For more than 2 years I have been contributing back page articles to this magazine and I have also completed a couple of online courses with them.
My biggest Wildlife Campus achievement to date?
Probably the fact that I started a course with them about 20 years ago…and I have yet to complete it! FGASA Level1. I started it so long ago that the course has actually changed its name!)
That being said, I have never missed the monthly deadline for my articles.
This article first appeared in The Wildlife Campus magazine in August 2022.
Time for tales around the campfire? Remembering that what is shared around the fire, stays at the fire…or perhaps not.
Not only do field guides have to be a font of information when out on a drive, they also have to answer some interesting questions posed by their guests.
Google will have most of the regular answers required, however, there are still questions that even Google has no answer to. And it is those that will inform, entertain and educate both the Field Guides as well as the other guests on the game viewer (or around the fire at the end of the day).
Often it is all a guide can do to try and answer that sort of question with a straight face, not embarrassing either the guest or themselves.
Here, in no particular order, are some of my favourites.
Do Baboons lay eggs?
This was because guests had noticed that baboons in a particular reserve slept on top of the nests of Buffalo Weavers on the powerlines. The answer is that no, baboons do not lay eggs, but they found the nests comfortable to sleep on for the night and the Buffalo Weavers did not seem to mind the extra protection that the troop offered from predators.
Sometimes it is the guides that fall fowl (pun intended) of their imagination. At one training provider, the aspirant guides used to go running along a particular stretch of road. While running and chatting on one such run, one of the apprentice guides thought that he had a leopard trotting along in the grass close by. It was only when a guinea fowl broke cover and almost caused him to have a heart attack that he could laugh about the incident.
Another perennial question often revolves around the sexuality of the hyena. The female spotted hyena is well known, among connoisseurs of this sort of thing, to have among the most ‘masculinized’ external genitalia of any known female mammal. As a result, they are difficult to sex and guests are often confused when it comes to feeding the cubs. “Do both the male and females suckle their young”?. Of course, the answer is only the females, but it takes a strong guide not to laugh out loud at this type of question.
The words that I always wanted to say to a guide occurred while I was on a trip to a reserve in the Waterberg. Our guide had left the vehicle to try and locate a lion that was vocalizing close by.
He was unsuccessful and was walking back to the road when I shouted out; “THERE IS A LION BEHIND YOU”! He laughed and continued to amble back to the vehicle. It was only when I repeated the statement more forcefully that he looked around and noticed the lion padding along behind him. Needless to say that he increased his pace to arrive safely at the vehicle before the lion, which proceeded to flop down next to the vehicle and watch us watch him for a while.
Are rhinos carnivorous?
This question was asked by a medical professional when we came upon a white rhino sleeping in the middle of the road. What prompted him to ask it I have no idea but it certainly caused controversy on the vehicle!
Before I could answer, the guide, sensing that I was about to share a ‘fun’ but incorrect fact stepped in and answered it correctly, without embarrassing either the guest or having to chastise me…that was to come later.
However on the a subsequent game drive with the same ‘rhino’ guest and guide, I enquired if he knew how giraffes slept at night? When he said that he did not, I launched into a detailed description about how they place their heads in the fork of a tree and then retract their legs like landing gear to keep themselves safe from predators. The guest swallowed the story hook, line and sinker and was eventually rescued by the guide who told him that I was pulling his leg.
When do Zebra moult and lose their stripes?
How long does it take for the stripes to re-grow? There is NO answer to that sort of question…
So before you ask, take a moment and ponder. “ Will my question end up in an article like this”?
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