Friday 13th September 2013

There’s not much chance of a sleep in out here. Just as the fiery-necked nightjar finishes off its song the crested francolin starts off in a raucous duet at 0500.

My tent neighbour Doc got up at 0330 to visit the loo but immediately zipped his tent back up when he saw something starring right back at him.

Had a good sighting of a big five animal on the way over to the rifle range.

There was a lot of sitting about once we got there so Clifford and I worked on our bird calls by testing each other, it’s really tough but hopefully I picked up four or so today.

We were shooting 375s on the range, five rounds each and they give quite a kick.

I was actually shocked by the recoil and also the heat that they give off, it was quite an adrenaline rush and my heart started to race which isn’t ideal. I didn’t do too badly with the drills: cycling the ammunition and then setting it to stage two. But my breathing needs some work.

My first shot would have given the buffalo a fright but then I found my aim and in total I scored 38 out of the possible 50, probably average.

After a game of ultimate frisbee we set up a fire on the riverbed for tonight’s braai when Leo an NGO doing lion research on Selati will be joining us.

(It’s amazing, after a few beers you walk around camp so very brave but still have a very healthy balance of vigilance and respect for the animals that you’re living with.)