Binoculars

After a recent short visit to the Tarangire and spending some time with guides I felt that I would like to write something about binoculars, but not so much what a binocular is but what an effective guiding tool it becomes if used properly. A common thing I saw is how little some guides use their binoculars, which I can’t understand as mine, was glued to my face almost all the time. Binoculars become a vital tool when you are in the field guiding and if you use them properly can play a big role in what you will find and what you could tell and show your guests. It can also help you interpret useful and different information to your guests, telling them what you see or can see through binoculars. A common mistake in guiding is jumping to conclusions and many of these mistakes or miss identification could be avoided by just spending a bit more time looking through your binoculars.

With binoculars you will notice the pretty blue above the eye

There is nothing better than sitting with a group of animals or maybe a pretty interesting bird and just watching them through binoculars, this is when you notice animal and bird behavior and often things that you don’t always read in a book. A good example is the Little Bee Eater it is a fairly common bird seen in the parks and absolutely worth stopping next to and showing your guests and everybody will admire its beauty. When looking at it with binoculars and getting your guests to do the same you will also notice another hidden color this bird has which is the most amazing blue above its eye. You can then go further and watch it hunt, sitting on a favorite perch with a clear view where it can scan the air for any flying insects. After catching something it will often return to the same perch and smack the insect against a branch until it is dead and can be swallowed. If he caught a butterfly you will also see how he first discards the wings before swallowing.  All of this is really interesting stuff to see and show your guests, and all it takes is a few minutes of looking through your binoculars and interpreting what you see and this you can do with almost any other animal.

 Another important use for binoculars is to stop and scan your surroundings especially if you are battling to find stuff, my favorite saying when guests come back from a drive and say “We saw everything this morning except a Leopard” is that it does not mean there was no leopard you just did not see it! Sometimes you drive through an area and you think to yourself “Man there must be something interesting here” and if you stop, switch of the vehicle and just do a good thorough scan with your binoculars you will often find that there is something special.

It does not mean there was no Leopard, you just did not see it!

From far away just another sausage tree, but looking through binoculars, something special!

Another fine example of scanning, we found this Lioness out on the Lemai Plains in a small Balanites after stopping and scanning.

So next time when you are out guiding try and use your binoculars a bit more then normal and you will see it makes a huge difference, it opens up a whole new world of hidden things and by getting your guests to do the same it makes them feel more part of the whole experience, after all, you did not bring your binoculars along for nothing!!

Incredible Siafu !

So I think all of us (including some unlucky guests) at some stage had a run in with these guys. I can remember in the Northern Serengeti they are particularly bad. On a number of occasions we got home after hosting dinner and would find our house completely covered in Siafu, they would be everywhere, so much so that we had to go and sleep somewhere else for that night. Sometimes the guests would also call and let us know that their tent is covered in millions of ants, and we would normally end up moving them as well, really tricky when the camp is fully booked.

But every time I pass a big column of Siafu ants I cant help but stop and watch them, they are mesmerizing almost like sitting around and watching a camp fire burn, as they move along in their millions.

Siafu ants on the move with larvae.

Siafu or also known as driver ants or safari ants are from the genus Dorylus. They are found mainly in central and East Africa but also extend into tropical Asia. The Siafu is without a doubt the king of swarm, marching columns can contain up to 20,000,000 individuals a truly scary sight and when food sources become scarce and the move home the numbers can grow up to 50,000,000. What I have noticed up in Northern Serengeti is that their movements increase when there is good or heavy rainfall, as there will also be all kinds of other insects out and about. Siafu are predators and they move in huge columns attacking, killing and feeding on almost everything they find, bigger prey can also be killed especially if the animal can’t get away from the attacking ants and the animal will eventually die from asphyxiation which have also been reported occurring in humans.

Siafu swarming and feeding, Northern Serengeti.

However Siafu ants can be easily avoided if you know they are there, just don’t stumble into them in the dark or stand in their lines, they will be up your pants in no time and we all know what happens then.

The marching columns are arranged with the smaller ants walking in the middle and flanked by the bigger soldier ants on the sides giving them protection and they will fiercely defend against anything that might be a threat, often standing with their huge jaws open and pointing in the air ready to bite. A bite from a Siafu ant especially the big soldiers is extremely painful leaving two big puncture wounds and they are not easy to remove as their jaws are so strong that when you try and pull them of you often break them in half leaving the head behind. Because of the head often being broken of the body when trying to remove a biting ant, some tribes for example the Maasai have used them for emergency sutures, holding the wound together and letting a soldier ant bite on either side and then braking of the head, keeping the wound or cut in place, I have never seen this done but believe that it can work

Siafu columns hunting at night, Northern Serengeti.

