Field Trip to Koanaka Hills, Botswana. June 2008

Field trip to Koanaka Hills, Botswana with Aaron Bauer and Dan Portik– June 2008 

17 June 2008

08:10 108249 km.  Departing from home in Irene, Pretoria.

12:20 108601 km. At Baltimore close to the Botswana border. Refuelled and got some toasted sandwiches from a little cafe. I also purchased a hoe from the local corporation store to dig for fossorial reptiles. 

13:40. 108662 km. At Martins Drift on the Botswana side. Paid P60.00 for vehicle third party. We have travelled 413 km from Pretoria to the border. I am always amazed how easy it is to take a vehicle over international borders. Nobody asked for any paper work for the vehicle and I had to fill in a single line in a book, stipulating the make, model, colour and registration of the vehicle. Nobody showed any interest in checking our vehicle on either side of the border. No wonder so many cars are stolen in South Africa. This must be one of our biggest exports!

15:20. 108773 km.  Lunch at the Wimpy in Palapaye. Aaron hates the Wimpy but we didn’t exactly have a lot of places to choose from.

18:00 (S 21 14 20 E 27 32 47 930 m) We got to the home of Butch Rennie, an old friend from my Mafikeng days.  Butch kindly offered us a bed with a warm shower and a meal. We scratched around in the garden and I got a Sundevall’s Writing Skink (Lygosoma sundevallii) in the compost heap. It was fairly close to the surface in some loose sandy soil mixed with plant debris. Butch cooked us a meal consisting of a meat loaf, carrots (he doesn’t eat them but thought we might like carrots), potatoes, gem squash, pap and sauce. We also met his friend David who is involved in waste management. After dinner we took a walk outside with our torches and saw some Moreau’s Tropical House Geckos (Hemidactylus mabouia) and a Cape Dwarf Gecko (Lygodactylus capensis) – we managed to catch one of each for a photographic session. They were sitting on the gutters where the nocturnal geckos could easily escape into the roof. We watched some Euro 2008 soccer on television (Bill would have been proud of us) and at half time Italy lead 1 – 0 against the French. Got to bed at 22:00 – it was a long day.

18 June 2008 

06:45 Up and on the way to Maun.

08:38 109138 km. The day started out quite chilly with a lot of cloud cover but warmed up and was pleasant. We refuelled in Francistown and headed north.

09:34 We had a very greasy breakfast in Nata – Russians, eggs &  chips for me while Aaron went for an omelette and Dan for scrambled eggs and chips. Not pleasant but no serious after-effects.   We were heading for Maun and hoping to see Makgadikgadi Spiny Agama (Agama makarikarica) in the salt pans on our way.

10:17 109164 km. S 20 10 02 E 25 57 01 We stopped just west of Nata at a dry salt pan and had a look around – also turned some rocks but no sign of Agamas. I took a few photographs of the salt pan and found a dead sub-adult flamingo which I also photographed.

11:12 109215 km. S 20 09 04 E 25 28 43 860 m.  Stopped off at a picnic site with a Baobab tree that was covered in graffiti. We scratched around for reptiles but couldn’t find anything – then took a few photographs and drove on.

12:15 109760 km. Stopped in a little town called Gweta after taking photographs at a massive man-made Aardvark. We drove in to Gweta Lodge where we spoke with the local ranger Shaun about getting into the salt pans. It’s a 35 km trip on bad roads that takes about 1½ hours each way and possibly more than one flat tyre, so we passed on the salt pans and continued to Maun.

14:05 109464 km. Maun. It has been about 20 years since I was last in Maun and I just couldn’t believe how the place had grown! We used the Garmin Nuvi GPS to find Nandos where we headed for a meal. I was quite impressed with the GPS – it also listed lodges and made our travels very easy. After Nandos we headed for Spar where we bought some provisions – bread rolls, peanut butter, syrup, some cheap cheese and far too little water for the days ahead. I called an old acquaintance Shane Seaman and was delighted to speak with him but we never managed to get together.  After Shane’s father John Seaman, the famous crocodile man from Botswana died, he got out of the crocodile and tourism business (his stepmother Ursula somehow got John to change his will shortly before he died – she inherited everything, sold the farm and disappeared to Switzerland where she came from). Shane now owns an air-conditioning business in Maun. We headed for Audi Camp, about 9 km out of town and again the Nuvi came in very handy, even though it showed Audi Camp about 1 km further south than its true location.

