Hi folks,

Rueben and I have just come back from Gonarezhou having completed the first half of the spoor survey we were doing there.  It was hard work and involved lots of driving, but was well worth it – it’s such a beautiful place.  We picked up evidence of good populations of spotted hyenas and leopards, but very few lion tracks and not very many wild dog tracks either.  We even picked up some cheetah spoor which was exciting, as I’m told cheetah are not often seen in the park.

We drove spoor transects in both the morning and evenings on most days – when the sun is at the best angle to see the tracks in the sand – and then just camped out where we ended up or where we wanted to start the next day.  A wonderful opportunity, and magical to lie in a tent and listen to the sounds of the bush all around: elephants splashing through the river, hyenas making a kill, nightjars singing and owls hooting. 

Elephant tracks crossing the dry river

As always, the scenery was stunning….

 and the wildlife was special.  (Nyala calf)

We were also lucky enough to see several herds of buffalo, elephants, hyenas on two separate occasions, and even a flash of a pair of leopards running across the road!  The birdlife is awesome too.

Although we didnt see any of them, the tracks we saw suggested the park also has good numbers of the smaller carnivores – civets, genets, porcupines, wild cats and even aardwolves.  Maybe we’ll get lucky during the next stage of the survey.

We’re off back to the park on Sunday, so the blog will once again be quiet for a while…

Rosemary