The Daily Telegraph - Saturday - Travel
Learn to be master of the bush
‘Wow! You hear that?” Not a word has passed Jacob’s lips. It’s his eyes, lit up by the flickering glow of the campfire, that are doing the talking. The call we have just heard is unmistakable, like the jagged pulse of a handsaw. We can’t see the creature that is making this eerie sound, but we know it can see us. And we both know exactly what it is – Panthera pardus, as zoologists call it, or just plain “leopard” to you and me.
Our eyes scan the horizon, looking for the silhouette of the big cat we know is out there. Above us, Scorpio, with its pulsing heart star and giant pincers, is chasing Orion across the inky blackness towards the Southern Cross. Jacob is a local Botswanan, and he and I are on the “graveyard shift”. The time is just after 3.15am.
Our 90-minute watch will finish just before the first glimmer of dawn heralds the start of another day in the African bush. We are the only ones with our eyes open and our ears listening. The rest of the group, huddled in sleeping bags around our makeshift camp beside the huge rocks of a treecovered kopje (a small hill rising from flat land), are dead to the world. It’s up to us to keep them safe.
I have listened to the nocturnal sounds of the bush many times before from the safety of my bed in a comfortable safari lodge: the rhythmic strumming of cicadas; the chirrup of frogs; the piercing cry of a fish eagle; the eerie whoop of a hyena; or the gut-vibrating snarl of a lion. Sometimes I have even heard the sickening squeal of ambushed prey, unsettling to say the least. But this time it’s different. This is a sleep-out, the eagerly anticipated climax of our bush guide course at nearby Mashatu Camp, at the eastern tip of Botswana near the border with South Africa and Zimbabwe. Here, delving deeper into Egyptian cotton sheets is not an option. It’s our job to know exactly what’s going on in the bush around the camp, to keep the fire burning, and every quarter of an hour to patrol the area in front of camp.
By now I can recognise many of the sounds of the African night. While my abilities as a bird mimic are still at the primary-school stage, I can now identify the call and plumage of birds I had never even heard of a fortnight ago. I can tell you a surprising amount about the family behaviour of hyenas (they are actually quite cuddly creatures on home turf) and my tracking skills are improving daily.
I can recognise the difference between the paw prints of canine and feline species, and I know that the cheetah is the only cat that can’t retract its claws. I am even halfway competent at interpreting the direction of travel of everything from a warthog to an elephant, and whether it was running or walking.
EcoTraining – which, as well as Mashatu in Botswana, has camps in South Africa, Kenya and Zimbabwe – has been training bush guides for more than 20 years. Now, it is also offering shorter courses as an alternative, more immersive experience to a stay in a traditional safari camp – and at a fraction of the cost. They range from six to 28 days in duration and include guiding, wildlife photography, birding and wilderness trails. The idea is that guests not only learn about the bush, but also act as evangelists when they get home, spreading the gospel of conservation.
“Our guests come from all over the world,” says Anton Lategan, EcoTraining’s co-owner, “everyone from our all-important local communities to Europeans, Americans and Australians. We get people of all ages and an ever-increasing number of women. They learn about the whole spectrum of the environment: wildlife, of course, but also geology, ecology, and everything from insects and butterflies to the big cats and man’s place in nature.
“They also learn about themselves, discovering that they can sleep out
Courses designed for professional guides are available to the public – at a fraction of the cost of a safari. Richard Madden hones some new skills in Botswana