Within a Siafu colony things are made up very similar to other types of ants where you have a queen, workers and soldiers, and as with most ants they are sterile non-reproducing females and blind, communicating primarily through pheromones. Male driver ants or also called sausage flies because of their big sausage like abdomens are attracted to columns of Siafu’s, when the columns come across a male they tear the wings of and carry him to be mated with the queen. Male driver ants leave the nest soon after hatching and die not long after mating.

Example of the soldier ants protecting the smaller ants in the middle, ready to bite !

So next time when you curse the bite of a Siafu ant, take a moment to remember what incredible and formidable hunters/predators they are of the insect world. Imagine a column of 20,000,000 lions!!!

Battle at Seronera!

Hi All, I wanted to share a series of amazing photographs I received from one of our Arusha guides Stanford Milinga, that his guests took. He was out on a Safari in the Seronera part of the Serengeti with his clients when they came onto the bellow scene, it is a tremendous battle between some lions and a big bull Buffalo. When it started, Stanford and his guests were the only people there and then was later joined by Harry Lucas and his guests.

It is indeed amazing and very lucky to witness something like this while on Safari and although many guests would like to see a kill from start to finish, it is seldom seen and when it does happen guests are often shocked as to how violent it is and then don't want to watch anymore, its not always a nice clean fast kill. This battle lasted for almost thirty minutes to one hour before the lions managed to finally kill the Buffalo, note how they keep away from those sharp horns in the front and keep attacking the Buffalo from the back. Basically what they are trying to do is tire the Buffalo out and get it of its feet only then can they go in for a kill by grabbing the animals neck and suffocating it. 

Well done Stanford this is indeed a once in a lifetime sighting. 

Butterflies

Who can drive around the bush or walk in a beautiful garden and not help noticing all the beautiful and sometimes very brightly colored butterflies flying around in all shapes and sizes. The thing is that most people do notice them and love looking at them but not many people know much about them. Butterflies are in a way like birding in that you need to look at the butterfly and then try and locate it in a book to see what its called. The problem is that most butterflies are very fast fliers and they often sit resting with their wings closed vertically above them, which can make identification difficult plus they are difficult to get close to. 

But butterflies are probably the most well known of all insects and many peoples favorite insects. Adults normally have beautiful colors and feed primarily on nectar but they also get nourishment from rotting fruit, animal dung and dissolved minerals in wet sand or dirt.  Butterflies have four stages in their development namely egg, larva, pupa and adult. The larval or caterpillar stage feed on different plants depending on specie and some are even host specific only feeding on one kind of plant or family of plants.

Lets look at a few common Butterflies that you normally see driving around and what they are called, these butterflies are great to point out, as they are very pretty! 

African Monarch (Danaus chrysippus)

The African Monarch is a very common butterfly that you see al the time flying around, the larvae of this butterfly feeds on the Milkweed family of plants, because the plants are poisonous it makes the butterfly foul tasting and not palatable to predators and this is why he also flies very slowly as he knows he does not have to worry about anything eating him. He is mainly orange and black, typical warning colors that he is poisonous and not good to eat.

African Monarch Butterfly ( Danaus chrysippus), image from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Broad –bordered Grass Yellow (Eurema brigitta)

The Grass yellow is also a fairly common butterfly and they are hard to miss as they are a very bright yellow color.  They are relatively slow fliers and stay close to the ground. You can often see them in small groups around water and animal dung. The larval host plant for this butterfly is: Hypericum aethiopicum and Cassia mimosoides.

Broad bordered grass yellow ( Eurema brigitta), image from Wikipedia.

Citrus Swallowtail (Papilio demodocus)

The Citrus Swallowtail is also a very difficult butterfly to miss, you see them almost all the time, it is a rather large butterfly (wingspan 85mm) compared to others and flies slow enough so that you can see it clearly. It is a beautifully colored butterfly with black bands, spotted and speckled with yellow; they also on the hind wings have 2 black, blue and orange eyespots.  The larvae of this butterfly are sometimes a pest in citrus trees as they can consume large quantities of leaves.

Citrus Swallowtail (Papilio demodocus), image from Wikipedia

Scarlet Tip (Colotis danae)

A small but beautiful butterfly and often seen in savanna and thornveld country, as the name suggest it has very bright scarlet color wing tips. This is a very fast and restless butterfly and for this reason very difficult to get close to. Host plants are Maerua angolensis and Cadaba natalensis.

Scarlet Tip (Colotis danae), image from Wikipedia.

Brown- veined white (Belenois aurota)

The Brown veined white is probably one of the most common butterflies especially of the white butterflies, further down in South Africa they also annually do huge migrations over the interior millions in number. Their larvae host plans are Boscia oleoides and Maerua cafra.

