I am now wild dog obsessed. There is no doubt about it. How else can I explain clambouring into the back of the truck every morning for 8 weeks between 3am and 4am! This week has been a very busy week, with lion call ups and with dog darting. The plan was to put radio collars on 3 additional dogs - at Tembe only one dog has a radio collar, but for their safety to be able to track and check their location and determine whether in danger, more collars were require...

Today I am moving camps, heading from Mkuze to Tembe, which is north of where I am now, and closer to the Swaziland and Mozambique borders. I think the focus will be wilddogs, and elephants....but I will find out for sure when I get there.

So far I have avoided too many bites, in part through the ridiculous looking practice of tucking the bottom of my trousers into my socks when we go walking to look for dogs/cheetah or whatever else we are seeking at the time. This seems to keep the ticks under control, that and obsessive checking of my clothing and skin before I get back on the back of the truck - and everyone else doing the same. Those ticks can really jump! Tick and flea management has thoug...

I have made a discovery - not every baby creature is cute. When shopping here last week, I picked up a box of eggs. Inside there was a proud mummy maggot with her wriggling babies. I admit that despite my efforts to see the beauty in nature whilst here (even in the things that are designed to kill or bite me), my reaction to the baby maggots was not to coo and say "ah", instead it was definitely more of an "urggh!", as I hastily put the box back. I think it m...

I woke this morning because a termite landed in my ear - and I was inside my mosquito net, so it had somehow squeezed in through the netting. It wasn't the only one, and so I decided that it was time to get up and investigate. Outside my room there were hundreds of termites swarming around. They are a regular feature, emerging from the nests, and particularly if there is stormy weather. What is not a regular feature though is me sharing a bed with them, and...