Winter is over and it has to be one of the warmest winters on Madikwe's record. Some locals say that this bodes badly for the summer rains, lets hope not as last summer was a below average rainfall year.
Over the past winter months, two things have become very obvious. Firstly, Elephants have not been difficult to find as the reserve's population nears a thousand. This has been great for sightings of big herds during the winter as they tend to form big herds around the waterholes. Great sightings have been had particularly of all the new baby elephants. Another great part of elephant sightings has been the calm demeanor of Madikwe's pachyderms of late.
Over the past winter months, two things have become very obvious. Firstly, Elephants have not been difficult to find as the reserve's population nears a thousand. This has been great for sightings of big herds during the winter as they tend to form big herds around the waterholes. Great sightings have been had particularly of all the new baby elephants. Another great part of elephant sightings has been the calm demeanor of Madikwe's pachyderms of late.
Secondly, the reduction of the Lion population has had knock-on benefits for general game and the smaller predators like Serval and Caracal. The Lions are still very prominent on the Madikwe landscape as the lionesses still have litters of cubs and the male coalitions tend to only hold territories for 3 - 4 years at a time.
Birding this year has been good in Madikwe as always, my personal list this year is at 237 species. Some great ones include: Blue-cheeked and Swallow-tailed Bee-Eaters,Tinkling Cisticola, Temminck's Courser, Great Spotted Cuckoo, Cut-throat Finch,. African Finfoot, Fairy Flycatcher, Grey Tit-flycatcher and Southern Pochard. Now we wait for the migratory species to return, hopefully the list can grow to 280 by the end of the year.
That's it for now from the Bush!