Game Ranger in your Backpack

Its finally here after two years of blood and sweat! "Game Ranger" is an all-in-one interpretative guide to the wildlife of the Lowveld. Check out the link to learn more and to order your copy! Its a must have for every naturalist and nature lover!

http://briza.co.za/bookstore/product_info.php?products_id=283&osCsid=415eb4044e28f3544baa043ed5ad4b87

Babe at the Beach

I have enjoyed an unexpected little holiday at the sea recently. Having finished the training course in Tsavo, things were not finalised as to ‘where to next’ so I found myself hanging out on the most gorgeous beach south of Mombasa called Tiwi Beach at a rustic little resort called Maweni Cottages. Its like a mini Caribbean. Being on the equator, the water is so warm in the ocean that sometimes it doesn't really refresh you until you get out and allow the breeze to blow on you. It’s quite hot and humid on the coast but having a private beach is what it’s all about and everytime one feels soggy, off you trot for a dip in the turquoise ocean. Its heaven!

There is a shallow reef all the way along this stretch of coast so at high tide the waves aren't very big against the sand (they break further out where the reef starts) and it’s like swimming in a peaceful rock pool. When the tide is low one can pick through the reef on foot (I say pick coz there are tonnes of urchins) and explore the pools full of little rock-pool fishies (not an area of speciality!) and bristle stars and sea cucumbers and and and.... If you head north up the beach, there is a place the locals call 'starfish village' because there are hundreds of multi-coloured starfish that become beached at low tide. I went when the tide was coming in with a mask and swam out with a fisherman to see them. It was incredible. We also saw living corals with their polyps and clams and an anemone complete with clownfish 'Nemo'! I was completely exhausted after the swim because we had to go far out and you can hardly stand for the urchins! Good exercise after not doing much for a few weeks....plus the hike down the sand back to my cottage!

If you go south down the beach, one heads towards Diani Beach...a more renowned coastal destination but more built up. I went at low tide again, along the reef and the local ‘askari’ (guard) took me to a place they call the map of Africa (its prudent to take an 'askari' for safety when exploring further a field). It’s a deep pool in the reef that holds water when the tide is out shaped like the continent and complete with Madagascar pool! Next pool up is Australia which is bigger and has two caves over it but looks nothing like Australia! Go figure. Inside the caves (which are open in places to the sky and you can see the vegetation above you and the light plays on the walls...lovely) there is a colony of bats that roost on the highest parts of the walls coz when the tide comes in that’s the only place they can hide from it. The water over the years has shaped small pot holes in the ceiling and each little bat roosts in its own 'egg-cup'! They chatter while you explore and it’s like a scene from a story book!

The gardens at Maweni are beautiful. Everything is quite tropical and so there is greenery and flowers galore and the smell of frangipani wherever you walk. There was a team of gardeners at work in the gardens when I arrived (poor guys working in the heat!) and they only just had seemed to have made headway a week down the line due to the extent of the beds! Palm trees line the banks (the camp is raised above rocky cliffs) and there are a good few Baobabs too. There's a restaurant and a pool but I prefer the self catering option and the sea!

One can get fresh fish caught that morning from the fishermen. There is a small thatched 'banda' - shelter - near the edge of the living area and the locals are allowed to come up and sell their wares. It’s really cool that this is a private beach so you don't get harassed by locals to buy things all the time like in central Mombasa. I did however get offered seashells for purchase by a fisherman while I was swimming in the sea! Anyway, the locals sell everything you could wish for at the sea....fresh fish (filleted for you on request thank goodness), lobster, crab, prawns, calamari, oysters etc. And you see them collecting it so you know it’s fresh (and they don’t harvest in excess it appears, just what is needed which it super). Then there are some veggie sellers with tomatos, ginger, garlic, fruits and potatoes so the basics are covered and one doesn't ever need to go to town really (I picked up milk and the like on the way in as well as an emergency bikini! Who'd have thought!). The coconut milk mandasi's (like a sugarless doughnut) freshly baked are my best.

The first 3 nights I was at the beach were the best. Caroline, a Dutch girl who did the Ecotraining course I just instructed (www.ecotraining.co.za), had a few days to waste before she headed home. The 2 of us teamed up to find a place to stay and then enjoyed such a lovely holiday together - fresh food (she's a great cook!), pedicures and massages from Smugglers Rest, the on-beach local salon!, long swims and walks and lots of laughs. We were like two kids at Christmas. She swears she'll be back from Amsterdam ASAP again with everyone she knows...she's fallen in love with Africa!

I adopted 2 stray cats. The first showed up while Caroline was still with me and we couldn't resist her. She's pregnant and obviously hungry so each meal we'd dish her some fish or calamari or tuna...the life of a beach cat. She makes the most bizarre squeaking mews and is too sweet. She's little, black and white with a pink nose and green eyes. This morning 'Grizabella the Glamour Cat' (I saw cats when I was home last!) had brought a tabby friend along for milk! It’s nice to have the company. Grizabella has got to curling up on the chair beside me in the evenings. It took a few days for her to get so familiar. The other climbed onto my lap immediately begging for attention...a bit more forward!

