Two Days at the Salt Lick

For some months now I have had a memory card from one of my cameras sitting on my desk. It is effectively full and contains 3984 images of mammals recorded at a salt lick in the Tswalu Kalahari reserve in the Northern Cape province of South Africa. These 3984 images were recorded over just a 48hour period.
I've been reluctant to write a new post about these images because, well, I just couldn't think of a good story to go with the images. However I now need to use the card and am reluctant to add another 4GB of images to the hard drive on my ageing laptop. So its a case of use-them-or-lose-them - and I've decided to use them.

Salt licks (possibly better described as mineral licks) are commonly used in wildlife reserves in Southern Africa. They're particularly used in the dry winter months when the quality of the grass is often poor. I don't know to what extent the mammals really need the additional minerals or whether they just like them. But that is immaterial because mammals arrive at the lick in droves, especially if there is also water in  the vicinity. So its an interesting site for a camera-trap.

These mineral supplements usually begin as a sold rectangular block. But it doesn't take long before they get licked down into an amorphous blob, like the one at Tswalu, shown below:

There were various mammals in the area when we arrived to set up the camera and it wasn't long after we left that the first 'lickers' arrived. The procession hardly stopped for two days.

Springbok (Antidorcas marsupialis)

Blue Wildebeest (Connochaetes taurinus)

Gemsbok (Oryx gazella)

Greater Kudu ( Tragelaphus strepsiceros)

Common Eland (Tragelaphus oryx)

Hartmann's Mountain Zebra (Equus zebra hartmannae)

Giraffe (Giraffa camelopardalis)

Common Warthog (Phacochoerus africanus)

Roan Antelope (Hippotragus equinus)

Impala (Aepyceros melampus)

So what's the story here?

Well, for many wildlife professionals working in reserves like Tswalu these scenes are a daily occurence. But for the rest of us these camera-trap images represent an extraordinary view into the daily life of mammals in Africa. 3984 images in two days! Its a story that I hope our grand-children will still get to see.

Precious tracks

Late last year I was involved in a fascinating project where we attempted to link images of black rhinos (Diceros bicornis) to their footprints using camera traps. Linking these rhinos with their tracks doesn't sound like a particularly difficult task given the size of these animals (and their tracks) but it can be. This is mostly because the black rhino is a browser and spends almost all it's time in thick vegetation. So when you come across one suddenly there is almost always running involved - either them or you. They are pretty foul tempered and so following one with a tape and camera is not an option for anyone who cares to see his family again!

I have debated for some time whether to actually post the images that follow due to the horrific amount of  rhino poaching currently taking place. I have no interest in helping the poaching syndicates locate these precious animals. So for that reason I can't tell you the location of the project but I'd still like to show you the images.

So why is a project like this useful? Its simply that wildlife reserve managers don't see their rhinos very often but regularly come across their tracks. So if you know who the tracks belong to then you can get some insight into the movement of these beasts and can confirm that they haven't fallen prey to the poachers.

So we set up a number of cameras at water-holes that showed evidence of recent rhino activity. But it's not just rhinos that visit water-holes and we recorded over 30,000 images in just over a week. These were some of my favorites:

Black-Headed Heron

Young Impala ram

Ostrich with his chicks

Red Hartebest

But did we get what we were really after? You bet we did.....loads of great images that should forever help the management of this reserve monitor their precious rhinos.