Meeting Again(s)

Burnt area at Tygerberg Nature Reserve

They have been doing some controlled burns at the reserve during March. I'm looking forward to camera trap in that section once the winter rains come and the plants wake up from their summer siesta.

A student at the reserve asked me to put some camera traps in the burnt area, but I didn't manage to get the locations he had in mind from him, so I just picked my own spots. I wasn't expecting much action when I finally managed to placed the cameras in the area, two weeks after the burn.

According to the reserve staff the burnt area was crawling with confused rodents just after the burn and this must have attracted some predators. I'm thinking that the rodents that survived the burn will be forced to move to the neighbouring unburnt areas and this might still make things a bit easier for the predators.

As I went to fetch the camera trap in forest, I was surprised to find the Genet again, sleeping inexactly the same spot.

Small-Spotted Genet (Kleinkolmuskeljaatkat - Genetta genetta) checking me out

I also saw this strange flower growing in the forest area. It is a type of Haemanthus, but I'm not sure of the species.

Some type of Haemanthus

From the forest I headed directly to the burnt area. While setting the cameras I kept on running into this Caracal.

Spooked Caracal (Rooikat - Caracal caracal) - sorry for the burnt bottle and grid in the background...

It looks like a youngster. It was hunting along the border between the burnt and unburnt vegetation.

It was then that the reunions started. I stumbled upon this (different) Haemanthus species flowering amongst the ashes.



Another type of Haemanthus



And when I checked the cameras yesterday I was very happy to find my second camera trap photograph of a Small-Spotted Genet at Tygerberg.

The tell tale tail of a Small-Spotted Genet

The young Caracal was also photographed at the same camera set as the Genet, three times. The camera was setup for rodents...

Caracal doing the rounds

These pictures where taken with my new/replaced Bushnell Trophy Cam XLT 2010 and I must say that it seems to be a much better unit than the previous one I had.