Camera trap sightings

We set up motion activated game camera traps with the students a few days ago at the Chris Woolcott Vulture Restaurant and at a watering hole here at Thakadu Bush Camp. These cameras help us learn to identify animal species on the game farm.

The Kalahari region can be a dry place at this time of year, so animals can often be seen when they are concentrated around watering holes:

Here we've caught a male kudu in the foreground and ostriches in the background.

Wildebeests grabbing a drink at night. 

The ostrich in the foreground is a male, which you can tell by his dark coloring.

The CL Woolcott vulture restaurant is a local vulture rehabilitation program which is helping converse vulture species. Vultures play a vital role in the functioning of savanna ecosystems. However, all of the nine vulture species found in Southern Africa are currently either listed as vulnerable, endangered or threatened with extinction. It isn't only vultures that come to this restaurant though. Our flash-equipped cameras managed to capture some other carnivores as well:

A brown hyena stopping by for a little snack.

Jackals are another species of predator here on the farm.