After a rough year due to the pandemic, camp life turned out to be far more than our field guide students expected. Although there are no dangerous animals in camp, you can never stop a leopard. They roam where they want to.
Field Guide Camp Life
Every day camp life is never boring. There is always something new to learn or see. But we weren’t expecting to see all this leopard activity.
Our students have been blessed with experiencing regular leopard activity in and around the Gobandlovu Base Camp. This has been one of the highlights for them this year.
One of our Career Development Course Students, Kyla Labuschagne, posted the updates below after finding fresh leopard tracks and dragmarks.
Leopard drag marks from an Impala kill the night before, at Gobandlovu Base Camp
Captured by one of the Camera Traps on Kuleni
With student life getting back into full swing, the Angasi group has been getting the Activity Center ready again. They are in charge of planning and running early morning activities for all students in camp. Ensuring we don’t miss out on any fun.
There has been a few highlights during the morning guided activities and the leopard activity has certainly made the Track and Sign activities more exciting.
Carmen, Kyla, Daniel, Warrick and Tyler after their morning walk, highlights were trailing the leopard and a great Gorgeous Bush Shrike sigting.
Piet, Misae, Alicia and Rikus after a successful morning trailing the leopard.
Daphne, Daniel, Tommy, Pierre and Alica enjoyed a great and unique sighting of a nesting pair of Grey Sunbirds. The morning mission was to find Pink Throated Twinspot, which eluded them but they were rewarded with nice Purple Crested Turaco display on a Marula Tree – always such a beautiful bird to see!
Bhejane Nature training is situated in Kuleni Game Park and as tourism is slowly starting to pick up, our Bhejane students are excited to share their knowledge and skills with local guests. Surely the guests will be entertained with a few leopard stories in the conversations.
With most guides being at home over July and August – we look forward to the domestic travel industry slowly gaining some momentum and giving all our guides the opportunity to get back to work again! The current 3rd Year Group, has not seen much industry time at all yet due to the national lockdown, and we will postpone their graduation into 2021 to give everyone the opportunity to gain some meaningful industry experience first.
Since FGASA training providers were allowed to start training again in June, and most guides were not yet working, we also enjoyed having quite a few of the guides in industry from previous years and courses back in camp to renew shooting qualifications, gain mentored trails hours and assist with watching the camp over quiet times. It was a great opportunity to catch up with everyone.
Wildlands / Somkhanda Partnership
We have been fortunate in 2020 to build a really exciting working relationship with the Wildlands Trust and Somkhanda Game Reserve teams. As part of this partnership, we have been working with a group of guide trainee candidates from the local community. Somkhanda Game Reserve is a Community owned reserve, and Wildlands Trust is the managing partner that manages the reserve and ensures its successful conservation. From an initial group of 12, we currently have a group of 5 completing their NQF 2 FGASA Apprentice Field Guide Qualifications with Bhejane. The group has been very enthusiastic and we are looking forward to the upcoming assessment period for this group and wish them all the best in their preparation. The 2nd Year Angasi group as well as the Bhejane intern team has learned much from this group – being locally born and bred they come with some extra history on the area and its people. In turn the Angasi and Interns also had the opportunity to showcase their skills and was involved in organizing and running a number of skills challenges for the group to promote fun and interactive learning!
The Wildlands team has been working hard to make this training possible and we hope that this will be just the start of a successful career journey for all the candidates involved. We are also grateful to FGASA for contributing the Registration and Subscription fees for the candidates to make registration and NQF 2 assessments possible.
Bhejane Angasi with the Yes group after a skills challenge.
The WIldlands/ Somkhanda Yes Group with their FGASA Manuals, ready to start learning.
After a long and very uncertain lockdown period, the Bhejane camp slowly kicked into gear again as students started rejoining for courses! We have made a really big effort this year to take our little tuck shop to the next level – and that gave birth to what has now very proudly become Khoffee Khaya!
