December Environmental news Chobe Game Lodge

Environmental News, Chobe Game Lodge
December 2008

Wild Dog taking a break during the heat of the day

Chobe has received more than 260mm of rain during December – almost half of our annual average. The heaviest showers fell on the 22nd when we had a total of 97mm for the day. The Chobe River has also started pushing up its levels and we are anticipating another year of exceptional flood waters as it seems to be raining quite heavily in the Chobe’s catchment areas.

This is now truly a time of plenty for just about all life forms out here in the bush, albeit not always the life forms our visitors are all equally keen to see. It is especially the six legged inhabitants of Chobe that are very conspicuous in the rainy season, and dinner time is always punctuated by random shrieks of horror when our guests make the acquaintance of some of the larger insects attracted to the lights. They are all quite harmless and all have an important role to play in our ecosystem out here. Their sheer abundance is a good indication that we live in a healthy ecosystem. It is not only the insect species that are now trying to complete their life cycles before the dry season starts again, but just about everything else out there from plants to mammals, birds and amphibians all seem to be either hard at work making new babies, or hard at work raising the new babies! We have seen an incredible amount of newcomers to the Chobe district, from the thousands of baby impala around to the local hyena clans’ pups. The hyena pups we reported on last month are now very accustomed to getting attention when vehicles pass by the den, and will quite often come over for a closer inspection of the vehicles and their passengers. The next new arrivals at Chobe will most probably be the baby kudu, as there are many heavily pregnant females around.

Some of Chobe’s new residents:

Spotted hyena cub Photo: Kai van Dongen

Leopard sightings were a bit hard to come by due to the lush vegetation. Unless they did us a favour by posing up in a dead tree!

The lush vegetation as well as the constant rain made the game activities a bit more challenging than normal but we were well rewarded with some excellent sightings of leopard, lion and wild dogs. The dogs have yet again been absent for a month or two but graced us again with their presence over the last week as they quite curiously always seem to visit us over Christmas and New Year.

A pair of male giraffe.

Two of our local lionesses. The were quite active hunting on the floodplains along Watercart Loop.

For those interested in birding, Chobe is the place to be right now! The Chobe Game Lodge team of guides participating in the Birding Big Day of November 29th is now the current holder of the new record for the Chobe region with 192 species counted in one day! Our team started counting early on the morning of the 29th going out in a Game Drive vehicle and switched to a boat for the afternoon leg of the count. 192 species was not a bad total at all, but can still be improved upon next year as the Chobe National Park is home to more than 460 species of birds.

Male and female ostriches with their new family. Photo: Kai van Dongen

Ostrich chick up close Photo: Kai van Dongen

We anticipate receiving even more rain for the next month and may be heading to a record year if it keeps raining like it does now. The rain and subsequent lush vegetation may make game viewing a little harder than normal, but it certainly is the time of year when the bush is at its most beautiful. We do also have a lot of smaller creatures that inhabits Chobe, most of them perhaps not as charismatic or majestic as the big cats, but in many respects just as interesting and rewarding to watch.

From the Chobe Game Lodge Guides Team we wish everyone all the best for 2009 and will report back on all the news in our area early in the New Year.

Compiled By: Wouter Theron, Environmentalist, Chobe Game Lodge

Profile on Guide, Kagiso Gabanne

Guide: Kagiso Gabanne

Camp Moremi

Goes by: Kagiso (which means “peace” in Setswana)
Date of Birth: March 10, 1962
Home village: Etsha 6
Desert & Delta guide since: 2003

Favorite animal or bird: Leopard because “he’s more difficult than other animals to see him.”

Favorite reference book or tool: “Newman’s Birds of Southern African Birds” by Kenneth Newman

Favorite food: maize meal

Special talent: carving wooden animals

A hope for his lifetime: “To do good things in my life.”

Most memorable experience at Camp Moremi: One night he heard something moving outside his room. He opened his door and found a hippo standing face-to-face with him, “just standing watching me. I go back and close (the door) very quick. I wonder when I can get out. I go back and dream of hippo coming in my room.”

Best thing about Camp Moremi: “Most of the animals are here.”

What makes Botswana special: “I think the people living in Botswana are most friendly. It’s a peaceful country and has good game that people like to come and see.”

Interviewed by Maria Henson, volunteer, Desert & Delta Safaris

Management Training Xugana Island Lodge

Management training at Xugana in January 2009

Adrienne and Limbo conducted three days of management development training recently at Xugana. Angera, Lodge Manageress of Xugana gave a very informative tour of the lodge explaining all her boards and systems to ensure smooth "back of house" operations and service excellence for all guests. Subjects were very varied and included company structure and lodges, staff wellness, safety, guest relations, accounts, procedures, leadership, culture and localisation. Our management trainees come from all regions of Botswana with a wide variety of qualifications and experience. Some have degrees obtained in South Africa, many have obtained their Certificate in Hospitality Operations at our local College, Maun Technical College and 90% have been promoted through the ranks into these positions. We wish them all the very best as they practice these skills back in the lodges with the passion and professionalism our guests are always talking about.