15:20 109478 km. Audi Camp S 19 56 02.2 E 23 30 32 910 m. A very well-run camp and no wonder it is so popular. We got two tented rooms overlooking the river for around P900 for the two. The rooms were immaculate and I will certainly make use of Audi Camp again in future. We walked over to the dormitories and met some of the Americans from Sam Houston State University – the people who had organised the trip to the Koanaka Hills. We briefly met Tim, Steve, Patrick, Adam, John and Kelly. I drove to town to fill of the four Jerry cans on the roof of the Toyota as well as the water tank. We were invited to a braai and met the rest of the crew. It was a pleasant but cool evening and we headed off to bed quite early.

19 July 2008

05:30 109504 km. Packed up and ready to leave. We were heading for Riley’s Garage where we were meeting the Texans. We went to Bimbo’s to get something for breakfast and all of the staff were fast asleep – we could easily have removed the cash register and the entire kitchen! After getting some toasted cheese and tomato sandwiches we headed west.

10:12 109754 km. After an hour or two on tar we got onto quite a good dirt road with patches of thick sand in some areas. One of the leading vehicles had driven over a Puff Adder (Bitis arietans) and we found it very much alive in the middle of the road.  It was in very good condition and perfect for photographs. S 20 04 22.5 E 21 36 57.8

17:10 109933 S 20 09 31.2 E 21 11 35.1 Although only about 440 km from Maun it turned out to be a very long drive and we got a little lost towards the end. This resulted in some driving through bush and the vehicle picked up lots of scratches that it could have done without. The road was not bad and a good driver could probably have made the trip without 4 x 4. Some deep patches of sand along the Namibian border were challenging and the Texans got stuck on two occasions – their vehicles were a little underpowered for the deep sand patches. We didn’t see much in the form of wildlife – a few Kori Bustards (Ardeotis kori) that were fun watching as they tried to get their massive bodies airborne. We also saw Lilac-breasted Rollers (Coracias caudatus) probably as far south as they go in western Botswana, several Chrimson-breasted Shrikes (Laniarius atrococcineus) and Burchell’s Sand grouse (Pterocles burchelii).

After some confusion we eventually found the old camp site and it was completely covered in long grass. The habitat was nothing like we imagined – we were expecting semi-desert with little grass and lots of loose sand but the area was covered in grass with lots of trees and shrubs. It was going to be hard going as the reptiles just had far too much cover to hide in. After setting up our tents we headed for the rocky hills close by but saw nothing. These hills consisted of very sharp dolomite rocks with few suitable cracks for lizards – generally not very suitable. We got back to a warm dinner consisting of foil-baked potatoes, carrots and a mealie. It was quite cold with the temperature dropping rapidly as the sun went down.

We got to know the Texans better as we chatted around the camp fire. Patrick Lewis heads up the team from Sam Houston State University and he is mainly interested in palaeontology. He chose the area because of the caves in the Koanaka Hills – very little work had been done in these caves in the past and he was keen on some serious exploring. Steve Thompson was camp commander and he was well organised – instructing everyone where to camp, who was on cooking or dish-washing duty, who entered the caves and when, etc. It was a highly-organised camp and everyone pretty much knew who had to what and when. Monte Theiss was the quiet one who just got on with his job – invariably working with the small mammals that the traps produced. Alicia Kennedy was their appointed herpetologist and she had to obtain reptiles, skin them and prepare their skeletons for comparative studies with reptile fossils found in the cave. John Garcia was like a secret agent, very quiet and just getting on with what he had to do. John is a graphic designer and one of his tasks was to measure and map the caves. Kelly Forson was there to work on invertebrates and part of his studies is to describe a bunch of new species from the area, especially those found in the caves. Kelly is great, a real happy-go-lucky guy who just loves life. Tim Campbell was the hard-working tall guy who is hooked on dip – tobacco that he places under his lip and then has to spit a great deal. I never really worked it out but didn’t try very hard. And he is crazy about the slower stuff – fossils! Stick him in a cave with something to dig with and he is happy. Very happy. Adam Ferguson was probably one of the most enthusiastic field workers that I have come across in recent years and he was like the Duracell bunny – out in the field from early morning till late night, looking for mammals. And once he got them the hard work really started – preparing skins and carcasses. If he stays in academia, he is going to be fine lecturer, but I think he has itchy feet. Molly Donough is Adam’s partner and shares his passion for mammals. And, like Adam, she also never stops. Chris Kroll was another quiet one but always working away with rows of small mammal corpses in front of him. A really pleasant and interesting crowd and I soon started calling most of them “stinking mammal” people.

