No Monkey Business

There was one animal at Suikerbosrand that haunted my dreams. I kept getting the random thought "will my cameras be safe". This animal has huge canine teeth! An inquisitive nature! Omnivorous appetite! Heck, they even have opposable thumbs! How would they react to my poor defenceless cameras (unless you count a powerful flash, or dim red glow, as an offencive advantage)!

Enter, the Chacma Baboon...

Chacma baboon (Kaapse Bobbejaan - Papio ursinus) at Suikerbosrand

Baboons live in groups of 15-100 animals and I feared that if the camera caught the eye of only one of them the whole group might take an interest... Although they can surely do serious damage biting on or beating the camera, my biggest fear was that they might carry it around. Moving the camera by only a short distance can make it almost impossible to find again. But in the end everything went smoothly and they barely payed the cameras any notice.

Sitting down for a family meal

In fact, the only camera trouble I had was with an Eland that pushed a camera over. The Baboons were content to focus on finding food on going by their daily activities.

One of my cameras was positioned up a tree, pointing down, and got a unique view of a Baboon trying to eat some Sunflower seeds I threw on the ground.

Slurping up some seeds? Why use your fingers if you can use your face?

This Baboon was photographed in a heavily wooded area. I'm used to seeing them in more open areas and didn't think they frequented areas like this often enough to show up on this short camera trapping trip. However, thinking back, we have encountered Baboons in some pretty thick forests in the past.

Typical landscape at Suikerbosrand in the Gauteng province of South Africa

There will most likely be many more encounters with Baboons in my camera trapping future and I hope all of them will be this, well, uneventful. And on that note the Baboons exited, stage left...

The rear end of the tale

The Big Guys

We are back from spending Christmas in Gauteng with the family and I managed to fit in 5 nights of camera trapping at Suikerbosrand Nature Reserve.

First up, the biggest antelope in the world: the Eland.

An Eland (Eland - Tragelaphus oryx) smiling for the camera

Eland are usually found in herds of 20-60 animals, but they sometimes form temporary herds of more than 500 individuals. They have a fairly loose social system with animals freely joining herds. I'm not sure how many animals this nature reserve have, but we did see a herd of at least 150 animals.

A herd of Eland at Suikerbosrand of about 20 animals

These antelope are big. They weigh 450-700kg (up to 900kg) and stand 1.7m tall at the shoulders. A large bull walked past one of the camera traps. Unfortunately it was too close to photograph the entire animal.

A large bull walking past the camera in the rain

I've always found it difficult to see Eland up close. They seem to prefer keeping a safe distance from any possible threat. This is a wise move since they are high on the menu for most top predators and have been extensively hunted by humans for thousands of years.

The Khoisan people revered them greatly. The Eland is a common animal depicted on their rock paintings and formed part of many rituals and believes.

These guys are excellent jumpers

An Eland can easily clear a 2m fence, despite their huge size. They are prone to wander over large areas in search of better feeding grounds. They are primarily browsers (eating leaves, etc.), but they also eat grass, roots and bulbs. Access to water is not required, but they will drink if water is available.

Having a closer look at the camera

Despite their natural tendency to keep a safe distance from danger, they seem to be easily tamed. There has been attempts to domesticate the Eland by farmers in Southern Africa, USA and Russia (of all places) for milk and meat. However, the animals' jumping ability, wondering nature and social structure have proven problematic when trying to farm them in the same way as other domestic livestock.

On the last day of camera trapping this Eland decided to adjust the camera angle

Another interesting things about the Eland is that they make a clicking sound while walking. If you want to find out more I would highly recommend reading about Lynda's Eland encounters on her excellent blog called Mainly Mongoose over here.

Back In July

Grey Rhebok (Vaalribbok - Pelea capreolus) walking up the slope at Tygerberg with Cape Town in the background

I've finally gotten around to capturing all of my Tygerberg camera trapping photographs into WildLog. As I was processing the last set of images this Grey Rhebok caught my eye.

This is the resident male, easily identified thanks to his broken horn. Short on his tale was one of the females, stopping briefly to have a bite.

Munch munch munch...

Another fun visitor was the Leopard Tortoise. These guys are big enough and warm enough to easily trigger the camera when they are on the move.

Leopard Tortoise (Bergskilpad - Stigmochelys pardalis) cruizin' by

And to wrap things up a Helmeted Guineafowl in full stride.

A sprinting Helmeted Guineafowl (Tarentaal - Numida meleagris)

We're going to be in Gauteng over Christmas and I'm taking some camera traps along. Its been a while since I did any real camera trapping. I only have about 5 days to photograph anything, so I'm keeping my fingers crossed :)

Backyard Wildlife

I still haven't had much time recently to do any serious camera trapping. I'm looking forward to doing a short stint over Christmas when we visit the family.

In the meantime I thought I'll treat you to some interesting critter from my garden here in Cape Town. It is incredible what amazing creatures live right next to us. This is just a small selection I threw together.

I just couldn't resist including a picture of Mushu, our Dachshund-cross

There is an amazing variety of bees (and other insects) that pollinate the flowers in our garden. I haven't managed to photograph even half them all. Below are two bees I recently snapped a picture off.

