Part of the magic of safari photography is Africa’s ability to throw surprises at you and confound your expectations.  So perhaps we shouldn’t have been surprised by the results of our first foray into African camera trapping.

But we were.

Our first efforts as part of our new camera trap project on Zimanga private game reserve in South Africa’s KwaZulu-Natal didn’t exactly go to plan.  Our idea was to leave the set up out and capture the secret nocturnal goings on in the reserve – the shy species that might not yet have turned up at the reserve’s two night hides or may be nervous of the lights there.

We had all the gear – a Camtraptions passive infrared motion detecting trigger unit, the receiver/trigger, a battered old Canon 5D, two flashes, flash transmitter, protective housing, tripod, cable ties, bean bags, plastic wrap, you name it, we’d got it.  But getting it up and working in the bush proved a challenge.

First off, we tried setting it up on a well-used game path that Calvin Kotze, Zimanga’s head ranger and keen photographer himself, had identified as a likely spot. It took over an hour to rig the gear, most of that spent trying to protect the kit against the potentially destructive curiosity of elephants and hyenas.  There was a possibility of rain, so we shrouded the flashguns in cling film. Next morning we had three black frames, the flashes hadn’t fired (or at least not in sync with the camera), and the cling film had been shredded, probably by vervet monkeys. Miraculously all the gear was still intact.

Some serious over-exposure in Lightroom allowed us to identify the faint ghostly shape of a porcupine that had apparently triggered the camera.  Cue a lot of head scratching and fiddling with custom functions, flash settings and the PIR trigger controls.

It would probably have helped if we’d read the Camtraptions manual properly in the first place (for we, read Steve), but after much trial and error, we reckoned we’d finally worked out how to set up the flashes to fire correctly. This time Calvin suggested we try setting up on a different game path, close to Doornhoek lodge where we were staying, as Tyrone, one of the other ranger-guides, had spotted fresh signs of animal traffic, including leopard spoor, there.

After our evening game drive, and before dinner with our guests, we drove the short distance to the spot, and started setting up the trap. That’s when the bull elephant appeared.  Elephants have a mischievous habit of playfully destroying anything manmade they can get their trunks on, so clearly this wasn’t going to work.  We dismantled the kit and headed back to Doornhoek.  Darkness was falling fast. There was no time to set up elsewhere in the bush.

It seemed a shame not to have a go now we were reasonably confident we’d sussed out what to do.  The small decorative pool at the entrance to the lodge suddenly looked very tempting. Well frequented by warthogs during daylight hours, surely something must come at night. It was the perfect place for a pilot run.

Half an hour later, we’d rigged the camera trap, the 5D mounted on a low tripod in the middle of the pond, focussed on the most likely drinking edge.  Nothing for it now but to wait.

Much of the enjoyment of camera trapping lies in the planning, preparation and anticipation. But for sheer excitement, nothing beats checking the back of the camera for results the morning after the night before. Usually excitement is quickly replaced by disappointment, but not this time.  The camera had fired dozens of times during the night.  Mostly it had faithfully recorded the pond’s drinking edge, with no sign of an animal. Triggered by bats, we guessed. Then there were all the black frames, where the flashes had failed to fire in sync, or failed to recharge in time. 

And then there was the aardvark…

Not just an aardvark, that most elusive of African’s nocturnal critters, an animal that had eluded us for fully two decades of searching. But there it was… an aardvark… drinking.

For many years it was widely believed that aardvarks don’t drink water, that they get all the hydration they need from their diet of termites.  Indeed, it was only in 2017 that a research paper in a learned journal suggested this wasn’t true. The authors had tracked down four photographs and a video to prove their point.

Now we had another photograph. Indeed, not just one, but a short series. We were ecstatic.

Checking the metadata on the image, we saw that the aardvark had come at 8.30 pm – while we and our guests were enjoying dinner and drinks in the lodge.  Scrolling forward we found there’d been another special visitor in the night: a serval.   This beautiful spotted cat had drunk about 9.30pm, before we’d even gone to bed.

There was no question now of setting the camera trap up on a random game path. We wanted to find out who else came to the Doornhoek homestead’s pond.

It was another week before our next capture – and by this time we were back in England. Calvin was happy to take part in running our camera trap project when he had time while we were away and was faithfully setting up the trap and checking the card the next morning. His time and efforts were well rewarded.

If you want to top an aardvark there are few things that would do it other than a leopard. How about a leopard with a tiny cub? That’s exactly what Calvin saw one morning when checking the results. Unfortunately, the leopard leaned out so far into the water and towards the camera that her face went out of focus. But that didn’t dull our excitement one iota when Calvin sent us a shot from the back of the camera.

All those nights we’d spent at Doornhoek with our guests, never once suspecting that such a thrilling cross-section of Zimanga’s nightlife was coming to drink just metres from where we ate and slept.

We’re well and truly hooked, and plan, with Calvin’s help, to continue monitoring the Doornhoek water,  as well as trying other spots on the reserve.  Zimanga’s night hides are a massive attraction and allow us and our guests to take some great shots of a wide range of big game under constant LED lighting. But there are some shy species that will probably never visit the floodlit waterholes. Our camera trapping on Zimanga has opened a door on a secret world for us. We can’t wait to see what comes along next. Watch this space…

Many thanks to head ranger Calvin Kotze, whose enthusiasm and hard work has been the driving force behind our camera trap project.  Calvin is operating and monitoring the trap while we’re back in the UK and we’ll be sharing his results on this website and on social media.