Camping with Petronella ; KTP May 2016

[GavinW]

YAY, YAY and YAY! Just the other day I discovered a sighting of him from August last year.
Now we got a very recent sighting of Ekon So happy to see he's alive and well.

I assume that was just past Samevloeeing considering that you found him about 5 kays out of TR?

5 kms south of Rooiputs
What can you tell me about Ekon?

[Mel]

Ekon is one of three of Elena's last known litter. He is about 4 years old. His sister Erela and Eileen haven't been seen for quite some time.
Erela disappeared before them three would break up their adolescence coaltion, but with Eileen there is still a chance that she split from
Ekon when she got into heat. They were in the Melkvlei area where Ekon was last seen too. And if he has any common sense, he's going to
move back up there. The Rooiputs area is not safe for him with the Top Cat Gang around.

[AstroMatt]

You also saw him with Eileen on 28/12/2014

[GavinW]

Thanks everyone for all the comments and info relating to Ekon. Another ID request coming up

Also sorry that it’s been a while since I last posted, but the weekend got a little hectic.

11 May: We head to Polentswa

We left Rooiputs at 7.30am after taking down our camp and loading into the Jap, which you can see is no easy task.



Our first sighting of the day as we headed north, was of probably the same hamerkop, a friend of ours was to see in a few days time, at the waterhole just north of Kij Kij





Near Melkvlei, this pastoral scene greeted us



And after a short stop at the picnic site, and a check around for any lions we continued

South of Gunong, some bat eared foxes were playing in the road ahead of us.
Unfortunately, as we got closer they moved off into the grass



Near Jan se Draai, we were told about 3 cheetahs in the river-bed hunting.

Initially we saw only one, which after walking along the river bed went towards a tree on the far side of the valley. It’s family members were flat under the tree.

We were lucky enough to capture these very zoomed in and cropped photos of the first cat as it walked along the river bed.




The day had started as the previous one had ended off, with cheetah and batties on view
Sometimes, after it has been raining, there is a small dam of water just south of Dikbaardskolk. This year, the dam was there as was an African Spoonbill. We wondered how it came to be in the Kgalagadi while it is a common resident, it’s home range is not in the KTP.





We arrived at Nossob at about lunch time, and Debbie immediately set off in search of Ron and Annette, some friends of ours who were in Nossob at the time, while I did all the admin stuff like getting petrol, wood and ice.

Once I had sorted my life out, I found Debbie with the others and we had a nice cup of tea and carrot cake with our friends.

We needed to investigate the new hide as well as the construction sites while we were there which we did.

The new Nossob hide is wonderful,





However, it has one major problem. If you sit on the bench provided, there is no ways you can reach the shelf in front of you to lean your camera out of the hole.



I have heard that the design flaw is to be rectified. I hope so.


The construction of the new ablution block prevents one from realistically being able to camp in the old non electrified campsites at the moment, so after asking Ron to keep a campsite for us for later in the week, when we would be back, we set off for Polentswa.

To meet Petronella.

[Richprins]

Nice, Gavin!

Leopard can pull very heavy weights into trees, basically if they can kill it they can lift it...

They do return to kills, but like cheetah ignore if there are lion and hyena around, as they have a high success rate on their own. Dunno about KTP, but they aren't massive scavengers, but will take fresh kills off weaker predators.

[GavinW]

We meet Petronella.

While I was doing my admin thing in Nossob, I met up with an old work colleague of mine, Bill Meyer, also a KTP addict. As one does, we chatted about where we had been, what we had seen and where we were headed off to in the future.

Big mistake

He had just returned from Polentswa, and had been in campsite no 1. The campsite we were headed off to.
He told us about Patronella, who we would meet there.

OK

We left Nossob and besides this stunning Cape Cobra, the road north provided little more than trees, bushes and the occasional bok
The snake crossed the road and went into the bushes on the left. Just look how long it is







We got to Polentswa, set up camp and chilled.

Sunset





Then exactly as Bill had promised we met Patronella

[Alf]

I don't like Petronella or the cape cobra

[Lisbeth]

How can they make such a stupid mistaking, building a new hide

Nice cheetah

That's a long Cape Cobra

Petronella looks very interested in the new campers

[PRWIN]

I think I might have taken a rock or two from there when we had to fix the trailer while we camped there

[GavinW]

12 May: Polentswa, puffs in a (not so) different way

We woke up on our first Polentswa morning to a slight breeze. The lions had been pretty vocal during the early hours of the morning, which was wonderful.
To lie in bed listening to the distant roar of lions is perfection.

When I got out of bed to make coffee etc before we set off for the day, and it was still pretty dark.

After a while I was on my way to the long drop, some 60m away, when suddenly a lion roared.

But, really loudly.

I know with lions the worst thing you can do is run. Well I ran, as fast as I could back to the tent.

Lots of big Anglo Saxon words followed as I tried to get my heartbeat back down to an acceptable level.
I took the bakkie to the loo, much to the amusement of my SO

Then I checked on Petronella. She was missing.

Ready for the day, we set off at sunrise to the waterhole, and was greeted by this stunning morning display:



We sat at the waterhole for a good half hour before our neighbours in no 3 arrived. They were in a group of about 3 or 4 vehicles all in radio contact with each other.

They paused for a while at the waterhole before setting off in a northerly direction.
As they leaving and getting onto the road north they stopped, and reversed.
We waited a while before FOMA set in and I went up to see what the attraction was.

3 male lions had been walking down the road in a southerly direction, and were now parked off on the side of the road.