I got to bed but my tent was on a slight slope and I kept on rolling off my inflatable mattress. And around three in the morning it got very cold and it was difficult to get any decent sleep in. I was going to have to figure something out for the next evening. I plugged in my Ipod and listened to some Rolling Stones.

20 June 2008 

07:00 A chilly morning but the camp commander had already organised a fire and I shuffled close to the coals. There was a great deal of activity – people all over the place, each doing his or her own thing. I was thinking of getting into the rocks to look for Skinks (Trachylepis sp. and possibly Panaspis sp.) as well as geckos of the genus Chondrodactylus. Had some raw oats and muesli with hot water for breakfast and did a bit of photography. I headed for the dolomite hill but despite some extensive scratching around found very little. I disturbed a Barn Owl (Tyto alba) from one of the cave entrances and it flew about fifty meters away before settling in a smallish tree. It was spotted by some African Red-eyed Bulbuls who made a lot of noise and within a few minutes more than 20 Southern Yellow-billed Hornbills (Tockus leucomelas) surrounded the tree and gave the poor Barn Owl a hard time. It must be a tough life to be so loathed and despised! I did see two Wahlberg’s Striped Skinks (Trachylepis wahlbergii) but they were in very difficult and inaccessible areas above the main cave entrance. If I desperately needed them I knew where to find them and could get them if I was prepared to spend an hour or two in the process.

Lunch consisted of peanut butter sandwiches, a meal that I was quite familiar with on field trip. I also salvaged some avocado from Alicia and made myself an avo sandwich, one of my all-time favourites. I went into the grasslands in the afternoon and found some sandy areas that I had spotted from the top of the hill. I bumped into Aaron, Dan and Alicia but they hadn’t caught anything. I briefly saw a Sand Snake, probably a Western Stripe-bellied Sand Snake (Psammophis subtaeniatus), but there was far too much bush for me to get it. While pealing bark off a dead tree I briefly saw a Variegated Skink (Trachylepis variegata), but that also escaped into a densely-vegetated thorny bush. I saw a sub-adult Cape Rough-scaled lizard (Ichnotropis capensis) which disappeared down a hole and after quite a bit of digging I managed to catch it. The entire area is full of rodent burrows, providing a great deal of refuge for reptiles.

We relaxed in the camp site for part of the afternoon, took some photographs and planned the evening. Alicia made us some pasta with tomato sauce for dinner but Aaron stuck to his stale bread rolls and cheese. After dinner I walked off into the sandy area that I had visited in the afternoon and spotted a Chameleon (Chamaeleo dilepis) about 4 m up a tree. At first its colours were so bright green, I thought that it was a parakeet or love bird of sorts. It was a mission to get it down but I bagged it eventually. Another hour of searching with a torch produced nothing and I headed back for the camp fire where the same old stragglers were sitting around and chatting.

21 June 2008 

07:00 Another very cold night with little sleep. We had raw oats for breakfast and I got stuck into photographing the reptiles that we had caught the previous day. Dan let the chameleon bite him and thought that it was rather painful. He should try a monitor lizard!

10:00 109933 km. Leaving camp and heading for the pan.

10:30 109937 km.  We stopped at the pan and Adam went about his business setting mammal traps. We managed to get about 6 Pedioplanis cf. namaquensis, most taken out with rubber bands but at least on intact specimen for photographs. We didn’t expect to get Pedioplanis here as it was more than 100 km out of their known range. I also managed to get one Agama aculeata and a very large Ichnotropis squamulosa. It was sitting at its burrow entrance and I managed to shoot it away from the hole with a rubber band and quickly covered the hole. It was an easy catch and a new record size for the species, by  a few mm. S 20 09 31.2 E 21 11 35.1.

11:36 109940 km. S 20 09 31.2 E 21 11 35.1. Stopped a bit further on and got another 3 Pedioplanis where we saw at least 16 Hornbills in two trees – I thought we were going to find a snake but no go.

