Sep 10 2020
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There’s a CROCODILE in my backyard!

By Sodwana Bay

[embedyt] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iDSr5j5ofJ0[/embedyt] Checkout this cool video of our very first Crocodile found! Lake Sibaya is so close to us that we can literally hear the Hippos at night grunting! So we consider Lake Sibaya to be part of our backyard, since there are so few houses past us! We had been searching for months for some sort of sign that there might be at least one Croc in the Lake! Crocs are not as easy to spot as Hippos since they are so flat and mainly hide in the reeds! We discovered the best way to find a crocodile is to look for moving logs in the water or to find the shimmer in the reeds, more often then not, the shimmer you see in the reeds is a Nile Crocodile!

Sep 03 2020
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How fast can a Hippo run under water?

By Sodwana Bay

[embedyt] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fDVFHXJtIBE[/embedyt]   We were so excited to find our very first Hippo. After months of trying to find Hippos we finally were able to see one. Although he was in the distance and all we could see was his head when he came up for air. It was a Hippo!!! This was a special mission of mine to find the Hippo as it was my mom’s favorite animal! So sort of this video and the Hippo Pod video goes out to you, mom hope you watched it from heaven! Drone Talk: I really tried my best to get the glare less with color grading in post editing but obviously I still have a lot to learn. This footage was taken before the Hippo Pod video and as you can see I did not take the time of day and the position of the sun in to consideration. It was noon 12pm and I flew directly into the sun – reflection on the water. Now I know better – get the sun to your back! I’m slowly learning and making many needed mistake as this will only make me a better wildlife drone operator. For Example with the Hippo Pod video – Lake Sibaya was smooth as glass and when I tried to find anything in the water – I could only see dark green – I had no reference points – no ripple or reflection. I did though; get awesome clouds reflecting in the water and super happy about that.

Apr 02 2020
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Blind as a “SNAKE”??? Schlegel’s beaked blind snake @ Sodwana Bay ~ South Africa

By Sodwana Bay

Afrotyphlops schlegelii, commonly known as Schlegel’s beaked blind snake or Schlegel’s giant blind snake, is a species of snake in the family Typhlopidae. The species is endemic to eastern and southern Africa, and bears the distinction of being the world’s largest typhlopid. It is harmless to humans and lives exclusively on a diet of termites. Source: WikiPedia We usually tell someone they are as blind as a bat, but why do we only use bats as illustrations to describe how blind we are? There are a lot of other creatures out there that are just as blind or even blinder than bats, but they never get credit for their way of navigating the world! Living close to a nature reserve without borders can bring excitement almost every day… We live next to the Isimangaliso wet lands park a world recognized heritage site, but occasionally there might be a few strays that stray outside the protection of the park, such as – the occasional hippo, monkeys, monitor lizards, mongoose and of course snakes wandering out of its borders. You wake up in the morning wondering what excitement the day will bring in your own yard… No need to go to a nature reserve to find some fun, exciting things, they decide to come to us… Although sometimes I wonder how the larger creatures such as monitor lizards and tortoises manage to get into our yard through a tight fence… We have encountered a few snake species around our yard and even in our house before, to name a few snake species – the brown house snake, an Eastern Green snake falling on our Tv and than later found on a nearby tree next to our house, a East African Shovel snout snake tryna hide away in our door post (We thought it might’ve been a Stiletto snake), these are just to name a few… Our latest snake find is the Schlegel’s beaked blind snake… It has a weird crown on its head, black and white spotted with a white belly and it is hard to tell it’s head from its tail, as we discovered this morning while it couldn’t stop wriggling… Apparently it is a really rare find as they usually stay under ground… I wonder what this one was doing above ground? It tried to burrow a hole to get away from us, but we know better than to just leave an unknown snake close to our house, especially not knowing of it’s venomous or not… So far we have been lucky enough only to find non-venomous snakes, but still stay cautious… Although all the snakes mentioned above are non-venomous they still have teeth and mouths big enough to bite if feeling threatened… Our family freak out every time we show them a new snake… Some find it fascinating and exciting, whilst others vow never to come visit while there are snakes around… It is really funny seeing different peoples reactions to snakes… A few fun facts about these tiny snakes: They only grow up to 60 – 70 cm or maximum of 95 cm… So maybe up to a school ruler and a half… That is really not big for a snake… These snakes live solely on termites and their larvae and are no threat to humans… Now I know why the snake was above ground… These Snakes often emerge above ground after heavy rains… I guess their houses might be flooded underneath the ground or they chasing after the termites that have now started making new nests? These snakes have no idea when to stop eating – well that is my opinion… Ever heard of an obese wild snake?! I have never heard of any wild animal living in the wild ever been obese till now… Schlegel’s beaked blind snakes are as blind in sight as they are in their appetite… These snakes often over eat themselves – who knew termites could be so fattening…. I get why there tails are so fat and not pointy like almost every other snake out there! These obese snakes are awesome snacks for predators such as birds of prey and other carnivorous snakes – more like cannibal snakes! I think these snakes are blind for a reason… They live most of their lives underground and have very little use for their sight… They have scales that cover their eyes, so they are not completely blind, but don’t see well at all either… Sort of like a mole… The Schlegel’s beaked blind snakes are the largest snake in their family… Makes you wonder how small can snakes be before been classified as worms? Our factual sources for this article came from: WikiPedia and Snake Bite institute Send us an email about any exotic or scary encounters you have had under the water or on land and your story might go viral! Please go checkout our  Patreon Page Below… We wanna start giving you guys who are committed to us exclusive content and be able to further our channel and provide better content to our Patrons… To do this we need funds and all the support we can get… Also check out our YouTube Channel when you done reading this… Every view is one step closer to our goal, we need 4000 hours of our subscribers views and 1000 Subscribers to be able to start making money and better content for you guys, YouTube is free please watch all our videos till the end… and subscribe – It’s Free – if you haven’t already and don’t forget to share the video when you done.

