Through popular demand, we have decided to have one more competition for you our loyal followers!
As you've seen the Bhejane photo competition is well on its way with entries coming in very quickly now. We invite you to enter your photos today!
Competition Details
An album will be created on the Bhejane page named, 'Public Competition,' where your photo's will be uploaded.
Email your photo entries to hanroe@bhejanenaturetraining.com
In the email write a description for your photo with your name and surname, camera used to take the picture and if shot with DSLR, give us the settings and lenses you may have used.
You can also tell us where you took this picture and when!
Winners will be decided by the amount of 'likes' they get on Facebook, so share your pictures that are posted and tell friends and family to go view and 'like' your picture.
As well as the amount of 'likes' you will also be judged on overall photo composition and equipment used will also be taken into account!
Prizes will be announced soon!!
Send your pictures in and stipulate under which category you are entering. Your category's are as follows:
Wildlife
Birds
Landscapes
Marine
People and Nature
The smaller things
We look forward to seeing your pictures!!! Good luck!
It was the start of
the third and final trails trip for the year. We knew from the first week on
ZRR we were in for a wet one, but never- the- less a unique experience. We
watched as rains poured, rivers flooded, followed by the sun and some very hot
days as the bush became alive around us. We had excellent sightings during this
trails, logging well over 70 dangerous game encounters and some, now well
embedded, memories and experiences.
On walking one of the properties close by our main camp on
Amazulu, we had some great sightings the one day, to me a day that is the
essence of walking trails and getting the opportunity to become part of the
nature around you. The terrain was not easy and we covered well over 25km of
walking in order to log the, well deserved, 7 sightings for the day. We reached
the lodge after walking most of the morning and had a chance to refill our
water bottles, as temperatures soared well over 35 degrees. We left the lodge
and headed south and after a few kilometers we spotted, far up in the distance,
some white rhino feeding on some burnt patches. After tracking buffalo most of
the morning, up some very steep mountainsides, this sight was well welcomed.
As you’ll see in the video, we were walking up on the road
leading to the area where we spotted the rhino. You could hear the loud thuds
of her feet hitting the ground as she suddenly came into view, running down the
road we were on. We quickly moved off the road, to our right, and stood dead
still. The mother and calf came to a stop about 55m from us. We think the
reason for them running down the road, is that one of the bulls we saw up in
the same area might have disturbed them and she ran down the road. She was
unaware of our presence as the wind was well in our favor. She stopped briefly
and moved around the other side of the road as we watched. After making a small
loop she came back onto the road as the wind started swirling about. She became
aware of a presence and moved in slowly to investigate. She came in to about
25m of us, as we stood motionless. Both her ears pointed at our direction as
she sniffed around in the air. It was a few moments of ‘benoude boude,’ but
amazing to see this beautiful animal up close and on their level. As soon as
she sniffed and became aware of us, you can see how she turns side profile,
shielding her calf from us. With a few snorts and grants, she sped off in the
opposite direction.
We continued up the road when they had cleared the area and moved
up towards where we had spotted the others. We managed to get a nice sighting
of a female and two sub- adults feeding. We viewed them and extracted without
disturbing the animals, which is always a successful sighting. Heading up
further towards the fence line the female and calf from earlier came out the
bush ahead of us. Wind was in our favour and they were unaware of our presence.
We looked on as the calf was in a very playful mood. Running
in circles around the mother while vocalizing squeaky grunts. This was awesome
to see and was animal behavior at its best. The calf made a few turns by the
mother and then started trotting down in our direction. We moved slightly to
our left to stay behind a small barrier between them and us; a barrier that a
rhino of her size, will make light work of! The calf came to about 40m from us
when it suddenly became aware of our presence. You could actually see the shock
on the little ones face as it realized we were there. The mother was there in
no time, super alert and looking around. The calf made such quick dash back to
mom, it tripped slightly over a bush, quickly picked itself up and got behind
her large mother. We stood dead still and observed as the female sniffed the
air to investigate. I think at this time everyone had pretty much decided on his
tree of choice. She looked at us, for what felt like hours, then turned and ran
off, calf close by. They went some distance and stopped, as the mother scanned
the area intently.