Khoffee Khaya is a concept that has been long in the making! It started simply as a desire to make camp life a little more colourful during off days and especially for those that could not get to town but it was soon identified as a really good tool to help us achieve our community training goals! After about 18 months of operation, Khoffee Khaya is now 100% run by our intern team, and the little bit of revenue generated here, goes toward supporting the learning programmes of the intern team. They are therefore truly working for themselves and gaining some entrepreneurial skills along the way! Even though it is still a baby, we are very excited to keep growing the Khoffee Khaya / Intern project and looking forward to writing about the amazing careers that started here.
Reading Night – with candles, smores and Hot Chocolate!
Khoffee Khaya had a bunch of first milestones achieved in the short period past lockdown! Student Katinka Soller took the lead in getting involved in the shop, and baked some brownies to sell in the shop! Part of the Khoffee Khaya goal is to be the platform for a mutually beneficial network of partnerships between Bhejane and the student community! All students are encouraged to use the shop to trade their products!
Another first, inspired by the suggestion from Student Prakash Kannan, was the very first Reading Night! This was a great success. While story-telling is a much needed guiding skill, this was more about connection and sharing what is important to you. All students were given the opportunity to contribute and simply share what they loved!
Nicole is the Khoffee Khaya Manager – are you thinking of making your own weekend money? Get in touch with Nicole to brainstorm some ideas of what you can sell via the Khoffee Khaya Platform!
Contact Khoffee Khaya on Whatsapp to get involved!
079 510 8729
Follow Khoffee Khaya on Instagram!
News from The Bhejane Outpost Camp at Somkhanda
With many weeks of no activity at camp, we soon found out when we returned to normal operations, that we have to reclaim our space! The young and very curios lions on the reserve kept things very interesting at the Outpost on Somkhanda! If you have not seen it – watch 2nd year student Pierre Barauss meal time tussle with a female lion visitor!
Thats my Potjie! Video by Pierre Barau
We have spent every spare minute updating and making the Somkhanda camp feel more homely! Student Misae has done an excellent job adding some decorative elements to the central dining area, and the 2nd Year Angasi Team has put in enough blood, sweat and muscle to truly call this their camp! We hope they will leave Bhejane with many happy memories as the first senior group of the Bhejane Outpost! A big thanks also to Ncgebo Mhlambo – ex Bhejane Intern now guiding at Ndaka Game Lodge in Nambithi – who spent much of his lockdown time with us and showed us how to build a traditional Zulu fence in front of our birdbath at the dining area.
Students working in the dinning lapa at the Outpost.
Ncebo with instructor Stephen Ingram and the Ingulule Group
Leopard captured on a camera trap near the camp.
We have installed a few camera traps around camp to keep an eye on what is happening around us, and some of the highlights were Leopard, Brown Hyena, Serval and Bushpig. No traps are needed to observe the lions that have been hanging out around the camp, and it seems the elephants have now also discovered an additional source of water in the camp jojo tanks! We are grateful for all the volunteers, interns and ex-students that helped us keep an eye here over the quiet times to make sure everything stays in tact!
It has been some time since the camp has been so quiet, for this long! As Covid hit South Africa, everyone had to rush to catch flights and get home before lockdown started. Unfortunately (or maybe fortunately?) a group of 9 students had to stay behind Gobandlovu Camp while waiting for lockdown to end.
Staying Behind at Gobandlovu Camp
Our interns Stephan and Misae was keeping watch at the Bhejane Outpost on Somkhanda. They were blissfully unaware of the chaos of the outside world. Thankfully we managed to evacuate them from the Outpost and they got back to base camp just in time.
While we were all sad, stressed and uncertain about what would happen next, we weree also enormously privileged to spend the lockdown period at Gobandlovu Camp. Students have used the time to go on walks and add to their birding and tracking skills.
Student Prakash Kannan, more affectionately known by all as Paapi – has written a great blog about all the leopard activity in camp. We were fortunate to have some late summer rainfall in March and saw an explosion of Mushrooms and Butterflies in and around the Sand Forest.
Life has been strange – and very different to say the least. We all went about our own ways of keeping busy each day, and creating a new routine. The students in camp pulled together like the amazing team they are and are doing an amazing job sharing kitchen space and keeping their spaces clean and tidy!
