GUIDE'S DIARY - Jed Bird

16/07/2008 02:00:38 PM

Wow, what an amazing four days my guests and I have just had.

I recently had the pleasure of guiding the Clegg family again between the 12th and the 16th of July. 

Day 1

On our first afternoon drive we set off west to search the concession for a very special animal that even some of the most experienced bush people have never seen. I myself had seen this elusive creature twice during the week and was dying to share the experience with guests. It took us about half an hour of scanning the open plains west of the lodge before finally I noticed a hartebeest staring at something in the distance. On closer inspection through the binoculars the strange object suddenly appeared to be smoking. The smoke was in fact dust that this creature was kicking up while digging away for its favorite food, ants. Yip, there it was, in broad daylight, an aardvark. To avoid spooking it, I decided to get my guests off the vehicle and we stalked our way up to it. The aardvark was unbelievably relaxed and allowed us to approach within 5m while it fed on its diet of ants and termites. We spent the good part of an hour with this bizarre looking creature before leaving it in peace to carry on doing what aardvarks do.

 

Now with it getting dark I decided to head towards Rooiwalle to see if we could improve on our amazing afternoon by maybe glimpsing a black rhino. On arriving at an artificial waterhole near Rooiwalle, we noticed that the water in the waterhole was splashing from side to side. Confused, we sat dead still and in silence waiting for something to happen. About a minute went by and then something to our right moved. I shone the spot up to where the sound came from, and there in all their glory stood two black rhino. One of the rhinos was completely sopping and had obviously been in the waterhole when we came round the corner. With much jubilation after our rhino encounter and with the nighttime temperatures starting to drop, we decided to head back to the lodge's warm fires.

Day 2

The next morning, we braved the cold and headed out in to an area called Buffelskuil in search of the black rhino we’d seen the night before. The morning was relatively quiet due to the cold, it must have been about 4 degrees. We unfortunately missed a caracal kill by a few minutes. All we found was what remained of a black-headed heron that had obviously been enjoying the first light of the morning before it was pounced on by the agile cat. We carried on up on to the higher ridges is search of buffalo and warmer temperatures. We found both. Half way up one of the ridges we encountered a small breeding herd of buffalo grazing in the warm morning sun. We watched them for a while before enjoying a hot cup of coffee and hot chocolate and then decided to head back for breakfast. But just before we got to the lodge and what couldn’t have been better timing we came across two bush pigs feeding in the field north of the lodge. After watching the bush pigs for a while we decided that bacon of a different kind was calling.

 

After high tea, we headed out on afternoon drive. We headed over into the southern section of the park in search of lion. We unfortunately did not find any lion but did find a huge breeding herd of elephant feeding close to the road. We sat and watched the elephants for about half an hour. One of the young females in the herd had a very small (5 days old) calf with her. It was so cute watching this little thing exploring its new world with the absolutely useless trunk that it had been given. It takes little elephants up to 2 weeks before they can even start picking things up with their trunks. After leaving the elephants we slowly made our way back to the lodge. Just before we arrived back at the lodge we came across a family of bat eared foxes in the road. The adult female fox was adamant on not moving out of the road. She was digging for all she was worth trying to get at an underground termite colony. She literally allowed us to get 3m away from her while she fed. After leaving the termite colony and their fox dilemma we pulled into the lodge and made our way to the fire.

Day 3

The next morning we headed over to Intsomi private reserve in search of giraffe and white rhino. We came back very pleased with seeing a whole host of different antelope and giraffe, but no white rhino. Later in the afternoon we decided to try and find the elephant on our concession. The odds were against us, as they were about 15km away from the lodge and hadn’t been seen in over a month. Nonetheless we headed out to see what we could find. We searched everywhere to no avail and literally at the other end of the concession just as we were turning around, there they stood. All 86 of them. We spent the last remaining minutes of light with the herd before starting our trek back to the lodge.

Day 4

Due to our short sighting the day before we decided to spend the morning (and some of the afternoon) with the elephants. I organized that one of the elephant researchers came along to talk to my guests about elephant research in the park and to teach us more about the biology, reproduction and general behavior of these giants. On our way into the area where we saw them the night before we spotted something gray out in the thicket. I slammed on brakes and grabbed the binos. My eyes weren’t lying to me. There off in the distance were two black rhino, a cow and her calf. After watching them for a while it was clear that they were quite alert. After waiting a few minutes it soon became apparent why. A bull made his way out of the thicket and followed them down the path. Awesome, 5 rhino in 3 days!! After the rhino had melted back into the thicket, we carried on our quest to find the elephants. About half an hour later we were sitting surrounded by 86 elephant, or make that 87! There among the huge legs was a new calf about 3-4 weeks old. We sat and watched the elephants feed for a while and then literally joined their parade up to a waterhole. One of the highlights of the sighting was when one of the big females walked right passed our vehicle so close that we could feel the heat coming off her in the cold winter air. It really was an amazing experience. We followed them up to a waterhole in the fynbos where we watched them drinking and playing in the mud. I noticed that we had missed breakfast and listening to the growling stomachs behind me decided we had to leave before we missed lunch too.

After lunch we headed over to Intsomi again to find those white rhino. And just that we did! We found three of them as well as giraffe and many other antelope species.

Last morning

On the last morning we decided to do a shorter drive ;) and head back into the area where we had seen the black rhino and her calf. Unfortunately we didn’t find the rhino but did find a small breeding herd of buffalo that we watched coming down the hillside. After a nice warm cup of hot chocolate, we headed back to the lodge for breakfast.

 

And so ended the stay of the Clegg family and the most awesome sighting I’ve had in a while. Can’t wait to get back out there.

 

Jed Bird