13:00 109950 km. We got to the water hole and it had a lot of fresh elephant dung around it. We scratched around but saw no sign of reptiles. Adam set a few more traps and Aaron spotted some skinks in a shrub that was growing on top of a termite mound.  We had a few shots at skinks with our rubber bands but they escaped. I went back and after hitting a large Trachylepis wahlbergii twice, I managed to catch it. In the process, I accidentally covered a hole going into an ant nest and got bitten by a large black ant. It was like a wasp sting! Adam set a trip camera for mammals and we were on our way. S 20 11 36.9 E 21 06 33.5

13:52 109951 km. I spotted an Agama aculeata in the dirt road and stopped the vehicle. Aaron and Don approached the lizard while I circled around the back of the shrub. As Dan was about to dive into the bush he shouted “Puff adder”. We eventually managed to get both the Puff Adder and the Agama. S 20 11 36.8 E 21 06 44.5

14:40 109962 km. We stopped to check Adam’s traps, hoping that he would have at least one ground squirrel, but no go. We got another Agama aculeata. S 20 08 37.4 E 21 12 7.8

Back at the camp we relaxed, had some food and as darkness set in, I headed back up the rocky hill but caught nothing. Another cold night but this time I slept with an extra jacket on as well as a beanie. By this time I had developed quite a severe cough, no doubt the cold wind on my bald head while sleeping.

22 June 2008

07:00 The usual breakfast and a photo session – we had caught quite a bit the previous day and the reptiles cooperated in the cool morning. The Puff Adder was extremely cooperative until it warmed up. While Aaron and Alicia processed specimens I walked off into the sandy area but saw very little. And with so much vegetation it is easy for lizards like Trachylepis and Ichnotropis to escape. I eventually got some shots at a Trachylepis variegata and two Ichnotropis capensis but they escaped. I got a single Ichnotropis on my way back to camp – quite frustrating! Aaron and Alicia were still processing specimens and as I approached camp I came across Tim and Aaron looking for a Psammophis subtaeniatus that Tim had disturbed while going up the hill. We couldn’t find it. Mohutsiwa Gabadirwe, from the National Museum and his colleague Jobe Marenga had arrived with more provisions for the Americans.

I gave the hills another bash with a crowbar but no joy. We had a pleasant evening around the camp fire eating pasta which I washed down with a glass of Chiraz, compliments Chris.

23 June 2008

08:00 109966 km. We packed up, said our goodbyes and headed for Maun, leaving the stinking mammal people at the Koanaka Hills.

08:55 109980 km.  Got to the water hole S 20 11 36.1 E 21 06 33.2

09:21 109993 km. Reached the T-junction at the Namibian border. S 20 12 41.9 E 20 59 57.8

10:06 110031 km. Got to the turn-off where we started heading east. S 19 51 58.1 E 20 59 59.2

15:38 110363 km. Back at Audi Camp in Maun. They were full, so we booked into the Island Lodge – we had a nice room with air conditioning and a TV – the two rooms cost in the region of P900 for the night. We headed for the Sportsman’s Bar, the only eating place in Maun that was recommended. We had a good dinner, T-bone steak and chips for me while the other guys settled for chicken meals. Dan weakened and even had desert! We were planning on driving through to Pretoria the next day and had an early evening.

24 June 2008

07:00 110404 km. We had breakfast and left the Island Safari Lodge (enquire@africansecrets.net - +267 6860300). Refuelled at Riley’s Garage and headed south.

10:44 110667 km. We stopped at the Makgadikgadi Pan just north of Nata and had a good look for the Makgadikgadi Agama but no joy. We managed to get one Trachylepis wahlbergii in a storm water drain – it was a veteran with lots of scars. S 20 08 28.8 E 25 41 55.9 820 m.

14:30 110930 km. We stopped in Francistown and intended having some Nandos for lunch but they were so busy that we settled for an Indian restaurant close by. While tucking into our curry Butch walked into the restaurant but didn’t see us. So I gave him a call on his cell and asked him whether he knew of any good Indian restaurants in Francistown. His response – “You are not going to believe me but I am in an Indian restaurant as I speak”. We all had a good laugh. I also saw Dave Gilbert whom I last saw in Mafikeng in 1992.

16:07 111071 km. Stopped in Palapaye where we picked up some cold drinks.

22:00 111590 km.  Back home in Pretoria.

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