South Africa ~ Moholoholo Mountain View

Dan'l came by this morning to see my sketchbook. He spent an appreciative three hours with it, asking questions and puzzling out conundrums with me (why do Africa's shrubs have such prevalent thorns while American shrubs seldom have them?  What technique do millipedes use to keep from tangling up their many legs? How did the Voortrekker women (South African Dutch pioneers) use termite mounds for bake-ovens without getting bit by the mound defenders?). We always have fun with this kind of stuff, even if we can only speculate.

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DAY 1 at Moholoholo

Can you see the twig snake?

Our program, at Moholoholo started on August 3, with a warthog dissection.  Actually, the day started out with the amazing sight of a Twig Snake in a tree, waiting for some sunshine so it could warm up and start moving.  Our ranger/guide Pickett pointed it out to us. It was hard to see, even only two feet above our heads, since it was the same size as the twigs it rested on and its scales almost exactly mimicked the tree bark. You can spot it in the photo because it's head is a bit bigger.  Resting on a branch, its head would blend and you probably wouldn't see it at all.

Pickett trains us in anatomy

Now, as I was saying: warthog dissection.  The Coyote Trails course we're contemplating for next year is a practical one with many survival techniques covered. The female  warthog provided not only an amazing anatomy lesson from Pickett, including parts you could eat raw (the kidney was sweet, slightly chewy) and parts you probably wouldn't want to eat. It's good to know how to survive in the bush, and this was inherent in the course, so we had been expecting it.

We all took part in skinning and preparing it to use as bait later, when we would hang it in a weeping bushwillow tree to lure a leopard to to the wildlife cam. When the dissection was finished, I sketched the head, adding notes (taken from Pickett's comments) about how the curling mustache on a tuskless female resembles the tusks on an adult boar, so that a predator might mistake a defenseless female for a wicked-toothed boar if it got only a glance, and not try to catch it. Not having a toothy boar head to draw, I sketched a nearby warthog boar skull, which tells the tale nicely.

These aren't to scale ~ the boar would be twice that size!

Then we piled onto a game drive truck to go out into Moholoholo Reserve to put the warthog bait in place. We were all eager to see if we could lure the leopard in, and to do that we all took turns dragging bits of warthog along the trails to the tree so the leopard would know it was there.  Since there were leopard tracks right in the road, we figured we had a good chance of success, and the tracks added a thrill to the proceedings.

Sandy records her track notes

We got a chance to study tracks this morning and every day of the course, with comparisons between species, discussion about what the animal was doing to create that particular track, and a great many other things, such as when the track was made, why, how, and even what direction the animal was looking as it stepped along.  My roommate, Sandy, was studying diligently for her tracking certification, and  I was busily sketching every free moment, and well into the night, so we made perfect roommates (each involved in our own pursuits) and became good friends in our free moments.

The female is chewing bones as the dark male watches

The Reserve harbors a wonderful array of wildlife, from white rhinos and kudus to elands, pythons (we smelled one but never saw it) baboons and hippos and MANY other native wildlife.One of my favorite sightings was this giraffe pair. The female, on the left, was busily chewing bones with deep, hollow crunches (they do this regularly ~ to get enough calcium to support all those neck bones, I guess), while the male on the right watches. The male is unusually dark, and I understand that giraffes continue to darken as they age, so perhaps it is very old. 

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I have run out of time today.  More tomorrow or the next day.

Back from South Africa

A giraffe at Moholoholo

South AFRICA?  Okay, so you didn't even realize I was making a trip to South Africa?  Actually it was one of those things that had been in the planning stages for a year and a half. Since you can't think about something like that for a whole eighteen months, I put it completely out of my mind until, WHOA! Better get movin'!  And then, involved with preparations, I didn't leave time to blog about it before I left.  Duh. 

It was an absolutely terrific three week journey, separated into three distinct parts, with the expectation of recording the entire event in one of my travel sketch journals within the next few months, like the ones here.

Laying track for a leopard photo shoot

Part 1 ~ Ten days with Joe and Sandy, Coyote Trails School of Nature staff, plus student Johann and his mom, Alessandra at Moholoholo Mountain View Camp to scope out a course in tracking and bush survival Coyote Trails is scheduling for high school kids next year. I did lots of sketching and journaling during the ten days. We also took a drive through Kruger National Park in our rental car to check out the wildlife.  

At Marc's Treehouse Lodg

Part 2 ~ Then I took off on my own for five days at Marc's Treehouse, living in a tree house above the Klaserie River with sketching a high priority, but also making a couple of trips into Kruger National Park on game drives  undertaken in a vehicle with a top for shade but open on all sides, perfect for viewing wildlife in any direction.

Sketching frog behind the bar

Part 3 ~ Then I spent four days at Panzi Bush Camp, with time for more sketching and journaling, plus lots of laid-back enjoyment of the thorny African bushveld. Panzi Bush Camp has a waterhole and a viewing deck,  located right next to my cabin, so a lot of time was spent on the deck sketching and soaking up the atmosphere. Exploratory walks with the naturalist, Glynn, were an added enjoyment, and I was able to get many of my questions about wildlife, tracks, and the African environment and vegetation answered. And the great food ~ oh, my!

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And now ~ I'm going to blog this over the course of the next several days, as I'm still sorting the dross from the 2500 photos I took.  The photos were in addition to sketch/journaling 43 pages in my sketchbook, with a number of additional pages partly begun and in line for finishing before I can put it up online. 

Drawing by flashlight

I was pretty focused, I guess.  Many nights found me coloring sketches by flashlight and booklight, using my photos for reference. That's what I'm doing in this photo at right (gotta find a better way!)

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Before I left, I spent a LOT of time tweaking my gear. If you recall, in December while in Belize I had a sticky problem with my vitamins getting moist and gumming up in the container.

Keeping the Vitamins Dry

I resolved that problem this time (although not technically necessary because the bushveld of South Africa isn't humid) by dropping one day's supply into a plastic bag, tying it off, then dropping in the next day's supply, etc. I got two week's worth in one plastic bread bag.  It worked perfectly, plus I later used the little strings for page markers in my field guides, a happy surprise use.

Baboons can glare like real hoodlums

Next blog I will tell about some of the fascinating things that happened during the first ten days at Moholoholo.  I helped bait a camera set-up for leopard (see the image above, under Part 1), tracked a wild white rhino and her calf through thornbush veld, and learned to identify tracks and sign of giraffe, wildebeest, leopard, rhino, kudu, impala, baboon and other African wildlife.

baboon tracks

I  also pursued my artistic investigations of acacia thorns, geckos, bushwillow fruits, bone-chewing giraffes, porcupine quills, and many other interesting subjects. 

And oh! the incredible birds!  I identified 101 species in my 21 days, a very satisfying number for this part-time birder.  

Lilac-breasted Roller

So! Stay tuned for the next installment!