Sondela Stargazing Excursions

During the December holiday, stargazing excursions are being presented at Sondela every Wednesday evening. These excursions depart at around 18h30 from the Reception parking area. A short game drive is conducted on the way to the “Springbok flats” area, during which basic orientation is explained. After sunset the focus turns to the skies and certain constellations are pointed out with a laser pointer and discussed. During this time of year, the constellation of Orion is particularly easy to find. Other constellations such as Crux (the Southern Cross), Taurus (the Bull) and Canis Major (the Large Dog)become visible soon after sunset. The moon is currently waxing and will be full on the 25^th of December 2015, Christmas Day. The last time this happened was almost 40 years ago and another full moon will not be visible on December 25 until 2034.

 *Abraham Kriel Orphanage*

We had a visit from Abraham Kriel children's home. What an exciting time these children had. Iko de Villiers was all dressed up as Santa and he entertained the young children with donkey rides and giving out presents. There is nothing wrong with giving a little!!!

With summer in full swing, everyone is feeling the heat!

Today our two companion animals, Choppie and Tinkerbell, went for a bit of a hair cut. 

Here we have Tinkerbell showing everyone her new look! 

There is always time for kisses at the Sondela Wildlife centre!

We are also known as a Rehabilitation centre, looking after injured animals and also baby animals that can not look after themselves. We do our best to rehabilitate the animals as soon as they are strong enough to be released back into the wild . 

Here we have Lara Grové with two of our baby giraffes that love attention and feeding time of course!

Some of our students and staff did a snake handling course on Tuesday 8/12/15. Here we have Antonet Behr busy handling snakes and being tought how to work with a venomous snake .
Not something all people can do! 
Well done to each staff member and student that participated!

Our chef students get the chance to prepare their own dishes in our own training kitchen.Here we have - Mushroom Risotto, served with pan seared Kingklip, accompanied with Hollandaise.

Sondela Secretary Birds

The Secretarybird (Sagittarius serpentarius) was up-listed from Near-threatened to Vulnerable. BirdLife South Africa has thus initiated research on thesebirds in order to understand aspects of their biology, which will assist with their conservation. This research includes tracking the movements of birds using satellite tracking devices. With these devices the movement of individual birds can be determined in great detail (accurate locations to within 10m are provided every 15 minutes, from sunrise to sunset). This way it is possible to determine long distance movement patterns, habitat usage and territory sizes. Two juvenile birds have been fitted with such tracking devices on Sondela to date. The first bird became somewhat of a celebrity, as the tagging process was broadcasted on the SABC nature program “50/50”. The second bird was unfortunately lost due to predation. BirdLife SA is now looking to fit tracking devices also to adult birds and the Sondela pair might just be suitable for such a project. We shall keep you posted in this regard…