I've posted this somewhere before, but here goes again.

The basic rules are pretty simple:

• come prepared
  
  
• drive slowly
  
  
• look carefully
  
  
• concentrate
  

Concentration is as important as it is difficult. If you don't focus completely on what you are doing, you will overlook animals, both large and small. Daydreaming or discussing the price of airline tickets with your companions is therefore not a good idea.

Speed is always a compromise. Drive slowly, and you will miss less, and thus see more. Drive faster, and you will overlook more, but because you cover more ground you could end up seeing more anyway. The right speed will depend on numerous factors, such as the time of day, the time of year, climate, weather, visibility, vegetation, your (lack of) familiarity with the area, what particular species of game you are looking for, etc. This also means that your speed will constantly vary as circumstances change.

When the road crosses a donga (dry river) many people have a tendency speed up on the downslope, so that they will not have to shift gears driving up the other slope. Not a good idea! Instead, you should slow down and preferably come to a full stop at the bottom, and then look carefully up and down the donga in both directions. Although animals that are subject to predation don't feel comfortable in dongas, those that do the killing like sleeping on the cool sand in the shade of a large riverine trees, as do rhinos. Elephants dig for water in seemingly dry rivers.

Many people have a tendency to increase speed in open areas where visibility is good, such as grass plains. This sounds logical, but remember that you may need to do several scans to cover a given area, focussing on the near, middle and far distance in turn, and therefore need to adjust your speed accordingly.

When planning a game drive, you should allow an hour for every 10-20 kilometers you intend to travel. Allowing for time spent stationary viewing animals etc., your average speed will probably be between 20 and 30 kilometers per hour, although this is only a very rough guideline. Driving faster than 40 km/h is generally not advisable, not even in the few reserves where it is actually permitted, such as on tar roads in the Kruger National Park, where the maximum speed is 50 km/h. There may be a few occasions when driving at 50 will be necessary, like when you have got your planning wrong and are running late for the gate, but these are rare exceptions.

Looking carefully is also easier said than done, there are many factors to take into account :

- Remember that although your eyes are located at the front of your head, the latter is mounted on swivel, and can actually be turned in all sorts of directions. A proper scan starts by looking back over the one shoulder, and then turning the head until you are looking over the other shoulder. Repeating this process continuously whilst driving at a suitable speed, minimizes your chances of overlooking game. This of course assumes you are in a seat where you have a more or less unrestricted forward view. If not, you will obviously have to modify your scan. If you are in the back seat of an ordinary sedan, you have little choice but to concentrate on the side you are sitting on. If two persons are sitting in front they may agree to concentrate on one side each.

- The more experienced game spotter should not forget to include the rearview mirror in his scan. Certain animals (especially leopards, blessed with both camouflage and cunning) may hide on the approach on a vehicle, and then cross the road as soon as it has passed. To increase my field of view I tuck in the wing mirrors, but try to make sure that the remaining mirror is in my peripheral field of vision on each scan.

- If you are in a closed car, drive with all your windows open . Not only because it allows you to see better, but also because it allows you to hear and smell better. Even in inclement weather it should be possible to have the windows open on at least one side of the vehicle. If it is windy or rainy, rather wear a sweater, jacket, cap and perhaps even gloves than close the windows.

- don' forget to use your other senses. You can be five meters from an elephant, and still not see it. Chances are that you will be able to smell or hear it instead. The smell of putrefaction may well be somewhat unappealing to humans, but many animals find it irresistible. Any foul smell warrants a thorough investigation!

- Don't stare. Along with not turning the head, staring is a mistake I commonly observe, usually in combination with the former. Many people will look out the window at a certain angle, fix their gaze at a specific distance, and let everything else pass in a blur. Not a good idea. Use your eyes actively, focussing on the near, middle and far distance as circumstances and conditions dictate, as well as looking up into trees, down into the shade under bushes, and through the branches and leaves of the vegetation.

Also, don't stare at things in the far distance along the road. Either stop and look with your binoculars, or continue your normal scan until you get close enough to make an identification. This goes both for distant specks that might be animals, as well as other features of interest such as water holes.

Don't stare at the water. I don't know how many times I've seen people drive up to a drinking place, look at the water and drive away again, never noticing the pride of lions under the tree a few meters away. Always scan the entire area around a water hole, whether there are animals drinking or not. If there are none, there may a very good reason for absence, even though it is not readily apparent.

- Use your peripheral vision. This is especially important at night, when you are focusing on the narrow beam of the spotlight, but even in daylight you should try to observe the terrain ahead out of the corner of your eye. This allows you to plan ahead and decide if there are any features up ahead that warrant your special attention.