Sticking to Lockdown Rules
All Bhejane staff have been sent home in accordance with lockdown rules, but those living on site at Kuleni has been working hard on getting content online and planning for what happens once the lockdown is lifted.
Dylan and a few of the lockdown crew got permission this week to go to the Somkhanda Bhejane Outpost Camp to maintain the camp and make sure everything is still standing there! They have had some amazing sightings on arrival – keep an eye on our Instagram and Facebook pages for updates from the Outpost!
Nobody ever expected a lockdown to happen. But it did and as some of our nature guide students had to stay behind at the Gobandlovu camp. In this article Paapi tells us about his lockdown experience in camp.
Life of a Nature Guide Student during Lockdown
My name is Paapi and I would call myself a simple citizen of the world. I do not believe in man made borders, however without a choice I hold a passport from India. I am an avid traveler and love to travel to the places my heart takes me. But this isn’t always true as my heart does not understand such a thing as visa requirements.
When a nationwide lockdown was announced, I had the choice to go back home, but for a traveler each stop feels like home. I felt at home here in a camp we call Gobandlovu.
Gobandlovu is a Zulu name for a species of tree commonly known around Africa as the Torchwood. The best decision I have made in 2020 has been to call this camp my lockdown home. As a traveler you are bound to have a few favorite places and Bhejane Nature Training happens to be one such place for me.
Nature Guide Students Staying Behind
I have been here for a few months. Learning about the bush and the ways of life in the bush as well as to respect the gentle and the mighty creatures. I am not a master of any specific field at the moment but I do know I am a ‘jack of all’ for sure. If I had to pick one area of interest it would have to be birds. I would pick birds in a heartbeat!
While a lot has been said and done about the lockdown, there are two sides to every story if not more, so here is my side of the story about lockdown. The lockdown was unexpected, was not heard of before and not even in the wildest of jokes would anyone imagine it to happen.
So when the lockdown was announced on a noon of Thursday, the camp that was bubbling with 60 or 70 odd nature guide students, was reduced to a mere 10. For the last month or so we have seen just these 10 faces and like the phases of the moon and along with the moon we too changed what we did.
The Bhejane Base Camp
The Birder
My first love is birds, well food is my first but apart from that it is birds. The sudden change in the mood in the about 200ha camp was intensely noticeable. It’s not only the silence in the camp, even the highways had lesser vehicles going past and the music played outside quickly faded away.
At first it seemed like there were more birds, but I quickly understood that it was the same as every other day before lockdown. These beautiful songs were muted by manmade sounds (call it music if you want to). With manmade sounds put on hold, the stage was set for the birds to sing and be noted too.
Bird Party
I met a fellow nature guide student and our walk began around 5:45. We walked listening to the songs and sounds from the birds. Just like humans, they too have a party (Bird Party).
Birds of various species come together in what looks like a bird get together. It almost looks like a meeting where they discuss something – they were certainly not discussing social distancing. It was a sight you did not want to leave but somewhere your legs gave you a nudge that it is time to move on. Or was it the rumble in my stomach reminding me that the direction we should be heading next is towards the kitchen?
The winter birds are here and I had my first sighting of the Easter Nicator. Did you know that they had a winter call? It is a beautiful bubbly call, replaced by a short chirp during winter, how wonderful.
The Red-backed shirks are gone. I did see a few in the first few days of the lockdown but they left and so did the European bee-eaters, and the cuckoos. They will all be back by September.
At the same time, I heard of a lockdown birding challenge and actively began listening and looking for birds. So far I have recorded 107 birds in 2 weeks, all inside this 200ha.
A Forest Specila – The Narina Trogon
Tracks and Signs
While the morning walks were already exciting and interesting, the nights turned into something special quickly. We did a few night walks and were lucky to spot the Southern White-faced owl and the Thick-tailed bush baby.
During one of our walks we clearly heard the Spotted Hyena call. The call wasn’t from inside the property but it was very close and felt absolutely fantastic. It is a privilege to watch the full moon deep into the night and to hear the hyena call at a distance, just like the bushman did.
