendant, informed us that lions had visited the camp during the night and that they were still close by. Despite our efforts to break the news of the footprints gently to our first-time campers in Africa, the idea of “sleeping with lions” did nothing to build up their confidence on the protection offered by the tents. The situatiation did not improve when they saw the condition of the camp perimeter fence!
Ground hornbills and a crimson breasted shrike visiting our camp and surrounding area.
After we were done with the camp it was too late to look for animals so we focused on dinner. As usual Mabel produced an amazing dish of pasta with pesto and green peas, and we uncorked a bottle of South African red to end a great bush day hoping for a great bush night. We were not disappointed as the hyenas called early and then the lions roared frequently, just to reminded us that we were staying on borrowed ground!
The following morning, surprisingly Kennedy 1, 2 and Ngweshla had no elephants and almost no other game. Luckily a male ostrich decided to perform some kind of solo courtship that included the usual wing balancing act with the addition of mad fast runs of a few hundred metres each that showed its speed but that seemed rather useless in the absence of a female! Perhaps it mistook pour car for a potential partner?
Rather surprised by the absence of large game we headed back to our camp. We were lucky to find a couple of young adult lions that, like us, were coming to Kennedy 1 for a drink. We stayed watching them until late in the afternoon until it was time to return to camp for a BBQ followed later by more lion roaring, still respecting our space.
A Bushsnob in Africa 