Baby Cheetah

I was woken this morning by my radio (by which everybody on the reserve communicates, as if with a walkie-talkie) at some point just after six. This is not the first time this has happened, and as usual my first thought was "Who on Earth is having a conversation at this time in the morning?". But when the words, "Dizzy has been found with cubs," registered in my sleepy brain, I was suddenly wide awake.

Dizzy is a lone female cheetah taking part in the rehabilitation program at Okonjima. I saw her within my first few days here, and put some good pictures of her in a post from my first week. She had been seen close to Bones, a male rehab cheetah who usually lives with his friends Coco and Spud, a couple of months earlier, and it seems like they must have mated.

One of the guides tracked for Dizzy on trail this morning, and found her off road in the south of the reserve. When he and the guests got closer, they saw Dizzy had three very young cubs with her.

I've spent most of my day watching Dizzy with her babies, or sitting near by to see if she moves around. The couple of photos I took aren't particularly good, because I couldn't get too close- and honestly, I really wanted to watch them with my own eyes rather than through a camera lens.

Mummy Dizzy watching me

They are incredibly cute and we all hope Dizzy will be a good mother to them.

Diary Entry - Day 55

I have been in the office for most of the last week- but Chris gets back from leave on Friday, so I'm counting down the hours until I get more freedom!

On Saturday it was Shanna's birthday, so the whole family had dinner together out in the reserve. First we had champagne by one of the dams as the sun set:

Rain

For the last week, I haven't been out of the office that much because it's been raining a lot - I mean, really torrential electric storms. Main camp had 152mm over a four day period. This is very good news for the reserve, but not such good news for me, as having come from the wettest year England has on record, I'm not quite as excited as the locals. Also, I've found that there is absolutely no way of driving my quad bike through a puddle without getting soaked with muddy water- and there are very, very many puddles, as the roads here are not built for rain!

Examples of the puddles I have to negotiate- and these are far from the worst

Last week I went along to watch Wayne dart Penta- it has been decided that she and her cubs will be released here, as we cannot find anywhere else for them to go. She therefore needed a collar putting on, and we took some blood samples whilst she was unconscious.

On Friday, I went for my first bare-back horse ride, which was actually not as wobbly as I feared. Hopefully by the time I leave, I will be fairly proficient!

As yesterday was Easter, I got up very early, at 5.30, to help set up an Easter egg hunt for the Hanssen children. It was pouring with rain, so I commandeered a four-wheel-drive car and made my way up to their house. The children were so excited when they woke up, and ran out into the rain with no qualms at all. After a breakfast of pancakes, bacon and eggs, the sun had come out and we took advantage of the recent rainfall, driving down to a beautiful waterfall that only runs after heavy rain. The children swam in the pool at the bottom of the waterfall and jumped off the top, and after some coaxing I jumped in in my jeans and t-shirt.