Mar 23 2020
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Honey Combs of the Sea – Honey Comb Moray Eel @ Sodwana Bay ~ South Africa

By Sodwana Bay

For those who follow our blogs you must’ve read the article about the cute small Snowflake eel.. They may be ankle biters, but no real harm will come from them, especially that they are so small and are super shy rather choosing to flea then attack! But what do you do when you encounter their much larger cousins that might be able to bite your ankle right off given the chance… Well our solution was to flee to the nearest, shallowest smallest rock we could find! Ok, let me reverse too the beginning! We were on our way back to shore after experiencing a super awesome neap tide… The water was only 0.3 m high in low tide and was the shallowest we have ever seen in Sodwana! It was already quite an eventful day, we found a puffer fish, a lionfish and a snowflake eel all in one day… That has to be a record of how many exotic creature we found in one day! We were almost back on dry land when Tom stopped us dead in our tracks, luckily he spotted the eel, we were literally heading straight for it and if Tom didn’t see it might even have stepped on… We switched the GoPro on to try film it – wasn’t aware about how it loves the camera spot light. It left it’s sunbathing spot to come show off to the camera, but obviously a wild animal swimming straight to you especially with razor sharp teeth usually means RUN!!!! Like I mentioned before, we chose the smallest, shallowest, nearest rock we could find… I think the people that saw us standing on this tiny rock must’ve thought we were crazy! Our eel was not very happy, if it really wanted to, it could’ve grabbed one of our legs, but instead it swam as close as possible to rock and swam past us… We later watched the video of this encounter, unfortunately nothing worth showing, but we figured out the poor eel was just so excited to have it’s picture taken and was really just tryna pose for the camera… I think this poor Eel was very disappointed in us for running away from it and got mad tryna get one more shot of it’s self in the camera… We have heard of a really friendly moray Eel that loves the attention of cameras, obviously we always thought the eel lived in the open deep water seas, where all the Scuba divers go to swim… But now we know it likes to visit the snorkelers as well… Kinda disappointed now because we could’ve had really awesome footage of a beautiful Honey Comb Moray Eel… The worst part about it all was that while doing some homework about these creatures to my article – I found out all though they might be dangerous, they don’t really care to hunt during the day and will much rather sleep or sunbathe than attack anything… You really have to annoy the poor creature for it to even think about fighting you off in the day time – although night time is an entire different story, you don’t wanna be mistaken for food… Next time I encounter a Honeycomb Moray Eel, I will definitely be cautious, but not so afraid to give it, it’s 15 seconds of fame… A few Fun Facts about these beautiful creatures: These Honeycomb Eels has numerous names due to it’s numerous different spotted patterns… Some have more leopard spots that are quite large almost resembling patches, whilst others like the one we encountered is super spotty like a cheetah. Their main color an vary between light yellow and white, like we have experienced it all depends on how the light hit the Eel and how deep it is! The spots on the Eel can vary from the Eel its self or because of its environment… Such as if the Eel lives in clear water close to reefs, the spots could be much larger as apposed to those who live deeper in the water without much reefs around… The ones we discovered is actually the opposite way round, but maybe that’s just Sodwana… Like most Eels the Honeycomb Eel loves warm water and will even settle for the red sea… These Eels can be found anywhere in the indo-west pacific ocean… They like to stay close to the reefs during the day and are ready to hunt at night! Next time you wanna plan a vacation make sure to book a beach trip to Sodwana – These Eels are real characters… Honeycomb Eels love tight spaces… Like any other Eel Honeycombs love hiding away in tight fitting holes, that’s if they can find a spot that is uninhabited by another creature… If there are no small holes which the Eel can sleep in they will also reside to lying under coral/rock ledges, since they are nocturnal, they are rarely seen active during the day, if seen at all! We were extremely lucky to have found this Honeycomb Eel Sunbathing during the day out in the open! Honeycomb Eels are super efficient for their environment, they help keep invasive species at bay, such as the Lion Fish. Most already know that lion fish can be super invasive and destroy entire coral reefs if not kept in check by their natural predators… I am so glad we have Moray eels in our reefs at Sodwana Bay, we have spotted a few Lion Fish in the rock pools already, good thing they will never the opportunity to take over our reefs… There are to other popular names for the Eels: the laced Moray or Leopard moray, makes sense on their color variations… Honestly I always imagined every Eel been really ugly… Since the most popular Eel is the electric Moray Eel and that one is super ugly!!! But meeting a couple Snowflake eels and now the Moray Eel I found that the myth of all eels been ugly is just…

