Weather and Landscape
This month has been an absolute scorcher out here in Damaraland, with temperatures reaching the 40s on a regular basis. We were expecting a downpour nearly every day, with strong east winds blowing and bringing storm clouds over our beautiful area, but it was not to be as our enemy the southwesterly came and blew the rain away. We have rain gauges posted out to measure the rain, but they have only been able to record 37mm for the entire year.

Wildlife
All of the rain has fallen to the west of Palmwag, so the animals have heeded the Village People's call to "go west", and have headed to where the grass is greener. That said, we are still having very good sightings of the larger, more territorial species. One particular regular is a rhino we have dubbed 'Koeksister' due to her twisted horn (named after a type of twisted, fried pretzel). She is about to calf and this is limiting her movement. Our elephant herds have all been urbanised and have moved to Bergsig.

Apart from the general game sightings we have on our drives, we have had many visitors of the reptilian kind. We have had our usual suspects, zebra snakes and monitor lizards, but also received two new visitors in the shape of a chameleon and a spotted bush snake. We have been fascinated by a small colony of coral snakes that have made themselves a den at the bottom of an old borehole. How they got there and how they feed themselves no-one will ever know.

We've also seen the arrival of a homing cat... A ginger house cat was holidaying in a camper van with a woman from Zimbabwe, when it decided, as cats do, to go wandering. It disappeared at Puros, was found in Okahirongo, and then flown down to us. It has now made its home here in the Palmwag wilderness - but this seems to be a cat on a mission, so we're not sure how long it'll be around.

Birding
It is that time of the year when our skies are filled with the black and white figures of the Abdim's Stork, who come to this area to feed on the insects after the rains. So, are they trying to tell us that the rain is still on its way or have they completely lost their minds?