My Kenyan experience has been a brilliant adventure all round but I am looking forward to heading home to family for Christmas after some more training in the Mara (back to Koiyaki Guiding School www.koiyaki.com soon). I have a new little dress I want to wear and a great tan to show off when I get back!

Rukinga – Lifeline between East and West

Tsavo country is vast, spectacular and ochre-red. The fine red dust is its trademark - and too the red elephants and buffalo that result from it.

Rukinga Ranch is 30000ha of cattle ranch turned conservation thanks to efforts of Wildlife Works, a company that recognised that the region in which Tsavo lies isn’t going to get any wealthier from doing nothing for the land. The cows get denser each year as does the population and so the only real solution is to put the land to good use. When the majority of the space in the region is already taken up by the East and West Tsavo Parks that are already a tourist attraction thanks to history and movies like ‘Ghosts in the Darkness’, it makes sense to ensure the wildlife perpetuates. To do this takes cooperation from the community and a channel that links them together. Rukinga is such a place…a refuge for migratory animals passing through the desolate dry landscape and a paradise to the observer.

The elephants jostle and vocalise through the night to stake a claim to the small waterhole they have created from lifting the water pipe outside camp. The park staff are exasperated at having to fix the pipe for the umteenth time but I love the fact that all through the night I can hear the ellies from my bed and every morning first thing, there they are right on the doorstep vying with buffalo bulls for access to the muddy bath. Hundreds of ring-necked doves alight around the great grumpy pachyderms like grey snow falling on the red earth, the sunlight glinting off their white retrices. One needn’t venture far at all for a wildlife spectacle so incredible, it’s hard to believe it happens again and again each morning.

But after some elephant indulgence, the great expanses beyond the camp vicinity beckon and inevitably the temptation grips to look for some of the other remarkable species that inhabit these parts. There are gerenuks that never cease to elicit giggles as they stand up primate-like on their hind legs to access leaves generally out of reach of such small antelope. Their front hooves dangle out gracefully in front of their sleek bodies as they nibble and chew for seemingly ages on two pins. Fringe-earred oryx are rarer but a glimpse of their impressive stature with lance-like horns is always a treat. As is an encounter with the endangered Grevy’s zebra. The population was introduced to the area in an effort to bolster the numbers. While the oryx’s ears appear frayed and unkempt, the Grevy’s has ears that look like they used to belong to Mickey Mouse! Oversized and comical these perfectly compliment a unique stripe pattern amongst zebra that resembles a pin-stripe suit left open over the belly to reveal a white undershirt.

Aardwolf and striped hyena, caracal, serval and bat-earred fox are some of the other treats and not always that rare a sight either. But my best are the Kirk’s dikdik. These miniature antelopes are the fame of the area. Paired off in their small but excusive territories, it’s a few hundred meters only between sightings. Their large eyes are even more emphasized by the dark preorbital glands that they use to paint tarry secretions onto beacons as boundary markers. The little ungulates also make remarkably large middens to identify their ranges but as a species, being so successful warrants a little showing off I suppose. Their slender noses are apparently a clever trick they have to survive in such harsh climates, wriggling these to cause evaporate cooling.

I’ve heard a story or two of late about how the dikdik got its name but as convincing as these were, the fiction was derived from a very capable story-telling Irishman with a vivid imagination and an illuminating smile. Jimmy was one member of the first group of students to participate in Ecotraining’s pilot Kenyan 28-day field guide training course on Rukinga (www.ecotraining.co.za) and was matched in his charismatic-ness by each of the others participating. Anton, the Russian-Australian, had a ceaseless stream of naturalist questions that couldn’t be quenched (even between Ashleigh’s random hic-ups) – even at 2am on a nocturnal drive, they just kept coming! But that kind of interest is exactly what is required in an environment where there are so many new things to learn and areas to explore…not least of which was Mount Kasigau, the towering landmark that presides over the Rukinga landscape. So up we went…

The Austrian-Spanish cousins, Sophie and Cecile, and I had decided we would just accompany the over-energetic Jimmy, Anton and Wil part of the way up the 1640m peak. Climbing a mountain is about enjoying the scenery on the way up and not just anticipating the view from the top. Dry, rocky Commiphora bush changed into tall, shaded dry forest which metamorphosed into a fantasy-land of looming trees, dancing leaves, giant-sized buttrices and moss-covered logs. Trenches from the First World War distracted us from the hike at one point and then the appeal of an even lovelier wet-forest further up where purple orchids dotted the tree trunks, Taita white-eyes flitted and one had to be careful to step steadily on the slippery mud. The temperate was cool and lovely, a remarkable micro-climate compared to the heat below. Then the final climb was in sight and the girls were still on board and more determined than ever to reach the top having come so far inadvertently! The boys must’ve been as impressed with us as we were with ourselves as they quite willingly shared their sandwiches with us! We had abandoned ours in the vehicle below not thinking we’d need them! Getting down proved a comedy of slippery errors but 7 hours after it all began and we were back on level ground marvelling at the feat!

