In winter, just before dusk, fleetingly, starlings fill the sky like iron filings, collectively swooping, dipping, surging into myriad forms as if coordinated by some vast magnetic pull. The name for a starling flock – and subsequently this phenomenon – is a “murmuration”, originally used to describe the sound of thousands of wings beating in synch.
read more
Johannesburg - An ancient dinosaur nesting site, the oldest ever found, has been excavated in the Free State, the University of the Witwatersrand said on Wednesday.
read more
Marco Tonoli is the head ranger at Tswalu, where he leads and mentors a team of guides with over 40 years of collective guiding experience, contributing over 12 of those years himself. He runs a well-oiled machine and the respect he commands from his troops is obvious.
read more
SA National Parks has started assessing the damage left by floods in the Kruger National Park.
read more
Scientists believe they have solved the mystery of why beetles spend so much time 'dancing' on top of balls of freshly rolled animal dung.
read more
At the awards ceremony for the 2011 SA Blog Awards Ranger Diaries walked away with the top honours in the Best Environmental Blog category as well as taking the trophy for the overall winner of the evening for the Best South African Blog. The awards ceremony, hosted by KFM Breakfast Show's DJ Ryan o Conner, was held at the Crystal Towers Hotel in Cape Town yesterday evening.
read more
Over 400 rhinos killed this year in South Africa. What are you going to do about it?
read more
Throughout the animal kingdom many dramatic migrations are taking place right at this moment. The great wildebeest herds are moving south from the Masai Mara through the Serengeti. The Arctic Terns are arriving at their breeding grounds in the Antarctic midway through their 70,000 kilometer round trip. Millions of free tailed bats are blackening the skies of Mexico and Central America.
read more
As for many mothers-to-be, the late stages of pregnancy can be extremely awkward for dolphins, say scientists.
read more
Oslo - No need for big muscles or high-tech contraptions when it comes to protecting African plantations from elephants: a British biologist has discovered that buzzing bees will keep the beasts at bay.
read more
What's the strangest question you've been asked as a guide?
read more
Looking for a trustworthy review on a lodge? What could be better than getting a guide's perspective for your next safari!
read more
Sydney - Australian scientists exploring uncharted areas of the Indian Ocean said on Thursday they had found sunken parts of the megacontinent Gondwana which could offer clues on how the current world was formed.
read more
As guides we are often confronted with some pretty heart wrentching scenarios: Mother Nature is not always an easy companion. Many conservationists, environmentalists and guides believe that when in a wilderness area we should have a strict non-interference policy. Certainly, in many cases this is true. But then, are we not part of the process? Is man that far removed from the natural world that we are no longer an interacting animal on some level? I believe we are, and that our compassion is one of the most beautiful qualities of our species.
read more
Rangerdiaries.com is a blog in its infancy aiming to bring beautiful wildlife stories, videos and pictures from the safari guides to the public.
read more
Nepal has launched the first census of its snow leopards, local media reported, in a bid to raise awareness of the endangered species.
read more
Upington - A game ranger’s life was heroically saved on Tuesday when an aggressive lion attacked him on the back of a bakkie in the Kgalagadi Transfrontier Park.
read more
Hanoi - A critically endangered species of rhino has been poached to extinction in Vietnam, wildlife groups said Tuesday after the country's last Javan rhino was found dead with its horn hacked off.
read more
Lake Natron, Tanzania - Salmon-coloured clouds of flamingoes sweeping overhead is a common sight at east Africa's Rift Valley lakes, but the mounds of mud where they lay their eggs are found only here.
read more
London - On the television adverts they speak with thick Russian accents. And in the real world, it seems meerkats have an equally distinctive sound - at least as far as their friends are concerned.
read more
Chicago - Great Lakes shorelines are becoming clogged by algae blooms fed by agricultural run-off, while invasive mussels decimate the food chain in deeper waters, an environmental group said on Tuesday.
read more
The best guides are the best story tellers. That's why we're featuring Jon Morgan. His guests could spend a whole day on safari having only seen the rear end of a dead impala and he'd still have them struggling for air through tears of laughter (with a champagne glass in hand, that is). Seeing nothing on safari with Jon is unlikely though. The guy boasts a Bachelor of Science in Zoology and eleven years of guiding experience in some of Africa's top lodges including Ngala, Phinda, Mala Mala and Londolozi where he was both head ranger and guide trainer. He's the guy that gets given the difficult guests at a lodge, and turns them into repeat guests. He currently manages a conservation campaign to combat the surge in rhino poaching, and works as a private host safari guide. And if he has it his way, will guide for the rest of his life.
read more
An award-winning Ezemvelo KwaZulu-Natal Wildlife game ranger has been killed by his colleagues when an anti-poaching operation ended up in a shootout between two groups of rangers.
read more
A homeowner in southern Sweden got a shock when he found a drunken elk stuck in his neighbour's apple tree. The animal was apparently on the hunt for fermenting apples when she lost her balance and became trapped in the tree.
read more
Professor Chris Stringer, with the help of a cast of a fossil skull, describes the similarities that this species has with modern humans
read more
A husband and wife guiding team were attacked by a leopard at a game farm near Polokwane on Sunday morning, paramedics said. A foreign trophy hunter had shot and injured a leopard late on Saturday afternoon, and a tracking party set out to find the animal, said ER24 spokesperson Andre Visser.
read more
Government is considering placing a moratorium on rhino hunting, Environment Minister Edna Molewa says.
read more
Thieves who broke into a museum to rip two rhino horns from taxidermy displays were foiled by staff who had replaced horns worth £240,000 with replicas. The Natural History Museum in Tring, Hertfordshire, said the resin horns were fitted on to two specimens three months ago and had no resale value.
read more
Graeme Mann studied Nature Conservation at the University of Stellenbosch before following his passion for wildlife an embarking on a career which would change his life forever. He started guiding in the Waterberg in 2003, and after brief stints guiding in Hluluwe/Umfolozi in Kwazulu Natal, and the Klaserie in the Limpopo, joined &Beyond (CCAfrica) in early 2005. He excelled through their rigorous training course, was posted at Kwandwe Private Game Reserve and after less than two years was already appointed Head Ranger of the reserve, a remarkable achievement.
read more
The latest figures from the SA National Parks (SANParks) on Tuesday revealed the country continues to lose rhinos at a rate of around one per day.
read more
Khalid stopped the pick-up truck and inspected the ground ahead in the light of the headlamps. There were a few tiny greyish plants on a gently convex plateau of jagged loose rocks. It felt like we had landed on a small and rather inhospitable planet. There was no track, and hadn't been for the past few miles ? not since we had stopped to look at a wolf track in the dust.
read more
Looking for a way to banish ants from your picnic? According to a new study, wasps have developed a unique method for dealing with the pests: airlifting them away from the food.
read more
The number of tigers in India's wild has gone up by 20%, according to the latest tiger census, which has surveyed the whole of India for the first time.
read more
Cuckoos' egg forgery skills are increasingly being put to the test, as host birds evolve better defences, say scientists.
read more
In what has been described by environmental groups as a "world first" for a developing country, Rwanda has said it will make sustaining its environment a national priority.
read more
