Enthusiast, Eco-Tourist, Objectivist

Lived large as a Game Ranger, and back

[vincentstander]

random ones

just some random snaps from the week...

(1) my favourite street sign in the nearby town (Hluhluwe). I love that the minister of health has given his stamp of approval by the picture insert in the top right. School girls really do destroy lives!

(2) controversial...chill-ax! we went to dart some rhino yesterday

(3) fences in africa - i felt like saying something really thought provoking here about free roaming animals, tribal lands and then talk about imposed political boundaries. but my english not good.

(4) Rhino Beetle! member of the famous small 5!...

...in order to draw constant attention away from the big 5 there has been a clever play on names to get more exposure for africa's little wonders: leopard tortoise, rhino beetle, buffalo weaver, ant lion and the four toed elephant shrew!

(5) not in the small 5...but a trap door spider. check out plying the trap door open with a little swiss army knife. rad^sick!

[vincentstander]

a quickie

cheetah are ridiculous.

drive along the freeway, get your car going at 120km/hr and then stick your head out the window. honestly...just for a brief second...feel the wind resistance and check how quickly the ground is moving beneath you.

now to think that a land creature can run, change direction and land a pin point ankle tap on its prey at that speed is just mind boggling.

Hands down my new favourite animal. Top three favourite animal list now stands at:

1. Cheetah

2. Insect eating bat (eats 600 mosquitoes per hour)

3. Ants (they can find and get into a pack of sweets lying anywhere in the world in a couple of minutes)

Back to cheetah...some cool adaptations for this specialisation in speed:

- smaller teeth which allows more room in the skull for the enlarged nasal passages and maximum oxygen intake

- length and elasticity in its spine (without the effect of its legs and merely from the coiling and uncoiling of the spine the cheetah could move at 15km/hr)

- give birth to small cubs (femals make kills, i.e. run at 120km/hr, a week before giving birth to a litter of up to 6 cubs)

- claws are not retractible like other cats, effectively acting as sprinters spikes. (honestly, who thought of all this stuff!?)

an image i downloaded to show in the 1700's cheetah were used by european royalty for hunting local deer. they were transported to the hunt on horse back. 

[vincentstander]

Proof of the hard work we have to go through (that is an elephants thigh bone)

Giraffe chewing a bone (but i thought they were herbivores?!). apparently they do this to gain valuable calcium nutrients (see osteophagia). it looks so out of place donit?

Plenty of "exposure" walks in the next while...to see how animals react to people on foot. intense!

[vincentstander]

african buffalo

- buffalo being darted

- we have to hurry to get to a buffalo once it has fallen over because if it lies on its side too long it swallows its tongue and suffocates

- vets on hand to check for TB and Corridor disease

- lending a helping hand stabilising the inoculated beast so it doesnt topple over

- "walking" (rather tug-of-war) a drugged,  800kg animal into a truck

    Cool facts:

- cost for bulls sold R70k

- cost for cows sold R15 to R25k

- Records: R20m for cow, R18m for bull

- I manage to open the jaw and check for myself - one incisor indicate the animal is 2yrs old,  two incisors = 3yrs and 3 incisors = 4.5yrs

- "trippling" is when they cannot walk properly (on toes and short steps) because they are so boozed. "trippling trippling...everyday i'm trippling" (maybe?)

[vincentstander]

Cri-Key Mate!

It's been an awesome two week break. Highlights being a new surf board, durban surf, three meals at Marco Paulo, cricket game in kloof, vetkoek ("fat cake") with ouma ("granny"), and golden moments with the matriarch (Ouma II) talking about buddhism, photography and life.

Back to the bush this week, but thought i would provide the below "tool" used by the guys on our training course. Very similar to paper, scissors, rock...but with an Australian flavour and slightly controversial.

"Cri-Key Mate"...Crocodile defeats sting-ray which defeats Steve Irwin...which defeats crocodile.

[vincentstander]

hello...back online! its been an amazing last two weeks, where the focus has been practicing driving and guiding on the reserve. highlight by a long way was the leopard sighting on our last night. after the tropical cyclone the male leopards were out remarking their territory. while we were following this one BIG male another showed up...suddenly there was a lot of hissing and growling ("this is my territory") and then bang, two big hits and they darted off in separate directions not to be seen again that night. nuf sed! photos below: -  kingsley holgate junior doing some bush clearing so we could continue driving along our road. - then some leopard tracks (the tree lobes at the bottom of the back pad are very distinctive)...fresh tracks can at times be more exciting than finding the actually thing...i recon tracks are like the story book and the sighting is the movie. - the boys having a swim in our river water storage tanks on the second to last night. - there were plenty of sunrise photos...but i like this one. straight from the final scene in the Gladiator? stay classy ps. fact of the day - an insect eating bat eats 600 mosquitoes in an hour. my new favourite animal!

[vincentstander]

Some animal facts that i am sure most will enjoy

- an elephant can ejaculate up to 2 liters of semen at any given time

- a male lion has a barbed penis

- male drone bees genitals explode and snap off inside the queen bee during mating...this acts as a genital plug

- a female hyena has a pseudopenis, basically an enlarged clitoris that can erect at will

- mature male gorillas are huge weighing in at more than 200kgs, but their penis is less than 4cm long

- Rhino hold the record for the most protracted mating...copulation lasts a full 30 mins

- The elephants penis is remarkably dextrous, when the penis is flacid it is used to swat biting flies off the belly

[vincentstander]

hello...i will be out of contact for three weeks so thought i would double up with some photos tonight. not really micro biology...but i thought this may be better than another photo of an elephant or rhino. first is a little terapin that we found in a puddle on the 4x4 tracks, then we have a lunar moth and the third "thing" is yet to be identified...i have the insect field guide next to me. Catch you in three weeks!

[vincentstander]

i am loving the bush-stoke from everyone! thank you for the emails. and even though it is amazing being in this wilderness paradise...isolation comes at a price. we cleaned our shower tanks out this weekend as the water was stinking. maybe the algae, snails and dead and rotting genet bones could have been the reason...? and we do work till 11 every night. but its actually cool. black rhino weights 1000kg...but the white weights up to 2000kg...solid!

[vincentstander]

Not much in terms of animals sightings this week.

The focus for the week was 6 days of rifle training...incase you get charged by a plion, elephant or rhino. Thought you may appreciate photos of the shooting range we setup inside the reserve. I was extremely stoked to have taken out the shooting title...check the accuracy of the 30yr old city boy!

Hospitality training this week. i am looking forward to getting into some decent reds and a quality cup of coffee!

[vincentstander]

Torrential rain for two days with a brief respite this afternoon. Has anyone had a elephant-wallow-mud-fight in a big five game reserve...?

[vincentstander]

BIG thunderstorm which presented the first opportunity for a fresh water shower in two weeks.

[vincentstander]

week two was far less of a physical challenge... highlights: Getting acquainted with our new camp (the views are from the deck outside the kitchen ...aka pride rock) Spent the whole week searching and identifying tree and grass species. With the occasional big game sighting in between.

[vincentstander]

[vincentstander]

My year in the bush.

[vincentstander]