SEPTEMBER BLOG

The weather here continues to get hotter although there is still  a chill at night which is very good and enables you to get to sleep.

WESM game count went well with many members taking part to count the animals on 3 different drives around the park. On Saturday morning, Saturday evening and Sunday morning last week up to 9 cars left the camp site and counted animals on 9 different routes around the park. Around 200 separate animals were counter on each drive. The most exciting was 3 caracals.  3 leopards were seen but only when people were driving to the event. It was a good opportunity to catch up with old friends and make new ones. I t will be interesting to see the results compared to the last ones taken in 2009.

There has been a report of 4 lions being seen. 1 female and 3 cubs. No painted dog sightings have occurred but staff at the lodge reported seeing 2 dogs which have actually turned out to be domestic dogs running wild.

As the water dries up around the park the elephants are starting to return to the dam and herds between 1 and 32 have been seen. They have even started to play in the water again and behave just like children in a swimming pool.

There are now 2 osprey and 2 fish eagles around the dam and they are fighting for the fishing rights. The fish eagles have a nest and because the female is sitting quite high in the nest now I assume she has young. Water birds are returning now and there are around 130 spur winged geese, a few knob billed ducks, saddle billed stork, black stork, goliath heron and the usual array of smaller birds like the watt led plover, green shank and lesser jacana and today a woolleynecked stork arrived.

The hippos have around 6 young ones now and although there are around 14 in all this means that the adults have been reduced by about 5.

The park continues to be attacked by poachers of various tyres ranging from killing the animals to cutting fire wood, charcoal burning and even mining for precious stones. If anyone has any ideas or wants to help reduce these practices let me know.

The house is coming along slowly due to money issues and the land rover is running but burning oil. Either the turbo seals are leaking or the valve guides have worn again. This limits the amount of driving that I want to do as I don’t want it to break down.

Although I have 9 cameras only 5 are still working so finding the wildlife at night is proving harder now however some of the results are still surprising like the water mongoose again and although elephants in the past have showed curiosity towards the cameras one actually leant against one and another took a swipe at one with its trunk. It’s a good job they are quite sturdy.

I am hoping to start to offer activity weekends for visitors at the lodge and this should help to subsidise my project. We are still hoping to run a volunteer program but this seems to be taking a long time to get off the ground.

Although the diesel problem went away for a couple of weeks it is now back with us and it makes life very difficult for travel. Nobody seems to have an answer but you never know.

Meet the ultimate nosey neighbour. They watch everything I do.

AUGUST 2011

My first few weeks back in Malawi have been interesting as usual. At the end of July we experienced a small earth quake that lasted about 10 seconds. Malawi lies on the edge of the Rift valley and every now and then the earth moves.

The animals are slowly returning to the dam as water dries up around the park. A few days ago 25 elephants turned up for a drink as well as a herd of around 25 buffalo. A troop of baboons arrived yesterday and soon disappeared again. Hippo’s are still around and there are now 4 young ones and I think one of the females is pregnant because she is huge.

6 guns shots were heard a couple of days ago and the scouts went looking for the poachers but only found foot prints,  a spent cartridge and a blood trail probably from a Puku.

A large herd of sable and also a herd of roan have recently been seen around the park.

There have been no sightings of the painted dogs since May and no signs of lions. Leopard are present and I have an excellent photo of a leopard only a couple of meters from the back of my house. Genet, civet, hippo, bush pig, porcupine and elephant have also been recorded at night over the last couple of weeks.

The new lodge concessionaires have been very busy preparing the place for visitors and have repainted and varnished throughout. New cutlery has been purchased along with many other new items to help bring the lodge up to standard. The swimming pool is being repaired which will bring a great of pleasure when it gets hot out here. New staff are being employed and trained and the new lodge manager is arriving soon. They have many plans for the future and I am hoping to help them as much as possible and we are planning to get an eco-volunteer project up and running.

Fuel is still a problem but we are hoping things will improve soon.

MY RETURN TO MALAWI

My first 2 weeks here in Malawi have been interesting to say the least. As usual no diesel. As you can imagine this not only makes it difficult for me to travel around but also makes life very difficult for all Malawians. I eventually managed to fill up with diesel after being here a week. Nothing much happened while in Lilongwe other than to meet old friends.

I have now been back in the National park for just over a week and again nothing very eventful has happened here. There are a few elephants around and the resident heard of puku and hippos are at the dambo. A couple of days ago one of the female hippos was killed in a fight. We cannot work out what happened or why this occurred but she eventually floated to the side of the dambo. I called the parks department officers and was not quite sure what they were going to do with the carcass. There are no crocodiles to clean up things like this. I soon found out what their was plan. A car arrived with twenty people in and they set about stripping the hippos leaving only a few pieces of skin and a couple of the insides that they will not eat. Job done, nothing was left to waste. On one hand it is sad to lose one the hippos but on the other it will feed a hundred people for around a month.

Not wanting to miss an opportunity to get some photos with my infra red cameras I have set them up around the remains and hope to get some pictures of hyenas and whatever else might come down to finish her off. One interesting observation was of a young hippos eating the contents of her stomach, all the grass. Was this possible her baby? Again nothing goes to waste out here.

Some good news for me is that the lodge has a new concessionaire, Quelccaya, and we are hoping to set up a collaboration between my project and the lodge.

If you want to see where I live go to Google earth, Malawi. About half way up to the west is Kasungu National Park. Follow the road into the park and to Lifupa lodge. Zoom in to the widest part at the end of the dam and you will come across a little house all on its own. That is my house. The Department of National Parks and wildlife kindly let me stay there in return for the work I do for them. I am slowly ‘doing the place up’ and with my solar panel I have electricity, I have water some days and have a flushing toilet. The donkey boiler outside still needs a little work and some of the water pipes need to be cleared of 10 years of ‘stuff’. I will then be able to have a hot bath. (dream on) a few litres of paint are still needed and the place will be quite nice.

I didn’t know Africa could be so cold. I am not usually here at this time of year so do not have much experience of the weather in July. During the day it is lovely but at night it drops to about 5 degrees C which is quite chilly. I have a fire place in the living room and will try a fire some day but I don’t want to burn the place down as it has a thatch roof.

Keep in touch and drop me a line if you like what you read.

P.S. I just received one of the best presents I have had in a long time. One of the girls bought me a blanket.

MY RETURN TO KASUNGU

I am returning to Malawi on the 30^th June and arriving on the 1 July. I hope to gather more information on the painted dogs, lions, cheetah and leopard as well as looking out for the elephants and other wildlife. Kasungu hosts a great deal of other species like snakes, amphibians and plant life which I will also be looking at.

I have been unsuccessful in raising any funding for the project so as usual I will have to spend my own money to continue with the survey. I cannot afford to buy radio collars and pay for training for the scouts and local communities so this will have to wait until finance can be found. This means the wild life is going to continue to suffer from poaching and encroachment which means a lack of food.

The local community within the park continue to suffer from malaria and sleeping sickness which again due to lack of finances will mean no added treatment for them. Earlier this year 2 children that I know both died of Malaria just for the sake of £3 worth of anti-malaria treatment. Food is often in short supply for some of the staff and children and this leads to them poaching for food.

NO LUCK YET!

I have been writing to many organisations for support and donations to help protect the painted dogs here in Kasungu. Absolutely no luck yet. If anyone has any ideas of how to raise the profile of this project please let me know.

The good news from Kasungu is that dogs have been seen on several occasions since I have been back in the UK. No other news has been reported to me.