Going on a morning walk means looking for the birds but you also look for the signs left by nocturnal creatures. You must consider yourself blessed when the substrate in the reserve is primarily sand, which means there is enough evidence left behind by the night creatures. Well, except when it rains.
If you love to look at tracks and signs, then this is where you must be. Among others one of the prominent tracks you see in the morning belong to the White-tailed Mongoose.
It seems like the white-tailed mongoose is a compulsive walker. He takes the same path every single day. The other regular tracks were those of the millipede and the dung beetle. They always leave artistic patterns. The frogs and the tortoise leave a beautiful trail too.
And then there are those which I don’t understand, no matter what angle I look from. May I blame it on the inability of the animals to leave a good track?
A Surprise Visitor
One morning, while looking at the tracks, we stopped at something I have never seen before in this reserve, nor have I seen it in the recent past. I knew who the track belonged to, but didn’t want to call it.
A few days before, I was so excited when I saw the tracks of a Spotted Hyena in the reserve. I was excited and thrilled and quickly went to report it to a senior nature guide. He hurried to see the tracks and within a second confirmed that it belonged to a dog. Now please don’t judge me on my tracking skills, every dog has its day and today belonged to a domestic dog and not a Hyena.
Well the tracks that we were looking at now, belonged to a cat. A big cat at that. And we were sure it belonged to a leopard. The previous night I thought I heard a leopard but it felt like it was far way and I wasn’t sure. I know for a fact that the leopard’s call does not travel as far as that of the call of a lion.
So it seems the leopard wasn’t far and these tracks confirmed they were well inside the reserve. The next few days we noticed the tracks everywhere. They were walking in the paths we normally use.
Lions and leopards will take the set pathways to move around. Soon we saw two sets of tracks walking side by side. With a bit of experience, you learn to paint a picture of what happened based on the tracks of the animal.
So we had different versions of what happened. One of us said that it’s the same leopard that walked in circles. Another opinion was that it could be two sub adults walking together. Or it could be two different leopards walking in the same area at different times of the night.
None of which could be wrong because we don’t know for sure.
Trap Cameras
Hoping to find an image of the leopards, we decided to set up few trap cameras. These leopards were sneaky, it seemed like the leopards always avoided the path where we set up the trap cameras. It was frustrating to see the tracks going pass the cameras but no animal showing on the camera. Maybe they are technology aware or shy.
But luck was on our side and one morning we saw tracks passing in front of the camera. We eagerly looked to see if anything was captured and lo and behold, we saw our first glimpse of the owners of those two sets of tracks.
It was a male and a female leopard walking side by side. To know you are standing on the same piece of land that was visited by this massive male and his pretty partner was such a beautiful moment.
With all the activity during lockdown, I can tell you, I never regretted staying behind in camp at Bhejane Nature Training. Life as a nature guide student is never dull.
Ons stel graag die Bhejane Loopbaan Ontwikkelings-Program bekend! n Vars en visionêre benadering tot veldggids opleiding en opwindende byvoeging tot die Bhejane Kursus Portefeulje vir 2020.
Die program bevat 3 fases. n Fondasie fase, Ontwikkelings Fase en Goverderde Fase. Studente met geen vorige opleiding of ervaring begin by die Fondasie Fase.
Studente wat reeds basiese gidswerk of verwante kwalifikasies het kan begin by Fase 2 – die Ontwikkelingsfase. Die gevorderde fase is beskikbaar vir studente wat reeds fase 2 voltooi het, en verder in enige rigting wil spesialiseer, en ook belangstel om werksondervinding te kry terwyl hulle onder mentorskap is.
Die program het n omvattende fokus en beoog om n diverse groep studente aan die industrie beskikbaar te stel. Studente het die geleentheid om in n verskeidenheid areas te spesialisser en gevolglik self te besluit hoe en waar hulle in die industrie inpas.
Die program sluit in as basis die syllabus en nasionale gids kwalifikasies van FGASA – die Veldgids Assosiasie van Suider Afrika.
