June sightings, wildlife monitoring and interesting research projects.`
Sightings of the month
Thank you to all who recorded their sightings in the book this month! Here is the number of recorded sightings per species:
Highlights
Thank you to all who recorded their sightings in the book this month! Here is the number of recorded sightings per species:
- Lion and Leopard sightings made up 19% of the total species recorded, at a total of 7 lion sightings and 12 leopard sightings of 99 recorded sightings in the book.
- The highlight for the month was an Aardvark seen at op Goedehoop entrance, Argyle Road!
- Two Sharpe’s Grysbok sightings were recorded on bush walks, along with lions on a kill, plenty of elephants and multiple buffalo herds and dagga boys.
- A Martial Eagle was spotted at Beacon, and a Chestnut-vented Warbler was seen in the garden at Reception.
- Bird species recorded: Pearl-spotted Owlet, Tawny Eagle, African Hawk-Eagle, Brown Snake Eagle, Saddle-billed Stork, Woolly-necked Stork, Brown-headed Parrot, African Fish Eagle, Blue Waxbill, Southern White-crowned Shrike, Green Wood-Hoopoe, White-crested Helmet-shrike, Golden-breasted Bunting, Red-billed Buffalo Weaver, Jameson’s Firefinch, Red-billed Firefinch, White-backed Vulture, Verreaux’s Eagle-Owl, Malachite Kingfisher, Grey Heron, Giant Egret, African Spoonbill, Hamerkop, Southern Ground Hornbill, Trumpeter Hornbill, Yellow-bellied Greenbul, Chestnut-vented Tit-Babbler, Martial Eagle, African Barred Owlet, African Scops Owl and Bearded Woodpecker.
- Reptilian highlights: Rock Monitor, Nile Crocodile catching a nyala at the causeway, Leopard Tortoise, Flap-necked Chameleon, Marsh Terrapin, and Serrated Hinged Terrapin.
- Other general species recorded: Buffalo, Impala, Kudu, Wildebeest, Giraffe, Zebra, Waterbuck, Hippo, Nyala, Bushbuck, Klipspringer, Sharpe’s Grysbok, Spotted Hyena, Honey Badger, Duiker, Steenbok, Warthog, Chacma Baboon, Vervet Monkey, Scrub Hare, Tree Squirrel, Springhare, Dwarf Mongoose, Banded Mongoose, Slender Mongoose and Small-spotted Genet.
Ingwelala Bird List
One of our more exciting projects for the month has been compiling an official Ingwelala Bird List! This has taken many months to achieve, but we are now in the final stages of completion.
We’d like to appeal to anyone who has their own Ingwelala bird list that they’d be willing to share, to please send it to us at
The alphabetical bird list will hopefully be available on the website soon, we are in the process of final edits now. We are also working on morphing the alphabetical list into lists that will be grouped by bird family or bird type, as well as a checklist you can print to tick off bird species as you see them.
On the bird list, you’ll see the final column will read, “RD (Regional, Global)”. This is the Red Data column, or the column showing the conservation status of the bird species regionally and globally. We have only included significant species in this column. Here is a key:
- RE: Regionally extinct (extinct within the assessed region)
- CR: Critically endangered (on the verge of extinction)
- EN: Endangered (at risk of extinction)
- VU: Vulnerable (susceptible to endangerment)
- NT: Near threatened (likely to qualify for a threatened category in the near future)
- LC: Least concern (not a focus of wildlife conservation; species still plentiful)
We’d also like to appeal to any artists who have an affinity for drawing or painting birds: we are looking for illustrations to add to our bird lists, and if we can we’d potentially like to create an illustrated bird booklet for Ingwelala. If you are willing and able to contribute towards this, please contact the Conservation team at
Screenshots of the species list categories and the red data column abbreviationsSightings Monitoring/Mapping
We’d like to thank everyone once again for recording sightings in the book at Reception, and for calling them in on the radio. We use these sightings to monitor species’ movements and get a better overall idea of the general dynamics in the area.
From the recorded sightings, here is a map created to show the hotspot areas of lion versus leopard sightings across Ingwelala for July. Being smaller predators, leopards tend to be seen less in areas of high lion density. This is not because they always physically move out of the area but is theorised to rather be because they will move more carefully and become more difficult to spot, and partly due to people being more focused on the lion sightings.
Hopefully from the map created below, you can see that there was very little overlap between leopard and lion hotspots on Ingwelala for July. The overlapping areas were at Farmhouse Crossing, where there is water at the base of the rocky outcrop in the riverbed, and at Buffels Hide. The 2 areas where they noticeably overlap are areas where multiple sightings of each species occurred in a short time frame, and there happens to be water at both sites - a good reason for almost any species to be there at any given time - and more likely areas for people to notice both species more easily.
As a new direction to take, we’d like to gather data on predator kills, as this is not something that we have a lot of existing data on. What we are looking for is information on the prey species that are being killed. For example, when the lions are on a kill, we’re looking for data on the species and possibly even sex of the kill they have made (e.g. a male buffalo, or a female kudu, etc.).
We’d like to ask that if you record predators on a kill in the book, that you please write down what the kill was as well, if you can. Thank you!