Report by Tracey Andrews, photographs by André Harmse
As I live in Rustenburg, I was really looking forward to our last Bushveld Mosaic weekend at Kgaswane, where I could show off all the hidden gems of this beautiful mountain reserve. Our last Bushveld Mosaic “Wetland” weekend at Kgaswane was challenging due to the heavy rain all weekend. We spent our time in the dry kitchen where we had our lectures or hiding in our sopping wet tents to keep out of the rain.
Our luck was out once more – record rains were again received. I recorded that Rustenburg had nearly 165mm of rain in the five days before our arrival. The weekend forecast also looked ominous! Nevertheless, Peter and André confirmed the weekend was on, and we should just come prepared for any eventuality! Maeva managed to get a beautiful yellow kiddie umbrella decorated with elephants and antelope, which she could huddle under while sitting around the campfire in the evenings. Jack packed his board shorts, Peter packed his flippers and goggles, and Darren unearthed his dive kit. The rest of us had an assortment of wellies, dry suits and waterproof jackets.
The reserve, however, looked magnificent after all the rains. The recently burnt areas were bright green with new growth, and the female animals looked ready to pop any time. The rivers were flowing strongly, and the wetland was sodden.
We spent Friday evening in the “cage”, where Roger Mayes gave us a refresher presentation of his beautiful insect photos. Fortunately, the rain held off for a few hours, and we could enjoy a quiet braai in camp.
Buckets of rain fell through the night, but we all emerged bright and early to do our last-minute studying for the Birds test. The Birds test was our last test of the year, and I found it quite challenging! Beware, next year’s students!
Roger explained how we would collect insects with cleverly made pitfall traps for crawling creepies, chimney traps for butterflies and moths, sweep nets for flying insects and observation boxes to observe our catch!
The teams then proceeded to prepare bait bags for the pitfall traps. The bait included fresh eland-, waterbuck-, impala-, and zebra droppings. And let us not forget Roger’s specially prepared carrion bait!
We set the pitfall traps in various sections of the reserve, in the pouring rain.
During our afternoon walk through the area, we found many different insects, spiders, a solifuge, four scorpions and red toads. We also observed how a dung beetle buried his dung ball.
A break in the weather made it possible for us to enjoy sundowners at the famous “Mushroom rock”- there are many in Kgaswane overlooking the wetlands.
We all enjoyed our braai, and a few of us were lucky to taste Peter’s Boerie Potjie which was delicious!
After supper, a few of us went for a late evening walk with our ultraviolet torches and found two of the four scorpions we had seen in the afternoon. The scorpions turned a luminous green colour under the UV light. Nature is truly amazing.
Maeva was pleased to see that the solifuge we had seen was out hunting. I was disappointed as I wanted to see if they were also luminous. We could also creep up close to a nightjar perched amazingly on a branch. André was at hand with his camera for some great shots.
The following day, André was again delighted that we found many different and fascinating arthropods. Our pitfall traps were surprisingly successful and our catch included beetles, millipedes, moths and butterflies. Roger was pleased that, despite the weather, our collection of creepy crawlies was quite extensive.
Some of our traps had been disturbed – could it have been baboons or the elusive resident aardwolf?
Jack and Megan had set up their waterproof trail camera near the wetland stream and captured fantastic footage of a black-backed jackal and a serval.
The Arthropods Practical was our second last weekend with Bushveld Mosaic, and we were all somewhat subdued while packing up.
It has been a fabulous course which I have thoroughly enjoyed.
Thanks to all for making it such fun!