Environmental report from Chobe Game Lodge - March / April 2008

Chobe Game Lodge's Environmentalist, Wouter Theron, reports on the happenings at Chobe Game Lodge over the past month as follows:

March marked the changeover between the dry and wet seasons in 2008 for Chobe. We measured a total 96.5mm in total for the month with the heaviest shower falling on the 1st when we measured 34mm. Most of the rain came in the form of loose showers lasting no more than 10 or 20 minutes. The change between wet and dry happened very abruptly around the 18th, with the first 2 weeks still hot and humid and the latter part of the month relatively cool and dry. After the last rain falling on the 18th one could definitely feel the chill of the oncoming winter more and more every morning.

The Chobe River came down in its annual flood and reached its peak levels around the 10th. It did come up rather high but nowhere near the levels of the 2007 season.

New Males in Chobe Lion Pride:

Our local pride of lions has been without any pride males for quite a long time now. We recently had 2 new males moving into the area, and it looks like they have decided to stay. They have mostly been seen in the vicinity of the pride but not really with them, so we assume that they haven’t really been accepted yet. Male lions normally meet with quite a bit of resistance when they take over new prides as the females are reluctant to accept strange males.

The absence of any pride males meant that we very seldom heard any roaring at night over the last 6 months or so. Due to the absence of any pride males one could only very infrequently hear the females roar, as a form of contact call when they were separated. Pride males tend to be very vocal since they roar as one of their ways to advertise their presence on their territory. Having new males in the area now means that we have the signature sound of an African night back again at Chobe – the King of the Beasts roaring at night!

The new males are still relative young, probably not much more than about 4 ½ years in age. The guides reported that they are very shy and secretive and often aggressive towards the vehicles as well. Their shyness definitely faded away rather quickly, and they paid a visit to Chobe Game Lodge on a number of occasions. On the picture below one of them can be seen checking if Mario, our Maintenance Manager, is at the office yet. The picture is courtesy of Field Guide Modibu.

During the 1st week of the month the big cats were very active in the Sedudu Valley area. At the end of February a big elephant died in that area, and the lions quickly moved in to feed on the nearly 5 tons of free meat. On the morning of the 3rd some of our guides were watching a few of the lions as they were taking a break from a hard nights’ feeding, when a luckless impala stumbled across the sleeping lions. They quickly killed it but were too full to actually eat it and left it for the vultures. 3 days later another impala’s luck ran out near the elephant carcass, this time the lions opted to feed on the fresh and tender impala – rather than the by now rather ripe elephant. Within the same week, as if they were not satisfied with the amount of elephant meat they’ve already consumed, the pride killed a baby elephant near the Sedudu Pan. They didn’t stick around too long however, leaving most of the elephant meat untouched. It would seem they were a bit tired of elephant meat after all. From here the pride moved west to Kabulabula where there is always an abundance of old male buffalos. They quickly tracked down and killed one of the grumpy old men, but were never able to finish it – a big male elephant chased them off the carcass. Payback for killing his family and friends! Before the lions could get back to the carcass, it was claimed by the waiting vultures and later a few hyenas joined in as well.

Other Sightings:

Our leopard sightings were a bit few and far in between as can be expected this time of year with the dense undergrowth. This doesn’t mean these elusive cats were not active; we did record quite a few sightings and also had a female very active in the vicinity of the Lodge.

We were also excited to record a sighting of and even a photograph (albeit not a great one) of a caracal, one of the smaller members of the cat family. Caracals are solitary cats and are very effective and agile hunters of smaller animals like guinea fowl and rodents and even prey up to the size of steenbok and young impalas. They are regarded as vermin in some parts of South Africa, but are not often seen in Chobe. This is due to the fact that they are most active at night, making this sighting of one in broad daylight even more special.

The show belonged to the smaller members of our Chobe Animal Family during March with regards to excitement. We had some fun and games with snakes as is normally the case in March. With the hot humid weather they are normally very active, and we’ve had large numbers of them around as they got flushed out of the floodplains of the Caprivi by the rising floodwaters. They were also trying to fatten up for the cold dry winter ahead of them, making them more active and conspicuous. Some of the customers we’ve had to remove from the Lodge grounds included Spotted Bush Snakes, Puff Adder, Olive Grass Snakes and Boomslang. The most exciting encounter happened on the 13th (good thing it wasn’t a Friday), when we had an Anchieta’s Cobra that entered the greenhouse at the workshop area. He caught a nice fat squirrel inside the greenhouse, and when he tried to make good his escape through the diamond mesh of the greenhouse he got stuck right at the bulge in his body where the squirrel was.

Of course that meant he wasn’t a very happy cobra and it also meant we had to get up close and personal with him to try and get him out. Mario had to push his body out from inside the green house while pulling the diamond mesh up. Wherever possible we never kill snakes if they enter the Lodge grounds, even the venomous species. We are inside their habitat after all, so we normally capture them and release them away from the Lodge. The cobra was eventually captured quite successfully and released a long way from the Lodge in the park.

The catch and release policy with regards to snakes is not applied to any extent by the troop of banded mongoose that inhabit the area around Chobe Game Lodge. These little guys normally sleep in burrows they excavate at various places around the Lodge area. On the evening of the 25th their sleeping burrow happened to be at one of the management houses. At around 20:00 Rodney Gerrard, our accountant, and his family heard the mongooses going wild – a big African Rock Python of just less than 2m was trying to help himself to a dinner of mongoose pups down in the burrow. The brave little mongooses wasn’t going to let that happen without putting up a stiff fight though, and within a few minutes the fight was over and they left the big python behind for dead. It was severely mauled and we presumed it was dead when we removed it from the Gerrards’ home, but on our return in the morning to take pictures it was gone. It might have just been down for the count after its mongoose encounter, or its’ been dragged off and eaten by a scavenger during the night.

Birdlife:

We are lucky enough to have a pair of Schalow’s Turacos take residence at the Lodge. These birds are quite secretive and prefer to stay high in the canopies of the bigger Brown Ivory trees in the gardens. They are heard often but rarely seen. Below is a picture taken on one of the rare occasions when they present themselves for viewing.

Schalows’ Turaco

Other notable sightings were that of the Black Crowned Night Heron; a rare species active around watercourses at night, Lizard Buzzard, Collared Sunbirds, and also Three Banded Plovers – another mostly nocturnal species.

The above was just some highlights of wildlife news happening in Chobe. Every day brings something new and interesting out here in the bush and we will keep you posted on our sightings and experiences in May as well.