There was so much to learn from the behavior we had
witnessed by this female white rhino and her calf on this day. A lot was taken
from it. It has happened often that these calves will run into a trails group
without knowing that they were there, and can obviously turn into something
very serious when the mother feels you threatening her or her calf. Through
just standing our ground and remaining motionless she moved off, not sure what
to make of the situation. We felt privileged to have been allowed to view these
Rhino in their everyday life. It’s just beyond me to think that people will
ruthlessly murder these magnificent animals to satisfy their own greed and in
the light of all the latest rhino poaching, it was a privilege to be able to be
part of their daily, undisturbed, lives for just a few minutes.
Share your comments, feelings and past experiences with us! Email us at hanroe@bhejanenaturetraining.com
Creating Awareness Through Wilderness....
For more information on Bhejane Nature Training or available courses email us on info@bhejanenaturetraining.com!
During our last Wilderness Trails course we had some exceptional sightings and encounters. In the first week on Zululand Rhino Reserve the spring rains came down and we walked in some very wet conditions. This is a sighting we had of an elephant bull at the waterhole while we were up in a tamboti tree. It gave us an opportunity to view him safely and in his natural environment for almost an hour. We had a sighting of the same bull braking a fever tree in the dry river bed the previous day, with his characteristic long tail that almost sweeps the ground as he walks.
We viewed as the ellie went about giving himself a good mud bath as the rains poured down. He then left the water and went to scratch against an Acacia Fever tree, walking right underneath us, into the dense bush to go feed. It was amazing to watch and be part of this beautiful elephants life for just a few minutes and wouldnt have wanted to be anywhere else; rain, mud or tough terrain!
You'll notice in the supplied video how the elephant uses his feet to loosen the mud and then kicks the mud onto himself. This is a way of keeping cool on hot days but also a means to protect the skin from biting insects. This is obviously at a waterhole, but elephants are also know to start new waterholes with this same behaviour. What will start off in one season as a depression in the earth with rain gathered in it, will over the next few seasons become larger and larger as elephants come and dig down and loosen the mud to wallow in. Eventually the wallow will be deep enough for them to lie in and become larger and larger and in doing so, creates new waterholes.
Was a really enjoyable sighting and just loved watching him go about his mud bath! This is what wilderness trails is all about!!!
Got similar videos or stories of experiences out in the wilderness? Email us and we can post it on the blog! hanroe@bhejanenaturetraining.com
Creating awareness through wilderness!
For more information on Bhejane nature training email us on info@bhejanenaturetraining.com today!
We (Dylan and Christa Panos) joined the Hluhluwe
Honorary Officers early this year in an attempt to get the Bhejane Students involved
in local conservation projects. The first project we got involved in was the
building of an aircraft hangar for the EKZN Wildlife Anti-poaching
aircraft.The Bantam Plane is already
in operation and has done a number of flights over the Zululand reserves. It is
currently kept at the ZUMAT (Zululand Mission Air Transport) hanger with some
other aircraft.
ZUMAT has offered its support to Ezemvelo
in the fight against poaching by offering free use of the hanger. It is however
an already crowded hanger and it soon became clear that a separate facility
would be needed.
The Hluhluwe Honorary Officers took on this
project and set out to build a 12x8 meter hanger for the Bantam.On the 3rd of March, a working
party was planned to start laying the concrete floor of the hanger.We took off with a group of Bhejane students
to assist with the effort.We had
concreted about 40% of the floor when Tropical Cyclone Irina made her presence
known.We scrambled in the rain, mud and
cement to get covering over the already poured cement.At this point, we had to terminate the
project for the day.2 Weeks later, we
were all back to finish what we had started.We would like to thank the Bhejane students who volunteered their free time
for this project.We are looking forward
to seeing it through to successful completion and wish the KZN Wildlife Team
well in their fight against poaching.
Ningabulali obhejane bethu!
The following students volunteered to
assist with the concreting of the floor:
Craig Clowes, Craig Bateman, Axel Primmer,
Emma Ascher, Megan Balouza, Zabileon Lemena, Paul Jensen, Niquita Ellis, Jay
Bell, Ashley Brownlie, Nicola Nicolosi, Ryan Smart, Khyle Pretorius.
