Monday 30 July 2012

........ We have an update on the Lizard ........

The Spotted Sand Lizard - or to his friends Nucras Intertexta!

Latin Name : Nucras Intertexta Length_F : 80 - 90 mm Length_M : 80 - 90 mm Order : Squamata Family : Lacertidae Description : A large sandveld lizard, usually with a spotted back and an orange-brown tail. The back is light brown to reddish-brown, with a series of pale spots that may be black-edged, or fuse to form a mesh pattern or irregular, transverse bands. Class : Reptilia Distribution : Southern Mozambique and extreme Northern Kwa-Zulu Natal, through to the Kalahari region to the Kaokoveld in Northern Namibia. Breeding : They lay from 2 - 8 eggs that hatch in February - March. The hatchlings measure about 60 mm. Diet : Spiders and scorpions and even other lizards.

Thanks Andrew its greatly appreciated!!

Wednesday 18 July 2012

July's Workparty!
Welcome, winter. Your late dawns and chilled breath make me lazy, but I love you nonetheless. ~Terri Guillemets

Manyane was camp this month to 15 brave Makanyane's! 
Our mission this month - bridges and calverts!

We all awoke Saturday morning at 5.30 to a lovely winters day. The sun was out but no one could feel it, the wind made sure of that! We separated ourselves into 2 teams and made our way into the park - our team was a little delayed as the Wally Wagon and Manyane camp do not go hand in hand and *cough cough* the battery was flat a little kick start from Graham and some cables from Andrew and it was sorted out quick quick! Phew!

Clearing the bridges and calvert's is good old honest hard manual labour and it wasn't long before all the jumpers and jackets came off. Our teams leapfrogged each other and we brought many a bridge and calvert to its knees! Marie-Luise found a little egg-eating snake and later on we found a tiny colourful Lizard. After lunch a few of us went to the boma to work on the electric fence and the Makanyane machine when we arrived we were also welcomed by the fly away shade cloth no wonder the lions kept looking at us! Graham and Diane then went off and did a bit of filing on some benches at Mankwe and Wally finally collected his camera trap!! Yippee! 

We wound our way back to Manyane along the roads we worked on earlier, its brilliant being able to see what all your hard work has accomplished! The promise of a nice hot shower was awaiting us when we got back!! Ahhh back from the shower with our bones nice and warm, the fire was lit the potjies came out and Wally proceeded with excitement to show us what his camera trap had found! A total of 1760 photos with some real crackers! Huddled around the fire that night we all did our highs and lows and cheers'd to the fellow Makanyane's who were not with us. Tummies full and hearts warmed with a little help from Dianes faithful OB's we all chatted and made sure we had the compulsory Makanyane giggles and laughs!!

Once again another fantastic weekend - thank you everyone :o)
Vix
xx


Andrew
Wally and Gav posing
Jacquie and Andrew cleaning up













Nandos team
Di working hard!

Gav and Wally
























Jacquie and Vix
Ed and the Makanyane Machine
3D Graham!
















Wendy and the Egg-eating snake.
Common Egg-eating snakes (Dasypeltis scabra) are naturally restricted to most parts of southern Africa. They have slender bodies with heavy roughened keeled scales. The normal colouration of these snakes is grayish to grey-brown with darker rhombic (squarish) markings or blotches or chevrons (v-shapes) down the back. The underside is white, sometimes with dark spots or flecks. The inside of the mouth is black and there are no or reduced teeth present.


 

Lizard!





A nice warm fire!

Potjies at the ready!
















Wally's Camera Trap........ 
this is placed in a "secret" location outside the boma! So if you think nothing walks past us at night you are mistaken!!

Black Backed Jackal

Hungry Hippo!
Brown Hyena - taking his ribs to be marinated!
PUMBA!
Guess Who!
Rutting Impalas
Herd of Elephants - We are lucky the camera stayed where it was!

Lioness