Die FGASA komponente word verder gekomplimenteer deur n verskeidenheid spesialis en vaardigheids modules, wat die studente volledig voorberei vir n loopbaan in die Safari en Ekotoerisme industrieë. Hierdie modules addreseer noodsaaklike werksgereedheid vaardighede soos kommunkasie, konflikhantering, beplanning en organisasie in die werksplek, entrepreneurskap en die basiese diensvoorwaardes geldig in Suid Afrika.
Spesialis modules sluit in Natuurbewaring, Marienegids, Monitering en Veldnavorsings assistent, Spesialis stapgids, Spesialis voëlgids.
Die Spesialis modules kan ook as losstaande modules voltooi word buite die die konteks van die volle program vir gidse wat reeds voltyds werk.
Kontak ons vir die informasie paket en die 2020 registrasie datums, fooie en vorms.
There is something about the bush, the sound of the birds singing early in the morning, the branches breaking in the distance by elephants, the roar of the lion spreading through the mountains. Waking up in the cold winter morning staring ahead with your head peeping out the zip of your safari tent, overlooking the Mkuze River, having breakfast around a fire pit still warm from the night befores boma fire,feeling refreshed and ready for a full day of walking trails – This is how you start your day at Ebandla Camp.
Working with Colin Patrick and his amazing K9 sidekick (Anne) is one of the best experiences, just by observing them work together, side by side and with a different insight! Trailing an animal gives you the courage to improve your skills. As soon as you find a fresh track, the hunt is on, bundu bashing through the bushes looking for any sign of the animal you are tracking in the sand, in the trees along the river banks – to find an animal you need to think like one!
This is such an amazing experience because you can learn a lot about the animals behaviour, By asking things like ‘What type of food it eats? Was it on its way to a specific location? or maybe just wondering around? by looking at the tracks you can see if the animal is relaxed and walking slow or on edge walking fast.
It is hard work and requires a lot of concentration, but the thrill of tracking a wild animal never ceases to excite me!
As the days go by tracking different animals and learning more about ourselves in the process just adding on to knowledge displayed all around us with every step we take. I remember how nervous I was for the assessment day -It was a perfect sunny morning, everyone was standing around the boma and you could just see the stress of test day show on their faces, but the we started walking and I couldn’t help but to look at my surroundings and just seeing how beautiful nature really helped me to calm down.
We walked for a while before Colin stopped us and split us into two groups and briefed us on our task at hand – one group would walk for 15 minutes to get as far away as possible and hide away and the opposing group would have to track the hiders down! The assessment has begun. After 15 minutes one person was chosen to lead the track for the hiding group – As we tracked and trailed we finally found them and it was now our time to hide.
This process went on until everyone had a chance to track spreading this experience on for 2 days! Every moment as exciting and challenging as the next, when we were all done leading, Colin sat us down and the feedback process began.
After meeting with each of us, we were all happy to hear how well the assessments went.
I was sitting outside enjoying the beautiful view that Ebandla camp has to offer and it just got me thinking of how amazing this week was, how wonderful it is to learn something new everyday and how amazing and thrilling it is to track an animal and become one and more connected with this beautiful country.
The day I decided that I would dedicate my life to the conservation of the superbly beautiful ecosystems that still cover a large part of the African continent, I was only a 6-year old boy that had just moved to Africa, without any understanding or knowledge about the complex world I was about to discover.
But this dream accompanied me over the next 13 years, motivated me every single day, shaped my way of doing things and caused me to collect every piece of information available to me, desperately hoping that it would eventually bring me a bit closer to that big goal. When I found Bhejane, I would never have thought that this would mean the ultimate break-through for me in achieving my dream. At the same time, the course gave me more than just a confirmation for what I always wanted to do: It opened a whole new world for me.
It was like looking for a sparrow and finding a twinspot (I have no issues with sparrows!). In fact, I didn’t even know that twinspots existed. Or what the difference between a sparrow and a starling is. This winter, not even a year after I left Bhejane, I returned and passed my regional birding.
