Home, sweet home...

The long rains are here.  I know, I know... I keep going on about it but in this part of the world, it's a big deal. Failure of the rains leads to drought, famine and widespread suffering for people and animals alike.  So yes, it feels like Scotland each morning, when you wake up blanketed in chilly mist.  But then there's life everywhere: flowers, frogs, butterflies (LOADS of butterflies!) and luxuriant, leafy growth all around.  I'm not going to write too much today, I just wanted to share with you some images I took over the week-end, pottering around near home.

Just a couple of cool things for now: last night the elephants were back. We could here them rumbling and breaking stuff - I haven't had time yet to see how much damage they caused but bull / china shop is usually an accurate reflection.  And crowned eagles: we sometimes get these huge, monkey-eating eagles flying and displaying overhead and I listen out for their distinctive call.  Recently, I've heard it a lot, thanks to that enthusiastic songster, the white-browed robin chat.  He's an expert mimic, and our individual seems to specialise in mimicking large eagles, as well as a variety of cuckoos.  He usually gives himself away, when he gets bored and launches into a virtuoso final riff, quite unlike any eagle.  I can only assume he earns lots of street cred from sounding like these feared and hated enemies...

Green-veined Charaxes butterfly

Elephant damaged tree

Acraea butterfly

Flap-necked chameleon

Yellow flowered Crotalaria species

Red hot poker

Young leaves of Khaya nyassica

Reed frog

Green Long-horn beetle

Tabernaemontana stapfiana, the Toad Tree

Another Acraea... the bright coloration serves as a warning to would-be
predators not to eat it on pain of feeling very unwell...

Nomination for the Good Safari Guide Awards

Some kind soul has nominated me in the Best Camp Guide category in The Good Safari Guide awards for 2010 - which is a great honour. Many thanks to those of you who took the time to support the nomination at http://www.goodsafariguide.com/awards/nominate_property.aspx

THE HUNTER, THE HUNTED

We are in Ndutu for 3 nights. The place is magical – great migration scenes over by Mlima Matiti, and a lovely pride of lion with 9 cubs just near camp as a bonus.

We are discussing the next day’s plans: a day trip to Lemuta and the Gol Mountains for a complete change of scene. So, where shall we have lunch? The fig tree on the big kopje? No, says Halifa: there was a lioness with small cubs there a few days ago – better not disturb her.

A plan is duly hatched and so to bed. The plains the next day are magnificent – a hunting cheetah, herds spread over the whole vast expanse – and a lioness from the Barafu pride with two large cubs trying to ambush a line of wildebeest coming to drink at a water hole.

Not long afterwards, we make our way to the aforementioned kopje-with-a-fig, to find a tragedy. There is a fresh carcass (yesterday? 2 days old?) of a lioness. The paws have been cut off, as the claws can be used as trophies. The vultures have done a good job of cleaning up, and there is little meat left on the bones.

We can’t be sure of course, but we can’t banish the thought: this is the lioness with the cubs, the ones that Halifa saw just the other day. And if this is the case, the cubs are just as dead as if they had been speared alongside their mother.

Traditional Maasai lion hunts are illegal, but if a lion has killed your cattle there is a certain amount of leeway. So this is an excuse that is frequently invoked by Maasai moran who want to earn their spurs but don’t want to go to prison in the process.

There are no bomas (homesteads) particularly close to the kill site. It is feasible, of course, that she walked the several kilometers to the nearest boma and killed a cow, and that the Maasai caught up with her just here. Feasible, but unlikely, given the throngs of game in the area – surely there are far easier ways of getting a meal than walking all that way?

The problem, of course, is the rapidly increasing human population in the area, with the attendant change in land use. Conflict is inevitable, and just as inevitable is the fact that wildlife will lose out, even in protected areas such as the Ngorongoro Conservation Area, where we were that day.

Conservationists are often portrayed as misanthropic, or anti-development. The tragedy, as I see it, is that wildlife, properly managed, has the potential to be that rare thing - an engine for sustainable rural growth in Tanzania. Currently there is little hope that this force can be harnessed.

LONG NOSED LUMBERJACKS AT WORK…

Rain, lovely rain. Lots of it… and you can almost hear stuff growing all around. Suddenly, everything is blossoming – the gloriosa lilies add a particularly exotic touch: gorgeous yellow, with dark red veins. And armadas of butterflies, like flitting flowers themselves. Biodiversity at work.

And it’s not just the little things either.

I was out in the garden feeding the dogs late the other evening, when Tamu suddenly started barking, hackles up and glaring out into the night. Cupping my hands behind my ears, I could make out the distinctive cracks and rustles of a party of elephant feeding.

They partied here for several hours, and early next morning we headed out to see how much damage had been done. You see, elephant are wasteful feeders: they will quite happily push over a tree and only take a few mouthfuls before heading over to find a new victim.

We were lucky on this particular occasion: we could only find three trees that had really taken a hit. One gets thoroughly worked over every year without fail. It won’t recover from this episode, which is actually a bit of a relief - now I won’t have to agonise about it any more. A nice fig was unceremoniously uprooted – but was replanted next day and will probably do just fine; while a third victim was pretty well trashed. No problem there, as it is a common species, with plenty of wildings coming up each year.

The vandals had been through the thickets, leaving a chaos of broken branches, trampled grass and great piles of dung in their wake – lots of free new nutrients, and we could see the dung beetles at work, busily putting it all underground for maximum benefit.

Phew.

In theory, we have adopted the approach that you can have a garden full of trees anywhere, but there are very few places in the world where you get elephants too – so we are resigned to the loss of a few trees each year. In practice though, we get attached to the trees we plant so carefully (over a thousand so far, so Jules tells me) and it is heartbreaking to see a healthy young tree reduced to splinters by an over-enthusiastic pachyderm.

What I find fascinating is how smart they are. They are fairly regular visitors: at certain times of year, they come into the garden every few days. And yet we almost never see them. They know a) that they are not generally welcome outside the park; and b) precisely where the park boundary is. So they will only come at night, munch happily on our trees, and drift back into the park and relative safely just before dawn.

And anyway, who really needs a herbaceous border?