Since our last report from Amakhosi, things have undergone massive changes here in the Amazulu Nature Reserve. The unbelievable has happened. One night while we were having dinner on the deck here at Amakhosi lodge the ambience of that windy African night started to change. The wind died down and humidity set in. A short time later the temperature started to fall and then an almighty flash of light. A rumbling thunder followed that rolled over the mountains, shaking the earth like the stampede of a thousand buffalo's. The first drop fell, then the second and we realised we needed to head for cover. Just as we finished moving dinner underneath the patio of the lodge a curtain of water came down with the most incredible roar. It ended an hour or so later leaving behind two inches of precious water. You could almost hear the parched soil of the earth beneath our feet slurping up every precious drop.

The dry season was now broken and most of the dams on the reserve received a good quota of water. As much as this was to our utmost relief, we also wrestled with the fact that the summer rains were at least three months early. Could this be an uncanny sign of global warming? Whatever the reason, winter was now finally over and the onset of spring have begun. Daily temperatures average in the high twenties and low thirties and are ever increasing. The bush, as ever, was quick to respond to this heavenly gift of water and warmer temperatures and changed its face completely. The once gray, dusty landscape is now lush and green with flowers unveiling their colourful faces everywhere. A cent of perfume fills the air as knob thorns, umbrella thorns, wild jasmine, and various bush-willows push out their flowers to attract insects and birds to pollinate them.

The mighty realms of the insects also, have been awoken. Insects are now more diverse and numerous than during the cold dry winter, and the diversity and numbers are increasing daily. In fact, insects are one of the most diverse classes of life on the planet. In South Africa there are over 75 000 described species (1,1 million worldwide). However many remain undiscovered. According to scientists as many as 30 million species might be out there. They are corner stone to the environment we live in and without them we would cease to exist. Insect pollinators (pollination syndromes) give food to the world, others turn and aerate soil, and they control other insect pests and recycle waste products back into usable nutrients (i.e. dung beetles) for plants and animals alike. Dung beetles are very important insects here in Africa. The size of the dung that large herbivores leave behind resulted in the evolution of the largest dung beetles in the world. They are responsible for recycling the massive amounts of dung produced each day by all large and small herbivores. They roll balls that are rolled away and buried beneath the ground. It is then used as food and protection for their larvae. Breeding balls as they are called can regularly be seen for the last couple of weeks. This is when the females hitch a ride on the ball of dung that the male so meticulously put together and carefully rolls away for burial. However not all species of dung beetles roll the dung away. Some species roll the ball inside the dung and stay there while others roll the ball in the dung and take it directly down under ground underneath the dung.

The recent rains we had and the warm temperatures we have were just what the doctor ordered for reptiles and amphibians alike. Snakes are creeping out from their winter lairs after a long hibernation period. They are now hungry after living of their fat reserves during the winter. They will now start to rebuild those fat reserves in preparation for the next winter season. Species like puffaders, Mozambique spitting cobra, pythons, black mamba, mole snakes, and asps can sometimes be found in the roads at night where they soak up the warmth left there by the hot African sun. Rodents, birds and their chicks are their favourite pray, and now there are plenty of them to feast upon. Every night here at Amakhosi as the game drives return from the bush, guests are not only greeted by friendly Amakhosi staff members, but also a whole choir of professional singers. They are the frogs and toads. Although sometimes difficult to see we can hear various species of frogs and toads call throughout the night. The soft trill of a Banded rubber frog or the croak of the Guttoral toad echo throughout the night. Males try to sing their song to the clearest clarity and the perfect pitch to try and win the hart of a likely female sitting on the water's edge listening with the utmost of scrutiny. Others can also be heard and include the Natal sand frog, snoring puddle frog, painted reed frog, bubbling cassina, and the golden leaf folding frog to name but a few.

