 |
| Thick-Tailed Bush-baby in Marloth Park |
Bush-babies are a real treat for visitors when they frequent the lodges
in Marloth Park. The Lessor Bush-baby (Nagapie in Afrikaans) are common
to the area and their "cute-factor" are in the extremes. They live from
the gum and juice excreted by trees. They do however also love to hunt
for and eat insects like moths, grasshoppers, spiders and ants. What we
found them to also enjoy is yogurt. They do definitely prefer the banana
flavour and it is not a strange sight for regular visitors and
permanents to have them jumping onto the dinner table to get to it.
 |
| Lessor Bush-baby coming for it's daily treat. |
A surprisingly new sighting for us was the Thick-tailed Bush-baby (Bosnagaap in Afrikaans) that came to say "hallo" last night. They appear to be quite common further north from Marloth Park although we've also seen them at Kwa Madwala
kwamadwala.net to the south where they are a real menace at the restaurant. Although they are much bigger, their diet are very similar to that of the Lessor BB. There is a definite lower count on the cute factor meter. This one moved so slow that one could almost mistake it for some strange exotic specimen from Madagascar! All people that I spoke to first wanted to see the photos before they believed the Thick-tailed Bush-baby to be here. They are very social animals and it is extremely unlikely that this will be a loner. We will keep a close watch to see if the rest of the family will show up.
Something really tragic and very sad happened last night. We heard a bush-baby calling their typical monotonous chirp at about twelve o' clock when we were in bed already. It carried on for so long that I actually got up and looked out the window, but could not see anything in the moonlight. We really thought that they were just playing and when the chirping stopped we assumed that they were off to play somewhere else. This morning, to our shock and utter sorrow, we found a bush-baby drowned in the splash pool last night. Although I know that it is not my fault I feel so terrible knowing that I could have saved it. If I only took the trouble to go outside to see where the calling came from! Damn!!!
ReplyDeleteTo prevent anything like this ever happen again I will put a dry branch in the pool. I have also found two scorpions in the pool before and unfortunately the rescue plan for the bush-babies will also help the scorpions.
Worst thing of all is that I hung a hollowed out piece of wood in a tree nearby and Louise noticed two of our regular bush-babies entering it a day or so ago. I will now hold thumbs that it is not this newlyweds that's been affected by this tragic event.