12th April

This is the third attempt at today's blog. Good job I've got time on my hands it's so frustrating.
Saturday again and very quiet with Jane, Max and Phale away for the weekend,  Reggie at a wedding and the trackers all gone for the time being. Torrential rain last night from 10pm onwards and colossal noise on the corrugated tin roof so not much sleep. Today is cool and cloudy with more rain forecast. I've been into Ghanzi to get groceries,  done my washing and now hopefully blogging.
I had a great day Friday but I'll save that for another post. I just want to follow up on the tracking day last Tuesday. I'm desperate to send you the photo of the cheetah poo but I can't seem to squeeze it through the airways.  Something has gone awry with the photos yet again it's driving me bonkers.
Towards the end of that afternoon we walked about five minutes into the bush (through murderous vegetation)  to a  known cheetah marking tree where they come to scent mark and sharpen their claws. It's a calling card for them and  others and CCB has camera traps at all the known trees. Phale retrieved the chip and changed the batteries and in fact there were some nice photos of cheetahs one of which I'll send you . Male cheetahs, usually brothers, often stay in pairs or bigger groups called a coalition and t pair in the photo are both male and prove they really are around here. When I first came here there was a plan to capture and collar six cheetah in conjunction with the  RCVS in London buy sadly now for various reasons that's been put off until June. It would have been a fantastic experience for me but I've seen the spoor and the scat and that's more than most people. My mammal count is going up slowly which I'll tell you more about next time and when I can I walk around with my binoculars so I'm beginning to recognise a lot of the birds here.
In the bush there are enormous spiders which make thick messy webs about six feet across and usually strung between two bushes or even across the track. The web contains the remains of all the poor critters which have been caught in it and I have tried to take a photo but to be honest I don't want to get that close. I'm getting used to the bugs now and luckily I haven't had any in my hut since the first day when I evicted a large and strangely flat spider,  however I never get out of bed without shining my  torch across the floor and I always check my shoes. The cooler weather seems to have got rid of the mosquito site, in fact after the first flurry of bites I peaked at about 35 and didn't get any more. I think they decided the Beaujolais far from being Nouveau was actually a bit Ancien so they left me alone. Actually I felt faintly insulted but at least my arms no longer feel like Braille.
I've got some nice photos including some of me so that's my next task. More later...