This is most likely Carpenter Bee (Xylocopa caffra), or similar

There are many smaller bees, such as the one above, to be found in our garden

Below is a very interesting pollinator, a fly. These flies parasitize on spiders in their larval form. The adults have short lives. Some species sip nectar with their long tongues.

At first glance the Psilodera fasciata (or similar) looks very much like another white bee, but they are in fact flies

Naturally there are also butterflies and skippers around to be found.

A little skipper taking a rest

When we first moved down to Cape Town we lived in the southern suburbs. The yard contained a small pond that was home to some frogs. I tried to photograph all of them to determine how many there were. I could identify at least 8.

I recorded each frog's unique markings and only identified it if I could confirm it on more than one photograph/occasion

Up close and personal with Cape River Frog (Kaapse Rivierpadda - Amietia fuscigula)

A year later we moved to the northern suburbs and I introduced some tadpoles to our new pond, but the walls are to high and when the small frogs emerged they jumped out of the pond and couldn't get back in.

However our neighbours told us that the little frogs found their way to their pond and seem to be doing pretty well over there.

These guys had the most delightful call

I might have a healthy fear of spiders, but this little fellow was so intriguing that I just had to take a picture. It reminds me of the spider (Shelob) from The Lord of the Rings films.

No idea what species this is, but it seems to have plenty of character to share

Last, but by far not the least, is the inspiration behind this post. This weekend my wife spotted a Cape Dwarf Chameleon living in our garden! These guys are just to cool and pretty for words.

Cape Dwarf Chameleon (Kaapse Dwerg-verkleurmannetjie - Bradypodion pumilum) on  my wife's hand

"Ah man ... how did they see me?"

I managed to take a short video clip for everybody's enjoyment. (It's not very good since I don't like to disturb the animals to much for the sake of a great photograph. I'm happy with mostly "for the record" stuff.)

Video of the little guy making his desperate escape

And if you were wondering whether he managed to climb up the trunk to safety? He did.

Fed up with the landlord harassing him, he took the straightest path he could find back into the tree for some peace and quiet

The moral of the story: always keep your eyes open, you never know what you can find, even in your own back yard.

(Hopefully I'll have some camera trap images for you after Christmas.)

For The Birds

This post wraps things up from the Magaliesberg trip. A couple of common bird species visited the cameras during the short period we were there.

Laughing Dove (Rooiborsduifie - Streptopelia senegalensis) in flight

One can find the doves living throughout the whole of South Africa.

On the hunt...

Another common species that you are bound to run into throughout most of South Africa is the Cape Robin-Chat.

The Cape Robin-Chat (Gewone Janfrederik - Cossypha caffra) is always friendly and inquisitive towards humans

A proud little fellow

The resident Natal Francolin also made the best of the feast. For the untrained eye these guys might look like the Cape Francolin (I commonly photograph at Tygerberg), but there are subtle differences and their ranges don't overlap.

Natal Francolin (Natalse Fisant - Pternistes natalensis) sizing up a piece of bread

The Kurrichane Thrush also has a close relative (I've photographed) living in the Western Cape, the Olive Thrush.

Kurrichane Thrush (Rooibeklyster - Turdus libonyanus) arriving on the scene

Where did all the food go?

Yet another species I've also photographed it the Magaliesberg, as well as at Tygerberg, is the Southern Masked-Weaver. They are also very common throughout the whole of South Africa.

A male Southern Masked-Weaver (Swartkeelgeelvink - Ploceus velatus) coming to see what all the fuss is about

The female munching on some crumbs

I've camera trapped the Southern Boubou on two occasions in the Magaliesberg. Its range extends into the Western Cape, including Tygerberg, but surprisingly I've never photographed any at Tygerberg.

Southern Boubou (Suidelike Waterfiskaal - Laniarius ferrugineus) getting his share of the bounty

The Dark-Capped Bulbul looks a lot like the Cape Bulbul found in the Western Cape, the biggest difference being the area around their eyes.

Dark-Capped Bulbul (Swartoogtiptol - Pycnonotus tricolor) checking out the camera

Although the Crested Barbet is fairly common in the North and East of the country, they aren't found in the Western Cape, making this fellow a welcome addition to my camera trapping records.

Crested Barbet (Kuifkophoutkapper - Trachyphonus vaillantii) in the mood for some fruit

And lastly, we have the Arrow-Marked Babbler and what a fitting name "Babbler". These guys are a noisy bunch, but I tend to like them because they seem to be full of character, although a somewhat questionable one at that...

In Afrikaans their known as (roughly translated) "Arrow-Marked Cat-Laugher", makes one think of laughing cats... None of the Babler species are found down South, making this another new camera trap record for me.

The Arrow-Marked Babbler (Pylvlekkatlagter - Turdoides jardineii) clearly has a few screws loose...

These guys move around in small groups, laughing as they go.

The troop descends

And to wrap things up here are two photographs I took of some huge ants.

These are possibly some species of Polyrhachis

Sharing lunch