My data collection has come with a few hardships to over come because of the change of seasons, we are currently going into our dry season. The change has brought about colder weather and more overcast days, we have also had an unusually high amount of rain for this time of year. This late rain has kept the natural water pans full and productive. The grass in the southern areas of the Timbavati is still green whilst in the north where I am is a far drier. From my observations it seems like the breeding herds of Elephants have stayed in the South to utilize the greener food.
To try and maximize my data I can collect I have chosen 10 replicates or water holes to monitor this has allowed me to monitor both the Northern and Southern areas of our traversing area. I have set the cameras up generally durning the mid-day as it is when I have time off in between game drives. They then spend 5 days and night at the pre-determined water hole. Each camera is set to capture a photo at 15 minute intervals, each camera also takes a picture if the motion sensor is triggered. Generally an animal will trigger a photo at about 15 meters from the camera so I try to pick an area closest to the water that gives the biggest field of view to maximize photos taken. One thing to take into account is the curious hyenas who have on one occasion tasted my one camera trap ( it is still in one piece, barely) and on the other occasions come for a quick sniff. On 11 different occasions I have had only Elephant bulls coming down to drink while in the month my cameras have been up I have not counted one breeding herd of Elephants. I am however starting to see a pattern as to when the Elephants, bulls in particular come down to drink. It seems as the heat of the day does have influence when the Bulls come down to drink rather than the time of day. On most occasions the Elephants have drank from 17 -20 Degrees Celsius which seems to be the preferred temperature for the Bulls to drink irrelevant to the time of day. This ancillary pattern shows that the bulls as unfortunately that is all I have been able to capture on traps do have a preference as to what temperature they drink at. This could be assumed that the heat of the day does have something to do with their drinking activities
Most water holes that I have monitored have however been very quiet in terms of Elephant activity, Impala and Warthog, have been the far busiest at the water points. This is not of any surprise as the Impala and the Warthog are water dependant species. I have also captured, lion, leopard, Hyena, buffalo, waterbuck, doves, Egyptian geese, and mongoose. The Elephant bulls have favoured one dam much more than any other and in hind sight it may have been more beneficial to leave the camera traps at my first two water holes that I chose to study.
