BOOM IN THE BUSHVELD

 

Hand Rearing Ground Hornbill chicks At Mabula

 

 

 

First find your chick!  

 

Three Umgeni River Bird Park captive bred chicks came to Mabula in October, and they are now all out on the Reserve with our group, learning the complicated social structure and how to forage and avoid predators!

 

The chicks so far harvested from the Kruger National Park are out of incubators and growing well, but the early rains and then no rain seems to have stopped many of the groups from hatching chicks.

 

In the Limpopo, where our artificial nests have been put up, there is no activity so far, but we go again in February to check.  Some of the farms there have had 20mls of rain this season and some none.  Probably there is not enough food for a growing chick when there is very little rain.

 

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We had an adventure collecting a chick from the Ngotso nest in Kruger!  We left Mabula at midnight and arrived at the nest tree at 9am.  But there were a few visitor’s

cars a bit further on looking into a tree where a leopard was lying.  She climbed down and set off toward our nest tree and disappeared in the undergrowth.  We telephoned for the ranger, Rendani, who came with a scout and weapons!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Nick on the branch over stream at Ngotso Nest in Kruger

 

 

 

So we backed up to the branch, across the Ngotso river, on which we had to cross, with a huge ladder, to get to the nest.  A croc slid from under the branch and swam up stream… then we saw a hippo about 20 meters down stream.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

                                                                    Dee candling eggs three weeks before

                                                                                                                            

 

Dee had candled the eggs three weeks before so we knew the date to go for harvest, and while she was candling under the tree Nick was on guard for a pride of lion that they had seen in the area and were now out of sight.  But a giraffe was staring into the distance and so it was assumed it was looking at the lion!

 

Nick and Rendani climbed the huge tree and found a healthy first chick and a piping egg in the nest, and brought the egg out without incident….. well Nick did slip and wobble on the branch and one foot went into the stream…. to the car where we placed the egg in our incubator.

 

With adrenalin running high we drove the 9 hours back to Mabula.  As we got to the highway the chick started to hatch and we watched in awe as he took 45 minutes to hatch on my knee.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

                                                         Ngotso hatching in the car on the way home

 

 

 

 

Ann Turner

Mabula Ground Hornbill Project

January, 2007