For mammals on the reserve, life is good. Plenty of food and water is now available to all the herbivores. The good rains resulted in the creation of numerous water puddles in the bush, not to mention filling the natural and man made dams, which in turn resulted in the greater dispersion of game throughout the reserve. This means that intense grazing and browsing pressure on just a few isolated areas (the river for example) during the dry season is now relieved and will allow for a bit of recovery. However, this is somewhat bad news for all the predators on the reserve. Their pray is now more dispersed which means that they will need to work a little bit harder for their meals. The good old days of sleeping and relaxing near water sources picking of thirsty, tired, and unsuspecting pray is over for now. From now on it will take skill, determination, and stamina to fill the bellies of the hungry cats. That also goes double for the rangers trying to locate them.With the coming of the rains and the beginning of a new season in the bush it is also time for the introduction of new life. In the last couple of weeks several new arrivals have been spotted. We witnessed the birth of a brand new baby giraffe. After being in the womb for roughly 457 days he was introduced to the world by a seven-foot fall at birth. The little baby got to his feet very soon and as he rose up for the first time he already towered two meters tall up into the air. He was not the only one, a one day old reed-buck was also seen late one afternoon hiding in the grass to make him less conspicuous to predators, notably cheetah and lion. Nyala lambs are also common these days and we found the small little tracks of yet another newborn baby elephant. The little giant has not been seen yet but efforts are going on to locate him and establish the first official sighting of him.

In the last report I mentioned that the big female lion of the northern pride gave birth to a litter of cubs and that there was possibly three of them. It turned out that our prediction was horribly wrong. One afternoon while following up on some lion tracks we came upon a freshly killed kudu bull. The atmosphere was tense and tangible and there were no sign of the one who was responsible, but we decided to return to the area later that evening to maybe get a glimpse. So we did and to our astonishment we found the big lioness of the northern pride and not three but five young cubs close to the carcass of the kudu. For about a week after that we had on and off sightings of them until they disappeared into the vastness of the bush. We did relocate on the female again some time after, close to the area where the cubs were born. We still find regular tracks of them and it looks like they are doing very well indeed. The time is now nearing where they will join the rest of the pride and this is an exciting prospect.

Tragedy struck one of our cheetah's not to long ago. One morning she came down to the water for a drink and she made the fatal mistake. She dropped her guard for a second and assumed the log in the water was indeed a log. In fact it was a four-meter crocodile ready to strike. She took a big hit to the right shoulder and was dragged halfway into the dam. As luck would have it she managed to break free from the grip of instant death but the damage was done. The crocodile did not get a good grip on her but still inflicted a serious wound to her right shoulder. The last time she was seen was more than two weeks ago. She was limping badly and was terribly thin. It is in times like these that you fight the temptation to intervene in the system. But it must be remembered that nature has its own laws and rules and unlike humans it is not governed by emotion. We removed ourselves from this system a long time ago and only act as bystanders or observers now. To interfere would shift the balance of the system. Not long after these events we stumbled across natures answer to our, and the cheetah tragedy. We are proud to report the arrival of three new cheetah cubs on the reserve. They were about a week old when Dean (Amakhosi head ranger) discovered them with eyes still shut and utterly defenseless. Mother was nervously vigilant keeping guard over the helpless balls of fluff. Being a highly endangered species, this was a small victory for cheetahs in their battle for survival.

Birding here at Amakhosi is now getting even better and better. The migrants are slowly but surely starting to return. At first Whalbergs eagle could only be heard, but sightings started rolling in soon after that. Other species that have returned includes some of the cuckoos. Black cuckoo, Diederick's cuckoo, and Jackobin's cuckoo have been sighted and myself heard the unmistakable call of the red-chested cuckoo a few days ago. We also discovered a new nesting pair of Crowned eagles along the river-line and since the river started flowing a lot stronger we spot and hear fish eagle at a regular basis. On the wetlands we now see flocks of yellow-billed stork, African black duck, White-faced duck, Purple gallinule, darters, cormorants, moorhens, and stilts to name but a few. As summer creep closer and closer that list will only get longer and longer.

For now at least things are looking good here at the Amazulu nature reserve. The bush is nice and green, the animals are happy, and that makes us here at Amakhosi very happy. We had very good rains so far, but we will need a lot of follow up rain to get us through the summer and the next dry season.