Water, water and more water …
Enjoy this “weather report” from the Thanda Reserve Management
“Last Saturday night we had 106 mm of rainfall in less than 12 hours. This wet weather is a welcome respite from the recent dry spell. We were becoming concerned about drying waterholes and fire hazards from long, dry grass. The accumulated rainfall in March is already more than three times the average over the last ten years!
Now all waterholes are brimming with fresh rain water which will carry the Thanda wildlife for many months. However, nature’s blessings in such sudden abundance often require a bit of mopping up. Some of our roads and fence lines became compromised by soil erosion and we have to mobilize all our teams to bring them up to scratch again. And when the sun comes out we will need to monitor the germination of new alien vegetation which takes advantage of the rich moist Zululand soils.
Nevertheless we welcome the African rains and simply hope that they arrive in more moderate quantities.”
Warren Beets – Thanda Reserve Management
Watch this short video clip about the Mduna River Flood: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SFjxSVxrIXo
The image above shows my tracker, Bheki Ngubane, and Thanda’s Reserve Manager, Warren Beets, on one of the flooded bridges over the Mduna river. This river usually only flows for a few hours after heavy rains.
The image below shows a large dam near Thanda house. Since my arrival at Thanda in 2012 this waterhole never held much water after regular rainfalls. Today the dam is full to the rim. In this picture Warren takes a visual record of this record!
Pictures by Christian Sperka – Specialist Photography Guide and Resident Wildlife Photographer – Thanda Private Game Reserve
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