October has seen the start of the very welcome rains. ‘Karibu sana’ as they say in Kiswahili… ‘most welcome’! The entire landscape has been transformed into an emerald wonderland and although the elephants have dispersed and are no longer lingering on the camp doorstep, it’s a relief to know there’s plenty of water for them to drink. The buffalo can relax a bit too.

Or maybe not since the lion activity on Rukinga has been on the rise. Two very good-looking young males (albeit maneless) made their appearance the other morning roaring proudly to announce their arrival. After feasting on a lesser kudu, the companions settled under a leafy Commiphora to while away the hours providing super viewing for the second intake of EcoTrainers this year. The maneless lions of Tsavo are renowned although scientists still seem to be a little confused as to why they don’t grow manes. The probability is that the heat typical of the area would sap them of vital energy if they had impressive furry manes but interestingly, increased testosterone that causes baldness in human males, could be another reason. Since Tsavo lions tend to hold tenure over a territory on their own unlike the coalitions of other savanna areas, they’d need a whole lot of hormone driving them to be aggressive enough to chase off contenders and hair-loss may result! The ladies don’t seem to mind…

The rain has brought the migrants and Indi or ‘Indiana Jones’ as we affectionately call her – a local Kenyan already in the safari industry but here to learn more - is thrilled! Every referee-whistle of a Eurasian bee-eater or ‘coo-coo’ of the African cuckoo elicits gasps of delight from her. Through the many enjoyable hours of birding that we’ve done on both Rukinga and in Tsavo East (clocking up 123 species in 3 and a half weeks), she has also elicited gasps of delight from the rest of us with her ceaseless supply of snacks! In her words: ‘yum’!

Johnson is the laugh-a-minute Kenyan chap who always has a bright smile and a witty comment. He keeps Caroline on her toes questioning her about everything he spots. Caroline is our Dutch ‘singing’ friend – she has a tune for every occasion! She’s on an adventure away from rainy Holland to indulge in glorious Africa – lucky for us but maybe not for her, we’ve had a fair bit of rain during her stay! Steve and Petra complete the dynamic little group and although Steve is of Taita origin, he happily chats away to Petra in her mother tongue German providing great amusement to the rest of us.

Such is the case in any EcoTraining Kenyan field guide experience…a mix of diverse culture, personality, landscapes and wildlife. Wouldn’t miss it for the world!

Moments in Rukinga (Tsavo, Kenya)

The magic of Tsavo

At home amongst bushbabies

When I’m at home (which is not too often), I live in a bushbaby sanctuary which remarkably is located in the middle of the city. The developers of this townhouse complex rose to the challenge of incorporating wildlife into city living. Having identified the site, it was discovered that a naturally occurring population of lesser bushbabies (Galago maholi) were already in residence there. Instead of merely flattening the area for construction, the bushbabies were taken into ‘protective custody’ for the duration of building and sections of the natural bush preserved for their release back into their habitat once construction was complete. Subsequently gardens were planted comprising only indigenous vegetation including transplanted trees of the variety crucial for the survival of the VIP residents and these are connected via the residents’ gardens by ropes along which the small primates scamper like tight-rope walkers each evening on their way to feed.

Bushbabies are amazingly adapted for their nocturnal, arboreal lifestyles. They have enormous eyes with expanding pupils that allow for the collection of light in poor light conditions. Their eyes are so large that they are immovable in their sockets and to compensate bushbabies can rotate their heads 180 degrees (much like a bird) to look over their shoulders. They are able to bulge their eyeballs to gain focus of an object. There is a highly reflective layer called the tapetum lucidum in the back of the eye which shines reddish in torchlight. This also facilitates night time vision. Remarkably for nocturnal creatures, bushbabies have a high percentage of colour cone cells on the retina.

Bushbabies have long whiskers (vibrissae) near the eyes to help them detect nearby objects and so protect the eyes while foraging in the dark. The membranous ears are also moveable and can be swivelled independently or simultaneously to pick up sounds or can be folded back out of harms way. Bushbabies’ hearing is so acute that they are able to locate insects on sound alone even snapping gnats out of the air with their hands. They in fact jump upon prey with their eyes closed so as not to get flailing insect parts in them.

The bushbabies brilliant leaping ability is effected by enlarged powerful hind legs and the long tail is used for power and balance. Primate-like hands and feet with nailed fingers and dexterous thumbs and toes assist with grip. The ends of the digits are padded with soft friction pads as well as the palm of the hands and the soles of the feet. These also help with grip and with capturing prey. They are able to land and grip with just their feet to keep their hands free for grasping prey. Bushbabies can leap horizontally up to 4m and vertically almost 2m. They can cover many meters (ten yards) in just a few seconds and more than a kilometre in a night with these impressive leaps and bounds. On the ground, bushbabies hop like miniature kangaroos. They have taken to doing this along the perimeter walls if roping across the garden becomes too mundane!