Paradise under stress: KTP October 2019

[Peter Betts]

I have camped out with Scientists , Section Rangers and have never heard of Banded Mongoose ever mentioned ..but Wild Dog have and a lone Impala too ..The Wild Dogs killed the Impala ..Yes the Banded Mongoose must be rare

[GavinW]

Here are a few more pics of them

[Richprins]

Never knew those mongooses were there in the desert!

[Lisbeth]

Mel has also seen them

[Mel]

Those roads up north are usually ALWAYS corrugated after Polentswa... We got the idea that they would only do maintenance on the road between Polentswa and Nossob regularly and the rest only on occasions. But funnily this time around we actually saw a grader in the far north

Awesome that you got to see the banded mongoose now too. We found them on two different trips before, with decent photo ops, whereas that October they were very far off in the riverbed. But I'm very happy to see that they can still be spotted so close by as well.

Banded mongoose are they very rare there?

I have camped out with Scientists , Section Rangers and have never heard of Banded Mongoose ever mentioned ..but Wild Dog have and a lone Impala too ..The Wild Dogs killed the Impala ..Yes the Banded Mongoose must be rare

It all depends on the draw of luck, I'd say. Never saw a wild dog or an impala or the aardwolf that was seen somewhen in December / January on several occasions. (Or the ellie walking along Mata.) But the banded mongoose have been reported by different people by now. However, at the moment they only inhabit a very narrow area which is around Geinab.

[Mel]

Mel has also seen them

I was just composing my message when you posted

Yes, I'm one of the blessed ones

[Lisbeth]

That's something that I would have loved to see instead of all the stupid lions that were around

[Mel]

I love my lion (again) alright, but the mongeese are so very special that I'd swap a sighting of the big ones against the smalls ones too

[GavinW]

I must admit, the banded mongooses were one of the highlights of our trip.
But the highlight was still to come............. Tomorrow

Now for the rest of today



We returned to the waterhole at Polentswa in the late afternoon to watch the comings and goings, and the interactions between species at the popular spot.
Both Lappet Faced and White backed vultures were very much in attendance that afternoon

[GavinW]

And the juvenile bateleur was back for an evening drink

The Wildebeest were always there or there about

And this springbok looked splendid in the evening light