Mar 11 2020
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Snorkeling at Sodwana Bay ~ South Africa – GoPro Hero – Our 11th Video

By Sodwana Bay

Whoohoo another amazing video added to our Youtube channel > GO SODWANA BAY!… This is a cool mashup of Sodwana Bay February 2020. This is only a really small part of all the exciting things we did this month… Unfortunately our song was to short and still busy tryna figure out the best way to mash songs together! Enjoy the Video Below… Hope you are as inspired as I am!!! Come visit Sodwana Bay! Watching this video and listening to this song really takes me back to my childhood… I guess at least 50% or more of us have a really fearful up bringing… We are literally taught to BE scared of the world… We are told never to go out at night alone, that we shouldn’t speak to strangers, we should never walk in the woods/forest/bushes, never approach a strange animal, don’t swim in lakes and ponds etc – etc. While most of these things are merited, I disagree with most of what my parents taught me in any case, I never did drugs, smoked or drank alcohol as a child, as an adult I keep drinking too a minimum… I am super grateful for the warnings against those dangers, but my parents also tried to teach me to be fearful of all the good things in the world, stepping out of bounds such as walking in bushes, just breaking away from society to be alone… As a child there use to be a type of forest behind most the neighborhoods we lived in. Trust me if there was something to find I found it… I loved it, it gave me incentive to walk my dogs each day and just find a quiet place far away from people… The thing I hated most was that my parents never approved so it was me and my best friend (my dog) little secret. I can relate so well to this song… I don’t claim to be brave, or recklessly stupid, I am well informed of the dangers in my environment. But just as this song may suggest, I am facing every fear head on. If Sodwana Bay has taught me anything it would be – Don’t be afraid of everything – Knowledge is not always power – If you respect nature it respects you – Just because something has the power to hurt you or kill you doesn’t mean that is it’s main goal – Don’t run from your fears rather take them head-on – Most times they more scared of you than you are of them it just depends on who folds first… Like I said before this song has great meaning to me… Don’t be afraid to break free from the curse of fear… Being brave always brings change – So break free of your fears and start LIVING!!!! Send us an email about any exotic or scary encounters you have had under the water or on land and your story might go viral! Please go checkout our  Patreon Page Below… We wanna start giving you guys who are committed to us exclusive content and be able to further our channel and provide better content to our Patrons… To do this we need funds and all the support we can get… Also check out our YouTube Channel when you done reading this… Every view is one step closer to our goal, we need 4000 hours of our subscribers views and 1000 Subscribers to be able to start making money and better content for you guys, YouTube is free please watch all our videos till the end… and subscribe – It’s Free – if you haven’t already and don’t forget to share the video when you done.

Dec 05 2019
Off

Were homeless?! – Abandoned Dogs @ Sibaya – Sodwana Bay

By Sodwana Bay

We recently relocated to Sodwana Bay (if you wanna read)… Might it be a blessing in disguise that we found 2 abandoned pups at our new home close to Sibaya Lake.  Commonly known as AfriCanis, these are special Indigenous South African dogs specifically well adapted to hunting. We are so grateful for all the kind hearted people who could help these amazing dogs survive and who tried so hard to find them a good home. Unfortunately, these pups have not really been humanized like we are use to. Basic training was also thrown out the window for these pups, luckily they are still young enough to be trained and at least get some kind of house training. Sometimes it feels like we have three little kids in the house that you constantly need to stop from eating the wrong stuff or try depleting their energy levels so that you can have some peace and quiet. But hey that’s the price you pay being an animal lover. But I would never trade it for the world. Our family has grown with 2 extra which makes the world 2 x extra exciting and worth living. More about the breed: Although the world does not classify this dog as a real breed, I think most South Africans will make a special exception for these extraordinary dogs. They are one of a kind special breed. Internet short version of these dogs: Africanis. Not recognized as a standardized breed by any major kennel club. The Africanis is a landrace of Southern African dogs. It is believed to be of ancient origin, directly descended from hounds and pariah dogs of ancient Africa, introduced into the Nile Valley from the Levant. Pics Below of our new family members: We are proud to introduce you to Female (Left) and Male (Right) ***Just a small word of advice. Don’t ever get a pet because you think its cute as a baby. There is plenty of research to be done on the internet to tell you exactly what you will be getting yourself into before getting a pet. Don’t get a pet that you might abandon when they grow up or you finally get bored of it or have to move!