Transecting and leopard tracking

Ngomqibelo 4 September
6:30am. A very early start for a weekend but we’re all excited and the sleepiness clears quickly. We pile into Ross’s Hilux bakkie and sand and gravel roads lead us down to Zuka, an area in the south of the reserve. We start to climb the hillside; Lomaru Dam glimmers below us in the newly risen sun. Dry, brown gives way to more black-burnt bush and the bakkie slows to a halt. We get out and the peaceful sounds of dawn in the bush rush up to us from the plains below. Birds chirping, baboons barking.

Ski-pole-like measuring sticks are my tools. Lize and Ross are equipped with a clipboard. We are doing a vegetation transect to assess the browse capacity of this area, and Phinda as a whole. Measuring tree heights, distance from the point and then move on 20m is my task. Ross handle’s the tricky part of IDing the species. Soon we are distracted by a hunt for a rare species of aloe, which has us scampering between rocky patches, competing to see how many we find. We find a few of the pretty, little plants and then back to transecting. Pretty soon we pack it in, the fire having made plant identification something close to impossible. On the way back to the car we bump into a large bull giraffe, searching between the thorns for foliage that escaped the fire. It’s always an exciting experience to see any wild animals on foot, and the giraffe looks even more impressive than usual from this vantage point.

We pack it in, and so does Ross’s water pump, just as we arrive to Forest Lodge. We get a tow to the workshop at Thabankos’ and head into Hluhluwe to get a replacement part. Flat tyre on the way back and the spare is also pap. Nice! Several people come to our rescue though and soon we are relaxing again at Forest Lodge, reading by the pool.
Ngesonto 5 September
A lazy day today, spent mostly working on building a bird bath in the garden and a braai pit. Midway through the construction leopard researcher, Julian, pops in to say hi. There is little hesitation when our request to join him turns into an offer to join him this evening, radio tracking leopard. “I’ll pick you up at 5ish”.
The battered research Landrover pulls up at 4:30ish. Coffee, chips, warm jackets, binos and camera. And a whole lot of enthusiasm. We fire question after question at Julian as we pull off, heading North West. The sun is already dipping low on the Western hills. We stop on a high point in the road, and Julian takes out the antenna. We are looking for a constant beep from a radio collar transmitter, through the static. Nothing this time.

We move on, looking for a female, with an 8-month cub. Just yesterday she took down an nyala close to Sand Forest Cutline pan. Soon we pick up the beep, in the direction of the block to our right, just across from the pan. And close too. Kristal and I smile at each other. We try enter the block from several different point but the bush is just so thick. Eventually, crashing over dead trees and coaxing a few live one out the way we worm our way into what is almost a thicket. Now, to find them…Behind binoculars our eyes strain for any movement in the scrub. And then I see them, well a spotted tail at least, swinging through a gap in the bushes. We’re inside 20m away from them. Amazing that the racket of the Landie has not chased them away. Now we can hear them too, crunching on some animal for dinner. The sun has disappeared and the spotlight is out, with a red filter so as not to blind them. Two red eyes glint back at us. It is quite eerie and I’m relieved we’re not on foot. After some time watching them, and some skilful maneuvering out of the thicket we’re back on the road, heading north to the marsh. It was not an amazing sighting, a tail here, a paw there and every now and then the head, but at the same time very special to see leopards as they most often are, hidden way in dense bush.

Beeping cuts the cool evening air up on the marsh. The spotlight sweeps around and the female is up on the mound, in the open, barely 100m from us. She is shy though and slinks off into the bush. It’s safer for her there. We search for her for a short while, but soon give in.
On the road home we stop by at the hyena den. Three adults lounge in the sand in the red of our light. The jaw of a reedbuck in the back of the Landie lures one of them over to us. Her nose searches the wind and her eyes try and match what she smells with what she sees. It must be so confusing! Soon she is less than a metre in front of the vehicle now. With no door between her and me I’m hoping that in the dark my leg looks nothing like anything that belongs to a reedbuck. We move out and head home, to dream of spotted creatures in the wild.