Desert & Delta Safaris

Maria Henson

Thank you to Maria Henson

Desert & Delta Safaris would like to thank Maria for all the wonderful stories and contribution to our blog which include the profiles she did of our guides and managers before returning to the US after a year’s sabbatical in Botswana. Maria added a wonderful dimension to our management teams in the lodges during her visits which started as a mystery guest on assignment to check on the consistency of standards and levels of service between all the lodges.

Her Pulitzer prize-winning journalistic skills were put to very good use for the blog and we will miss her enthusiasm about everything and anything – even helping with a curio shop stocktake! Maria’s interest in the culture of the Batswana and her passion for children were a brilliant combination at Leroo La Tau where she organized a painting competition at the local school with the best paintings now on sale in the curio shops. The idea is to raise money to buy traditional outfits for the school to offer cultural performances to our guests. Her hat burning ceremony in the company of guest who is a world famous milliner at Camp Moremi on the night Obama won will also never be forgotten. We will miss Maria and we wish her every success as she tries to find a reason to get back to our beautiful country!

Thank you Maria – from Adrienne and all at Desert & Delta Safaris

Maria in Moremi

Below is an extract from her blog "mariainbotswana"

Maria in Africa
The beauty of the Okavango Delta and the utter stillness of the wilderness in Botswana stoked a fire in me to give up my professional life for a year and leap into the unknown. This is my pilgrimage to the continent that opened my heart. As I prepare to fly away from Botswana today, I find that the words I wrote then hold true:

I know that stillness speaks. I know that the sky can sing. I know that unity with the other is possible beyond words and recognizable by only the slightest thread in ordinary space and time. I know that culture is learned, customized like a suit of clothes, but the day may come when the suit is threadbare and no longer of use. I know that fire and water hold magnificent power and that rocks have stories to tell. And I know that the trees stand as witness and healers to the world. I know that tracks in the sand point to the animal but are not the animal, just as spiritual paths point to the truth but are not the truth. I know that dominion over nature can be only a temporary exercise. The cycle will turn, round and inside out. What is nature if not ourselves?
Often in my time in Botswana I have met tourists intent on checking off the animals on their lists. They have watched the National Geographic documentaries, so they arrive tuned and ready: "Lion…Order up!" They simply MUST see a lion or a leopard or a wild dog or a cheetah. They don’t want to hear how filmmakers spent a year in the bush to capture the images seen on TV. They look to the guide to deliver on demand.
Is it any surprise that the vibe of "power and control" is in the air when they take their first steps on the Maun tarmac wearing their starched khaki ensembles, with a host of techno-camper gadgets at the ready? I wonder if the animals sense it, because they sometimes prefer to hide away on their own holiday rather than meet the guests. I like to imagine the elephants down by the water hole stamping their feet and sharing a few chuckling snorts about the Air Botswana parade. They tell their jokes and before the guests return from an afternoon game drive, the ellies amble off silently in all directions, lickety-split into the bush, just for the fun of leaving lodge managers to say, "You just missed them! I promise. There must have been 10 bull elephants at the water hole, not 5 minutes ago."
What I wish for anyone who visits Botswana is to arrive with senses wide open for all that can be perceived. An opening of the heart will surely follow, by virtue of approaching the land’s treasures with the reverence of a novitiate, from the Fireball lily ablaze in scarlet to the dung beetle rolling a ball of wet buffalo poo with Herculean purpose. Where is that armored fellow going with that boulder of dung and at such speed? Sit and watch. The landscape and its occupants are grand, the whole of it, not just The Big Five.

Across the planet we are all sojourners among landscapes in constant change. It’s easy to miss the unfolding of the miracles where most of us live, stuck in traffic jams, a Bluetooth in our ear, a Blackberry on our dash. Underneath it all and through it all is a tapestry of nature woven from morning to night and all night through, indeed woven right through us. We forget to look for the gossamer threads. We’re walking amnesiacs huddled on street corners waiting for the light to say proceed. Here, in Africa, the recognition slaps us in the face, wakes us up. This is the light you’ve been waiting for. This is where you came from, this is what you’re connected to, this is the new news, same as the old news. Forget Times Square, for a digital moment anyway.

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Profile on Guide, Kitsoyaone Montsheki

Guide: Kitsoyaone Montsheki

Goes by: Kitso (which means “knowledge” in Setswana)
Date of Birth: Dec. 7, 1979
Home village: Etsha 6

Desert & Delta guide since: 2006

Favorite animal or bird: Leopard “because it’s beautiful. African jacana because I like its social structure.”

Favorite reference book or tool: “Beat about the Bush: Mammals” by Trevor Carnaby

Favorite food: “I like traditional food: beef seswaa (pounded meat) and phaletshe.”

Special talent: guiding

A hope for his lifetime: “I want to be a businessman.”

Most memorable experience as a guide: He was mock charged by a male lion when he was guiding at Xugana Island Lodge.

Best thing about Camp Moremi: Game viewing

What makes Botswana special: “Political stability – that’s the main thing.”