Thursday, 1 March Cam Discussion

I'm still here, engrossed in reading about Tree Hyrax. Did you know they live in hollow trees? Now where would we have one of those??

...but never have heard Hyrax-calls here on Waterhole.....

Think they could have been zorillas? Check this out:

From http://itech.pjc.edu/sctag/zorilla/zorillawebp.htm
During the day the zorilla rests in a burrow, but at night searches for food. In the wild, zorillas usually eat insects, small mammals, reptiles, bird, and frogs. Hare are a recorded prey animal. Zorillas have a springy, fast trot but can also stalk and pounce on prey..

The movement description is similar to what we saw.

Zorilla! Cool name!

To be honest I think we would have seen the bright contrast in their fur But who knows. "Father of stinks"

Zorilla looks like a polecat!

WOW! Teeny tiny skunks! Never had heard of them. I wonder if some of the mongoose sightings were these guys? I didn't see white of the ones tonight, but they were mostly just blobs, so who knows.

Speaking of blurriness, isn't there an auxillary IF light on the tree? Could it be out of adjustment, throwing light on the WH and glaring back to the IF camera? Just a thought.

Sungura wrote:

Zorilla looks like a polecat!

"Physical Characteristics:
- The zorilla is also called the striped polecat. "

Hmmm?? Don't know, hunjoro, but from reading the articles...could be. The area they're found is correct and, yeah, they looked like black blobs to me, too, grannycat.

Did anyone make an entry in "Sightings" of 2 small black blobs?

And 1 large light grey streak?

And, "could have been a Hyena but who knows?"

Sorry, couldn't resist LOL

The sky is particularly gorgeous right now with the clouds and moonlight--

Actually, there were 3 small black blobs. LOL

Did you all see Karin's posting about the "thing" we all saw being confirmed to be the log all broken up? (read her postings thread here). It's so wonderful of her to fill in the blanks for us whenever she can.

Sungura wrote:

Zorilla looks like a polecat!

Sorry for the slow response - I'm at work, and people keep interrupting me!
But when the maybe-zorilla-blobs were on my screen I thought they looked lighter on top, and I kept thinking 'skunk' from their appearance, and 'ferret' from their style of movement. A web search based on my observation turned up the zorilla, which I'm not sure I'd ever heard of before.

Would be nice to have a clearer picture!

If these mysterious critters live near the tree, we should have more opportunities to see them. I think I've seen them 3 times now. Didn't the screen used to be closer to the edge of the WH? If it did, then we are seeing more of the ground around the tree than we used to, and maybe what lives there as well.

I just took a look at the pics I took of the Ellie last night...the camera view was pulled back quite a bit more from the waterhole. There was much more grass visible at the front than there is now.

Wow, that moon sure is bright tonight! Looks beautiful

I think the cam lens needs a squirt of windex. I think that would help a lot.

I just heard something upset the water, but I don't see anything.

Anyone know what that short sharp whistle is?

I have to have my sound turned down right now so I didn't hear it....didn't hear the splashing either.

I saw a black dot that has turned into an Hyena, I think. Heading towards 3:00

Hyena in the back. Looks lonely without his pool party friends.

Yes, drinking now at 3:00 and now he's off. At least, I think Hyena.

Good evening everyone!! Was that a cat at the WH or Hyena?
Auntie Lyn How did you correct the WMP?

Dang, missed the hyena. Work is so overrated.

Ok who just hit their spoon on the tin cup That woke me up!

is that some kind of bird making that noise???