Heaven found

Wow, so yesterdays and this morning exploring around the reserve was pretty rewarding! Yesterday afternoon I headed into the town of Hluhluwe to get supplies to last me for the next two months. I was in quiet a hurry so was doing 40km as fast as I could go. I came round the bend near Memorial gate the Zulu guy I was taking to Hluhluwe suddenly shouted leopard leopard! I turned to look in the direction he was pointing and there he was, a beautiful big male just lying in the shade of a Schotia. After watching him for a while we headed on to town. Coming back from town I decided to come back into the reserve at Nyalazi gate and had some time to spare so I headed a few kilometers south towards the black imfolozi river. Just before I crossed the low water bridge I was stopped by a guide who said I must look carefully down river there are two bubezi lying there. On arrival at the bridge a took out my binos and scanned around, there they lay, two big lions most likely brothers. With light fading and my known impatience for sleeping lions I decided to call it a day and start heading back to HRC (Hluhluwe research centre).

27 May 2009

I woke up early and couldn't’t get back to sleep, so I lay and waited for it to get light enough so we could get out there. We left HRC at about 6:30am and headed slowly down to the Mansiya area where we had seen the wild dog spoor the day before. A bout a kilometer from the Mansiya turn off to my absolute joy, two wild dogs came galloping out the tall grass and ran down the road. The two dogs soon became eight as they were joined by the other pack members. The pack of four adults and fur sub adults then very cooperatively decided to take a rest right next to the road. This was one of the most amazing sightings I have ever had. We spent another half an hour with the dogs and then left them in peace. The rest of our morning was spent viewing a couple white rhino (which I must just say are EVERYWHERE here!) We then headed back to HRC for breakfast and to do some work things. This evening we just went for a short drive and spent some time with two herds of elephants while we watched the sun set. It really has been an amazing welcome to Hluhluwe-Imfolozi and I just cant wait to get to “work” on foot! Chat soon.

JB

Hi everyone,

So I have finally arrived in Hluhluwe-Imfolozi. I moved into my room yesterday and have been driving around the Hluhluwe section and getting more familiar with the area. Found the first set of black rhino tracks this morning, it was a single animal that appeared to be being followed by 3 wild dogs. Other than that the bush has been pretty quiet this morning. I'm heading over to Imfolozi this afternoon to go check things out there, I'm going to be based there in the Makhamisa wilderness section for two months starting on the 1st. I will obviously be away from most things remotely technical so will post updates in about two months to let you know what we found. But until then. Bye

Heading off

Hi guys,

As some of you might know I am heading up to Hluhluwe-Imfolozi on the 1st of June to monitor their black rhino population. I will be operating on foot in 96 000 hectares trying to figure out individual rhino home ranges, population demographics and create identikits for each rhino. I will keep you posted as to how things fair and what we find. Until then.....