Jesse has been lucky again when out spotting animals for our guests. Him and the guests saw a super rare ground hornbill just a couple of days ago. This species is in grave danger of extinction, and it is a huge privilege and pleasure to have a resident (and breeding family) of ground hornbills on our reserve. We see them quite regularly, so for keen birders that are keen on spotting one of the ratest birds in the world, this is a real delicatesse sighting!
The Ground HornBill, more accurately called the “Southern Ground Hornbill”, is rare for a number of reasons: it has an exceedingly slow reproduction rate (they spend up to 4 years rearing one chickonly ), and they only reach maturity at the age of 6-7, but still do not breed at that age typically, as a pair requires help of 1-2 other birds raring one chick. It has also been observed that no ground hornbill is able to rear a chick without having gone itself through this “learning” process by helping rearing another couple’s chick (typically their own parents’), so the entire social fabric is extremely fragile.Despite most African cultures seeing it as a complete taboo to kill a ground hornbill, this cultural effect has weakened due to the modernisation of the continent, putting futher pressure on this rare species.
In South Africa this species is listed as “critically endangered”! We are proud that our reserve serves as sanctuary to this species, and that our resident ground hornbill is successfully raising chicks, and we hope that their numbers will continue to grow here.
See a photo of the ground hornbill below, as Jesse took it two days ago.
Also a photo of a WaterBuck, which are quite common on our reserve due to the many water holes and lakes. This couple is having a little summer “us time”, which is always nice to see. Water bucks are famous for running into water holes when there is danger, seeking refuge in this manner.
Also a lovely herd of zebra was spotted, as well as hundreds of wildebeest, which are doing very well on the reserve and provide many hunting opportunities for the many predators that are to be found on our reserve.
