Camera Trap

I finally got out my new toy the other day.  Well, not new new, just the first outing for me.  It was a camera trap, given to me by my friend and colleague, Ivan Carter.  These are very cool gizmos: you set it up in a likely spot (by a game trail or near a water hole), switch it on and leave it.  You come back the next day and see what you’ve got.

The camera emits an infrared beam; the idea is that an animal comes wandering along and through the beam, which triggers the camera to take a photo.  It can also take photos at night, using an infrared flash.  This is invisible, so doesn’t disturb the animal and scare it away.  The resulting pictures are very grainy black and white, which lends them a nicely cloak-and-dagger feel.

It took me a couple of attempts before I captured anything apart from my own furrowed brow as I tried to figure out how the thing works.  But finally it all came together.

I chose a water hole in front of camp and pretty soon got a whole stream of baboon bottoms as they (baboons, not bottoms.  Or rather baboons and their bottoms…) made their way to water.  I even got a shot of a baboon running towards the camera.  The next image was pretty much black – I figured out that the baboon was playing with the camera and I ended up with a close up of it’s stomach.  The next shots were all askew, said baboon having messed up my carefully arranged composition.

Next morning I checked the camera – and found a fun sequence of elephants coming to drink.  One female was clearly suspicious of the setup; the camera gives a short flash as the beam is disturbed, triggering the infrared flash and taking the photo.  She must have seen this and come to investigate.  In the first image you can see her, broadside on, drinking.  Next she has come right up to the camera and all you can make out is the fore legs and trunk.  In the 3^rd shot, she has backed up, but is still staring at the camera in a very alert posture.  I had set the camera to take photos at 30-second intervals, so there is a bit of a gap, but you can still clearly see the progression.

So, here they are.  I will keep playing and post more photos as and when I get them.  Enjoy!

Lions and Rhinos, North Serengeti

Nyamalumbwa, North Serengeti – July 2012

It’s been very wet in this part of the world, so we arrive to long grass, still lush and green – and plumes of smoke, with the annual onslaught of TANAPA’s early burning programme in full swing.

Kakae tells us that the normal route to our camp is treacherous at the moment, so, not wanting to spend a cramped night in a bogged-down land cruiser, we decide to take the long way round.  It’s actually fine: for the first hour or so we come across many smallish herds of wildebeest, the forerunners of the torrent that will soon arrive.  (We are hoping to catch the migration during our 3-day stay, but the better-than-usual rains means that there is still plenty of grazing further south, reducing the pressure to head this way).

We come across a lovely breeding herd of elephant, feeding peacefully on either side of the road, and a statuesque male giraffe doing a passable impression of a drunken telephone pole.

As we near Kogakuria kopje, the land drops away to the north, giving us sweeping views over the northern Serengeti and Maasai Mara, with the dark band of the Mara River snaking through it.

During dinner, lions start calling nearby and they keep it up for most of the night – so at daybreak, we have a mission: find those pusscats!  The early light is stunning and smoke from a still-burning bush fire drifts across the landscape.  We stop to scan and I hear a soft grunt behind.  A lion calling?  We turn to check.  A few hundred metres away, three Hooded Vultures on a low branch show us the way; and there they are, a pair of tawny shapes pushing through the grass. It takes us several minutes to find the whole pride, 9 animals in total, including two males and a subadult.  One of the males has a fresh gash on his face and the group appears agitated, moving restlessly and stopping frequently to sniff bushes.  Maybe there are other lions around, interlopers on their territory.  This would explain all the roaring last night, as well as the war wounds... but we will never know for sure.

We set off for the Mara River, but it is not to be: on a nearby ridge, we spot a pair of black rhino.  20 minutes later, we have bumped and ground our tortuous way to the place and there they are – a mother and her well-grown calf.  They are incredibly calm, letting us get to within 50 metres.  What a privilege, with this species under so much pressure from poachers!  They trundle off towards the setting sun, a poignant image - I can’t help wondering how many more times I can hope to see a sight like this.

(Click this link to see Richard's rhino video)

We plan a big day out, heading south to try to catch the full migration. Luckily for us, more and more wildebeest and zebra have been flooding into the area over the last couple of days: we find a herd of several thousand crossing the Bologonja River.  They are skittish, as the dense band of forest along its banks could easily hide predators, so they take it at a full gallop, to the accompaniment of clouds of swirling dust and their own demented honkings.