It is hard work be ing a meerkat!!!

  

Some mornings wile sitting in the veld and talking about meerkats with my guests, there is alot of distractions eg. birds flying past, and or calling. Then i sit there, with no clue, or i would phone Rudolf; Please help ID' ing this bird. So a couple of months ago i phoned him again, not to help ID'ing a bird for us, but to please come and join the Meerkat Adventure team, mainly to help with birding.
We are now taking our Adventures to a further and even better level. We're hopefully before the end of the year start with proper birding trips, not just around the meerkat site but, but on De Zeekoe guest farms big dams (lake) and on a +- 2 km river stretch .Rudolf 's specialities is bird and Other wildlife.

As you can see it is not done yet, still need a roof with camo netting and some benches for us to sit on.
But here we just couldn't resist the temptation any longer we just had to get it on the water.  SO VERY EXITED!!!!

And then still to come we are also pre-pairing ourselfs for night tours.
We get a lot of guests that went on a lot game drives, but their is still some animals that is still missing in action-: " The SHY 5 "...!!  Aardvark, Porcupine, Bat-eared fox, Aardwolf, and then Our MEERKATS.
So night drives is also on its way.

Watch this space.  COMING SOON!!.

 Meerkat-Chevy

 Wouddapie (Little Bittern) Birdhide.

Aardvark-Landy

And the winter is on us!!
Hi my name is Uno, and i am a family member of one off the meerkat families in the Oudtshoorn region.
Thanks for the visits from oversees, and local visits. I realy hope you liked your visit to us. We do appreciate your visit. And for those of you that haven't,please do come and visit us.

The tourist season is going down because of our winter here in South Africa. A very good thing is We as Meerkats, DO NOT Hibernate!!!!!! So please do come and visit us although it is cold.
You can even see snow on our mountains around us, so it might remind you of home. Devey or Rudolf can take spectacular photos of us, you and our snow cowered Swartberg mountains as some thing to remember us by.
WE DO NOT HIBERNATE, WE JUST SLEEEEEP LATER IN THE COLD!!!!!! Please come and visit us.

Guests on my tour took this picture on a trip through Namibia.

Not a natural colour for a meerkat.

Not someone to rely on sponsors but for the first time i wish i new some big company that can sponsor

me to go on a mission to find this guy and try to study him up close. 

He obviously does not have it easy, standing out like that in the red landscape

Some photos of the newest babys that was born on the 03.04.13, and some other encounters of other wildlife around the meerkat site.
Also some spectacular sunrise and sunset photos from our coffee point.

so i took this pic yesterday to show what Liefie looks like with 4 day's to go.

Got to the meerkats this morning, not suspecting a thing.

1. It is 72 day's since the last baby's were born.

2. Meerkats have a 75 day gestation period.

3. the Meerkats always have baby's at the main burrows.

4. Last night they slept at secondary burrows.

So this morning when only the male meerkats  came out, and instead of sitting in the morning sun

they started cleaning burrows  i knew something was up and then when everyone leave to forrage and

Liefie was not out yet I was certain.

 So now i wonder what effect 3 days premature would have on the baby's.

In 5 years of research i have never had baby's  born under 75 day's.

So only time will tell.

Pregnancy is progressing fine, 10 days to go.

summer is with us. Had a couple of nice hot days.

Uno alias snakeman

On 11 August Liefie the dominant female had babys.

On the 15th Uno a 18 month old male was on baby sitting duty when a cobra entered the burrows where the babys slept and started eating the baby's. Uno who him self were the only survivor of a snake attack as a baby, gallantly went down into the burrows to defend his mothers baby's and almost payed with his life when he got bitten in the bum by the cobra. He is currently recovering and after 4days of staying at the burrows he joined the rest of the family today to forage.