The Grey Buck Of Paarl

Dense vegetation is an important requirement for Cape Grysbok, and Paarl Mountain Nature Reserve overs plenty of very dense vegetation. It is no wonder that these secretive antelope like to call the reserve their home.

Cape Grysbok (Kaapse Grysbok - Raphicerus melanotis) at Paarl Mountain Nature Reserve

Cape Grysbok can be hard to see in person because of their secretive and nocturnal nature. They tend to hide in the dense vegetation and can go unnoticed, even when you get very close.

Luckily they are still fairly common around the greater Cape Town area and can even be found living close to human development. If you are lucky you can spot one crossing a road or darting for cover as you come around a bend.

Sneaking past the camera trap

Last year I was approached by a company that manufactures camera traps to test one of their new models. I received the camera trap late December and have been using it since then. The camera is the SecaCam HomeVista and the photograph below was take by it.

Young male Cape Grysbok with a very grey coat

I'm planning on doing a longer review of the camera trap at a later stage, but one of the things that stand out for me is the incredibly wide field of view. I'm sure it will be a blessing and a curse in the future.

I had the camera set to take a combination of photos and videos. The video clip below shows the restless youngster on a very windy summers day.

Video: Cape Grysbok walking through the boulders on a windy day

Only the rams have horns and this individual above seems to be still a fairly young male.

The Cape Grysbok is mostly active at night and about 65% of my camera trap observations have thus far been at night.

The white hair is much less visible in this wet female

They are solitary animals and scent mark their territory using the pre-orbital gland (in front of the eye). One of the cameras was lucky enough to catch a Cape Grysbok in the act of scent marking.

Cape Grysbok scent marking on the slopes at Paarl Mountain

The Cape Grysbok is endemic to South Africa and an iconic species of the dense vegetation along the coast and mountain ranges of the south and south-east.

RIP BirdCam 2.0

It is time to retire yet another one of my camera traps, the BirdCam 2.0. This camera was a bit of a roller-coaster ride and true to its nature it took some great photographs just before finally breaking down completely.



Cape Elephant Shrew (Kaapse Klipklaasneus - Elephantulus edwardii) camera trapped with the BirdCam 2.0 at Paarl Mountain Nature Reserve

The BirdCam 2.0 was my "small mammal specialist" camera trap. It wasn't very good as a conventional trail camera, but it was amazing when used to target small critters in a fixed area.

BirdCam 2.0 placed under a large boulder

The best thing about the camera, by far, was its white flash. It was simply amazing and could be used even at close range. The camera didn't have any autofocus capabilities, but the adjustable fixed focus helped.

The worst things about the camera must surely be the build quality and strange trigger speed. It simply wasn't as tough as other conventional trail cameras. For example the LED setup screen stopped working long ago. As a result, for the past few years I just turned the camera on and hoped for the best.

This is the third camera trap I'm retiring, and to be honest I have no idea what camera to replace it with... I'm not aware of any good white flash camera traps on the market, particularly ones that can be used to photograph small mammals... (Having color night photographs can help a lot with identification.)

Not perfect, but good enough

I'm really glad that the camera produced some decent photographs of the Cape Elephant Shrew before finally getting retired.

The Cape Elephant Shrew was one of the species at the top of my wish list for Paarl Mountain Nature Reserve, and I was thrilled when I saw one in person on my very first day at the reserve.

Cape Elephant Shrew sitting in a small hollow on top of a huge boulder

Despite their name the Cape Elephant Shrews are not a type of Shrew at all, nor are they a type of Rodent. They are in fact related to Golden Moles, Aardvarks, Dassies and even Elephants. These animals are all members of the Afrotheria, which represents a group of mammals that are associated with originating from the African continent.

As with the Golden Moles, the Elephant Shrews are still somewhat shrouded in mysterious, although fortunately to a lesser extent. For example, many sources claim that Elephant Shrews, in general, are diurnal, but other sources say the Cape Elephant Shrew is nocturnal. However, I've been camera trapping these little critters during the day and night, equally. I found one source that claimed they were crepuscular (preferring twilight), but that seems a bit off as well...

Activity pattern of Cape Elephant Shrew camera trapped, thus far, at Paarl Mountain

I suspect there is still much we can learn about these cute little guys.