As per usual, I'm slacking on the blogging front. Things are really busy on the reserve, and I managed to have to spend a week in the hospital due to a nasty eye infection (uveitus). Luckily, South African health care is pretty spectacular. After a few eye injections, and five days of hourly eye drops (yes, 24 hours a day), I was back to work. Over the next few weeks, I'm hoping to finally post some photos of the reserve and what I am actually doing over here. For now, here are some photos from around the reserve:
These are some juvenile gemsbok (pronounced hemsbok). We were driving along the fence one day when we spooked a fairly large herd. Most of the herd ran in one direction while these four ran along side the care for several kilometers. The photo is slightly out of focus, but I love how you can see how they look at different ages. Adults have similar coloration to the larger subadults in this photo, but with much larger horns.
This is a young Blesbok. I actually think I may have taken this photo at the same time as the other blesbok I posted in May.
These are two photos of the same Caracal. Unfortunately, this is a captive caracal, but we do have some on our reserve.
This Rock Monitor was hanging out in a squirrel burrow cluster fairly close to the house. I hope to see more of them as it starts to warm up again (as long as they dont eat my squirrels).
The other day I realized that I had been conducting research here for about three months, and I still hadn't taken a single photos of my study species. Meet the cape ground squirrel! Most of my research involves looking at reproduction and juvenile survival, so I'm pleased to see that juveniles are starting to emerge from their natal burrows. This juvenile has just emerged, and is hanging out with one of the members of his social group.
This year, i'm using trail cameras to detect potential predators of newborn squirrel pups. We have set up some spare ones around the reserve, and have found some amazing nocturnal animals.
All of these short videos were taking at a burrow cluster pretty close to the fence of the reserve. At least in May and June, it was resident to an aardvark.
This is an aardwolf. Im pretty sure it was living close to this burrow cluster for at least a few weeks, at the same time as this aardvark and a pair of porcupines were living in the area.
Its hard to tell from this video, but in the original file you can really tell that these two jackals are hunting. They probably followed something into the area.
I had to save the best for last; here are some honey badgers (ratel)! They have only been spotted once on the cameras, but this may be the best recording of ratel in the park thus far!!!!
Right now I'm in Pretoria, preparing to leave for Kruger NP in the morning. I will finally have a few days to bring my camera out and take some photos, so prepare yourself for more frequent updates over the next little while.
