Antares and Mel win a Silver Award at ITFFA
June is a month of celebrations at the camp as we recognise the effort of Mel and her award winning entry at ITFFA
ITFFA award results
Mel and Ian recently attended the awards evening for the International Tourism Film Festival Africa (ITFFA). Mel had single handedly produced, directed, and edited a marketing video for the camp and submitted it into the competition. From an initial list of 448 entries this was reduced to 141 finalists from across the globe with entries in a variety of categories. Judging is intense and with seven criteria being look at and marked out of ten, a silver award is given to those entries that achieve a score between 55 and 60 and a gold award for those obtaining over 60. We are extremely proud of what Mel produced and achieving a silver award on her first attempt.
Solar
Our move across to renewable energy has started and the support structure is in place. This will double up as a 4-car carport with the solar panels on the roof section which will be stage 2 of this project.
The hope is that we will be able to ensure the camp has uninterrupted power even during the dark days of loadshedding. The long-term goal would be to be disconnected from the National Grid and be totally reliant on the sun for our energy needs. Although this move will hopefully see some financial savings, the ultimate win is to have uninterrupted power using a renewable resource, something that is important to the future of the planet.
This blog covers almost 3 months’ worth of sightings. I was waiting until the ITFFA awards was over before creating a new one. I know many of you have been wanting to see what has been happening, I apologise for the long delay.
Since April, the waterhole has been busy with the usual daily visits of elephant and impala in particular, but we have also had a few other species such as kudu, buffalo, zebra, giraffe, and the other pachyderms all come to visit. We even had a steenbok stop for a drink, something they very rarely do. The scrub hares have been regularly active recently with many visits in the middle of the night for a drink of water.
Our predators have been relatively busy with several lion and leopard sightings, including one of a male and female leopard together. Maybe we might enjoy a sighting of baby leopards in the next few months. One of the female lions on the reserve recently gave birth and has been hiding her cubs on Grietjie berg. Recently camera footage at one of the other lodges showed her taking the single cub on a walk across the reserve. Maybe one day they will come past the hide. It is unknown whether she had more cubs originally. The hyenas have been wandering past especially this last month or so. WE have also had a couple of visits in June from the black backed jackals. Up until now I have probably counted on one hand the number of times these small predators have turned up and I have no explanation for it. They are extremely common on the reserve and can be heard calling nearby every night, yet they ignore the lure of our fresh water!
Birding is always active at the hide and at the reflection pond, especially during these drier winter months. Our grey heron continues to make his regular visits to the waterhole and enjoy his feast on the frogs and small fish. The Giant and Pied kingfishers also had their fair share of fish. An African Hawk Eagle came in for a quick bathe one day.
The guineafowl flock has grown substantially in the last two months and they come home to roost in the trees close by every night. This make for great photo opportunities at dusk and dawn.