18th May St Lucia

18^th May. St Lucia.

They are upgrading many areas of the St Lucia Wetlands NP: viewpoints, toilets, signage and cementing pathways. The last of these amused us today, walking to a new hide that overlooked a swamp we found embedded in the fresh cement the spoor of bushbuck, wild cat, and leopard. At home you would curse if a dog left their imprint but it was interesting to see the native animals leaving their signature. Good thing there were no hippos around while it was setting.

We took off midmorning to cruise around the park not expecting to see much in the way of wildlife as this park is known for it marine life. We were very surprised to come upon such a variety of animals from the diminutive duiker to the lumbering hippo. The first pan or waterhole housed at least 10 hippos, a few of them feeding on the vegetation a few metres from the bakkie. A large croc sunned himself on the other side while a couple of waterbuck grazed on the far end. Jacanas & cattle egrets surrounded the feeding hippos grabbing any insect that took flight.

Earlier in the morning, just on dawn, I went for a walk along a nearby boardwalk. I startled a group of at least 40 banded mongoose who loped away into the foliage. I then counted 15 hippos in a group in the middle of the estuary. These must have been the ones that serenaded us last night.

Tonight we walked along to the St Lucia Ski-Boat Club, a distance of about 400 metres for a bite to eat. I asked Terry the waiter whether we should be careful walking back in the dark as there was no street lighting. ‘Yeah’ he said ‘ hippos sometimes come up on this side but as long as you have a good torch. But keep an eye out for leopards, we saw one just outside our gates the other night when we went home.’ I don’t think he said it to scare us but a couple of the blokes tried to do it for him by imitating the hippo as we walked along.

Have added some photos from today.