Later in the afternoon we had a lecture from Giles Gush, the owner of Woodbury Tented Camp, about some paleontology discoveries that had occurred on Amakhala in 1845 when Dr William Guybon Atherstone and Mr. Andrew Geddes Baines discovered the jaw of a Stegosaurus, Paranthodon africanus. This discovery is the first to have occurred in Southern Africa. However it was not officially identified until 1994, despite the efforts of these men. Following this we had a presentation about Brown Hyenas conducted by Jess Comley, a grad student of Dr. Parker’s. She discussed the unique features of this species and that her study showed that Brown Hyena can have more successful population growth on smaller, more enclosed reserves with other carnivores present, rather than on open, large arid areas. This presentation showed us some of the opportunities which we could aspire to in the future.
Dinner this evening consisted of lamb stew, mashed potato, vegetables and fresh bread, with milk tart for dessert. After dinner, our instructors revealed the big surprise they had been keeping from us all day: our very first night game drive! While on the drive we saw some of the more nocturnal species like Springhare, Cape scrub hare, Black-backed Jackals and had an up close and personal encounter with the lioness and her two sub-adult offspring until they went off to meet up with the male lion. The experience with the lions was a heart racing event for those on the Land Rover, but an experience not to be missed!
Our day ended back at the dining hall for tea, coffee and hot chocolate to warm up with, before departing to our tents for the night.
Up close and personal with lions!
The lioness…a bit too close for comfort for some (especially for Dr. Gray)
We ended our walk with a visit to the Harold Trollope Museum, which consisted of many taxidermic specimens of wild African animals that were culled for conservational purposes by some very brave men. After our walk we had some down time where we did some group bonding. We looked at the pictures we took on our game drive, listened to music and reflected on our day in our field journals. Our last activity of the day was a presentation from Jen and Giles (owners of Amakhala Woodbury tented camp) on the history and development of the game reserve. We learned that the land being used today was once used for agricultural purposes however due to variable weather conditions it was not economical to continue farming. Eleven farms in the surrounding area joined together to establish Amakhala Game Reserve. We had a traditional South African Braai for dinner, which was very delicious, and a great way to end the night!!
The morning of our first official day at Amakhala Game Reserve started a little chilly and foggy but quickly turned itself around as we had a wonderful breakfast and set out in two groups on our first game drive. We saw a lot of incredible mammals and birds in action. A few of the mammals we saw were the eland, water buck, kudu, elephant, warthog, lion, vervet monkey, blesbok, rhinoceros, wildebeest, and the red hartebeest. A few of the birds we saw were the ant eating chat, fork-tailed drongo, speckled mousebird, southern boubou, African fish eagle, black headed heron, cape longclaw, pied and cape crow, ostrich, helmeted guinea fowl, common fiscal, hoopoe, and brown hooded kingfisher. Some of the highlights on the game drive included witnessing a lion kill and having a very close encounter with two of the elephants on the reserve. Witnessing the lion kill was a very educational example of a predator prey relationship in the wild. We not only saw the lions make the kill, but we also heard a few of the other species (including the vervet monkeys and the cape crows) give alarm calls to warn one another that there was an approaching predator. The elephant sightings were also very interesting. We got to see the elephants in their natural habitat and observe their ecological niche. We looked at what they were eating and talked about their physical appearance and any slight differences that were seen between the two of them.
