Kim has decided to surprise his daughter on her birthday back in South Africa. That means I’m back in the driving seat and over the moon about some new stuff I’m learning! We have Jonathan Leeming on the reserve teaching us some incredible facts about scorpions and spiders. I must say I’m a spider guy and I hate killing spiders, so this was right down my ally. Although, I never thought I’d be under every rock and in every crevice trying to seek out as many species of scorpions as possible. And never in a million years did I think I would be pulling out a huge rock scorpion and letting it run all over my hands!
This was really something different and we were so privileged to tap into Jonathan’s wealth of knowledge. So the day didn’t end with rock scorpions, after an informative slide show on spiders, we went out looking for different species. We found a Green Lynx Spider, Dew Drop spider with Golden Orb Web spiders and many others, but what was really interesting and delicate was digging out an Opistophthalmus glabrifrons - a burrowing scorpion found in loamy soils. I know what you’re thinking, “ a what?” It’s like learning a whole new language with most scorpions not having common names - I thought I’d landed up with a stutter after our first lecture. Anyway, the scorpion saga continues and last night two of the guys were stung by a scorpion leaving them with some tingling sensations in their hands.
Over the past few days I’ve kept up with Manyari and Sjambok, who have finally stopped mating. They have left Banyini, much to the relief of all the zebra and antelope, it seems they’re back on high ground.
Kim had one huge scene with the wild dogs, hyena and five lions all on the same terf today before he left. Tomorrow morning I will head down to try find the dogs and maybe I’ll be so lucky as to pick up on the action – if the rain doesn’t pour as forecasted and disrupt my plans.
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