Brown veined white (Belenois aurota), image from Wikipedia

Diadem (Hypolimnas misippus)

The Diadem is a fascinating butterfly, it occurs almost everywhere in Africa and also a great part of the Indo-Australian region. The males and females look completely different so much so that they have different common names; the Diadem also displays the best example of mimicry in the animal kingdom. The female Diadem performs the mimicry and she mimics the African Monarch or Milkweed Butterflies, these butterflies are poisonous and distasteful to predators leaving the female Diadem safe. They look so similar that it is almost impossible in the field to tell them apart and what is even more remarkable is that where the Diadem occurs she has up to four color forms matching the color of the Milkweed butterflies found in the same area. The larval host plant for this butterfly is Asystasia spp, Portulaca spp and Talinum spp.

             

Diadem (Hypolimnas misippus) image from Wikipedia 

Female Mimic (Hypolimnas misippus), image from Wikipedia

Blue Pansy (Junonia oenone) and Yellow Pansy (Junonia hierta cebrene)

The Blue and Yellow pansy are also very comon butterflies and you can see them everywhere especially in the warmer parts of the day. These two species are a bit easier to get close to and you can normaly get a good veiw of them as they settle on the ground or on rocks slowly closing and opening their wings. The host plants for the Blue pansy are: Asystasia gangetica, Barleria stuhlmannii and Adhatoda natalensis. For the Yellow pansy: Adhatoda natalensis, Asystasia gangetica, Barleria pungens and Ruellia cordata.

Yellow pansy (Junonia hierta cebrene), image from Wikipedia

Blue pansy (Junonia oenone), image from Wikipedia

The above butterflies we just looked at are buterflies that are easily found and will give you a good start in butterflies, although they are hard to identify sometimes just becouse they are so small and fast it is still enjoyable and challenging and just like birding a lot of fun to go with your book and binoculars and try and see how many you can ID and tick. Of course there are many more species we could have put on the blog, some species you can also look up and study are species like Autumn leaf vagrant, African Migrant, Cabbage White, Common blues, Orange tip, Jokers and the Charaxes family these are also butterflies often seen and will give you a great building block.

More Pics from Camps

Hi All

Its great that we often this season get some great and interesting photos from the camps and their guides, nice to see what the wildlife is up to, below are some more nice pics from Dunia, Sayari and Olakira area, Enjoy!!

Big Heard of Elephants walking strait through Dunia Camp!

Elephant very close to Dunia's new solar panels!!

A beautiful shot of a Black Rhino in the open, Dunia Camp

Herd of Elephants passing Sayari's office

River Crossing Sayari/Olakira area, Photo: Ethan Kinsey

This last image from Ethan Kinsey is my personal favorite, taken in the Kogatende area, Northern Serengeti, it shows the Wildebeest actually using the Mara bridge to cross the river, something I have never seen up there before. I can remember guests always asking me "why do the Wildebeest not just use the bridge"?, I always use to say, " well it is because it is a man made structure and they don't know what a bridge is", how animals love to proof us wrong!!

Wildlife at Ubuntu Camp!

Hi all, have a look at the nice images from Ubuntu, and what is nice and a first, is a very nice little bird list of the birds around the camp.

Around the camp we have got the following species of birds

·         Lilac breasted roller

·         Black shouldered Kite

·         Green pigeon

·         Red cheeked cordon bleu

·         Dusky flycatcher

·         Bared faced go away bird

·         Superb starling

·         Mourning Dove

·         Mocking cliff chat

·         Brown parrot

·         Grey social weaver

·         Ruppels Starling

·         Red eyed dove

·         Magpie shrike

·         Marabou stork

·         Ring necked dove

·         White headed buffalo weavers

·         White backed vulture

·         Green wood hoopoe

·         Grey headed bush shrike

·         Northern white crowned shrike

A Feast For All !!

The Migration has now finally arrived in the Northern Serengeti to everybody’s relief. Camps, guides and managers don’t have to think of reasons to tell their guests why the migration is not here yet, with thousands of Wildebeest in the area and with many more to still come in everybody will now enjoy a couple of months of great wildlife sightings, Mara River crossings and some good predator action.

Beautiful Photo taken by Mollel, guide at Ubuntu camp, Leopard feeding on young Wildebeest

I think the happiest of them all that the Wildebeest have arrived is the predators of the Northern Serengeti. They have waited a long time for the Wildebeest to come back to the area and although there has been other game to hunt, hunting has generally been tough till now. For the next couple of months almost every predator and scavenger will be thinking, eating, breathing Wildebeest and why because there is just so many of them and they are easy to catch especially at night. They don’t call the Wildebeest “the clowns of the bush” for nothing.

Even though many Wildebeest will be caught by predators and many will die of naturally of old age or disease or just wounded from their attempts at crossing the Mara River it does not make a dent in their population and every year there are new babies born to replace the ones lost during the great migration.