This is only one example for how Bhejane changed my life, my way of thinking and my relationship with nature. The unbelievable perfection and creativity of evolution that Bhejane allowed me to discover still makes my heart beat faster every time I think about it, or realize how crazy it is that spiders can detect stress allelochemicals thanks to the lyriform organs on their legs (first example that comes to my mind). You never stop learning! And there is no bigger honor than working for nature and with nature.
The environment Bhejane is operating in would be more than enough to amaze every lucid-thinking human being. But additionally to that, I got to meet people that think like me. It may sound crazy, but I actually never had considered in the past that there might be other people that share my passion. I probably don’t have to mention that I got to know a large number of special persons that became some of my closest friends and my idols. I had the privilege to meet some people with phenomenal knowledge and skills, to watch them and to learn from them.
It was like coming home. And it will always be like coming home when returning to the places where all this started. Because it’s not going to end soon.
Ek het nog altyd geweet dat my liefde vir die natuur diep binne my gewortel is.
Van die dag wat ek gesien het wat Bhejane vir my kan bied het ek onmiddelik besluit om deel te word van die 3 maande kursus, min het ek geweet dat ek kort daarna sonder huiwer sou aansluit by die 3 jaar kursus. Ek het nie besef ek stap in by een groot familie nie. Ek was eintlik so bevoorreg dat ek so kort nadat ek die grootmens wêreld betree reeds my tuiste kon vind. Bhejane is my huis weg van die huis af. Om te kan wakker word in die getjirp van die voëls & te kan rustig raak in die aand voor die ongelooflikste sonsonderdergange hier in Zulu land, gee net nuwe mening tot lewe want ek dink selde aan hoe baie ek eintlik het om voor dankbaar te wees.
Bhejane Angasi Students taking a group picture while the Zululand sun sets.
Elke gesig wat mens in die oggend sien straal ń ander emosie uit. Emosie van blydskap, emosie van hartseer, emosie van verlange of emosie van liefde. Almal bied altyd ń skouer aan, almal is altyd daar om saam jou bly te wees & daar is altyd ń ekstra handjie wat wil help. My hart word warm as ek besef dat daar steeds sulke goeie mense in die wêreld is.
Bhejane bestaan uit slegs hoendervleis oomblikke uit. Daar gaan nie ń dag verby waar mens nie sê “wow, dis crazy” of “ek het nooit geweet nie”. Jy leer elke dag iets nuut van die natuur & selfs meer as wat jy besef iets oor jouself. Bhejane stel jou nooit teleur as dit kom by die natuur nie. Jy groei & verander saam die seisoene. Ek is bevoorreg om my fondasie in hierdie industrie by Bhejane te kan neerlê, om blootgestel te word in alles waarin ek nou blootgestel word maak my net nog meer opwindend vir wat die toekoms vir my inhou. My huis is waar my hart is & my hart sal vir altyd by Bhejane wees.
“Warwick dis tyd vir jou nagdiens…” breek Quintin se stem deur die koue. Met die ysige koue wat deur die loop van die aand in my tent in gekruip het, prober ek met ‘n swaar lyf uit my bed kom.
Die vuur het begin bedaar en ek besluit om nog hout te gaan haal sodat ek bietjie warm kan word.
Ek loop na die hout-hoop toe en kry my eerste lekker stuk hout, ek besluit om nog te kry wat ek langs die vuur kan op hoop vir later. Ek kry my tweede stuk hout en met die omdraai slag vang my flitslug twee gloeiende oë wat in die pad afgestap kom langs Graham en Robyn se huis… my liggaam word yskoud en ek voel die lewe uit my tap…
‘n Leeu wyfie, rustig en tyd-saam gaan staan so 15 m van my af weg.
Met ‘n benoude stem roep ek vir Graham oor die radio. Toe ek my weer kry is Graham langs my met sy .416 Remington… saam staan ons en kyk vir haar terwyl sy ons aanstaar met n swaar intensiteit en nuuskierigheid. Na so 5 minute, wat vir my soos ure gevoel het, besluit sy om weer aan te gaan met haar nag mars en het weer in die skaduwee van die donkerte verdwyn.
We lead the way . . . follow us into Bhejane Territory!
Deur: Kayla Pieterse
You must be logged in to post a comment.