- Always look the other way. Just because there's an elephant on the left, it doesn't mean there isn't a pride of lions on the right. Just because there is a water hole on the right, where animals might be expected to drink, it doesn't mean the veld on the left is devoid of game. Every time you stop at a sighting, you should check the surroundings in all directions.

- When in doubt, check it out. If you see something you can't identify, stop and use your binoculars. For the novice this can be very time-consuming and frustrating, because the veld is full of African wild rocks and African wild logs that take great pleasure in impersonating all sorts of interesting animals. As you gain experience, this will become less of a problem.

- Look for tracks and signs on the road. Not only of animals but also vehicles. If there is a vehicle ahead of you and you see that is has suddenly come to a screeching halt and then reversed some distance, you may not only infer that they have been driving too fast, but also that they may have spotted something. Even though there may actually have been nothing to see, or the animal has long since moved on, it is a good idea to slow down a bit and look even more carefully than usual. You never know. Identifying which animals have crossed or walked along the road is also extremely useful. Even a novice should at least recognize the pug marks of carnivores and the tracks of elephant.

A male lion pug mark looks like this

Come prepared. At a minimum, you should know which animals occur in a particular area or reserve, and what they look like. Being familiar with their behavior and habits is also highly recommended. Knowing what to look for, and where and when to do it, makes things a great deal easier. Once you recognize the characteristic and incessant swishing of the zebra's tail, these animals can identified with the naked eye at distances well exceeding a kilometer, to give but one example. There are various publications available which can be studied before going on safari. Peter Apps' Wild Ways is perhaps the most accessible. Richard Despard Estes' books are probably the most comprehensive and detailed guides written for the lay public. Make sure to bring a pair of good binoculars and a field guide illustrating the common mammals of the area. If you have special interests (birds, insects, trees and shrubs), you will want to purchase and study the relevant field guides.

Plan your game drives carefully. Make sure you have good maps, read all you can about the reserve you are visiting, speak to staff and other visitors upon arrival, etc. Get all the information you can and then sit down each evening and plan the next days game drive(s). The plan need of course not be adhered to rigidly, it should adapted as and when circumstances require.

Enlist the help of the animals, they have better senses than you, not to mention more experience and a vested interest in staying alive. Alarm calls are particularly useful, especially those of monkeys. These tend to scramble to the tops of trees when frightened, from which they stare at the perceived threat, calling loudly all the while.

Enlist the help of other people. If you are driving along a road, flag down the first oncoming vehicle you meet, and exchange information. If you see one or more stationary vehicles, and it is not readily apparent what they are looking at, don't be shy to ask. Even when you think you know what they are looking at, you might be mistaken. I've had people drive past because they assumed I was looking at that boring giraffe, whereas I was actually watching a leopard walking through the grass, and that's only one of many examples.

A novice wishing to improve his game spotting skills as quickly as possible is well advised to select a small reserve (or a particular section of a larger one) and to visit as often as possible. Being well familiar with a certain area makes game spotting a lot easier. Not only will you not waste your time trying to identify all the wild logs and rocks, but when you are intimately familiar with the terrain, vegetation and animals in an area you will immediate notice things that deviate from the normal state of things. That which others would never notice suddenly becomes glaringly apparent. Where is that herd of impala that always hangs around this stretch of road? Why has that tree trunk suddenly changed its shape? Why does the outline of that rocky outcrop suddenly look different? Why is that troop of baboons not roosting in its usual tree?

Next time you are amazed by your tracker's and ranger's astounding spotting skills, you should remember that not only is it something they do every day, but they also know the area they work in better than the backs of their respective hands. When they point out that Giant Eagle Owl roosting in the deep shade of the canopy of a leafy tree 500 meters away, it may not be proof of their supernatural visual acuity, but rather of the fact that they know from experience that this particular owl regularly roosts in that particular tree.

Finally, a word on night drives. If you are not operating the spotlight, don't follow the beam, it's a waste of your time. Look at the stars or close your eyes and relax. When the spotlight operator finds something of interest, he will let you know.

If you are operating the spotlight, you may find the following hints useful :

- although you should keep your eyes glued to the beam, you need to use your peripheral vision to study the approaching terrain. This allows you to plan where to shine the light next.

- you should strive to covered the terrain on either side of the vehicle at least twice, from different angles. This is especially important in vegetated terrain, as it will allow you to shine behind as many shrubs and trees as possible. It is therefore better to do two fast sweeps than one slow one. I know that fast sweeps tend to annoy other people on the vehicle, who have a hard time following the beam and fear you will overlook things, but the truth of the matter is that you will not miss much even if you move the light quickly.

- the assumption that animals at night are always spotted by the reflection of the light in their eyes is not correct. You need to look for shape and movement as well. Many animals with bright eyes are also bright enough to close them, or avert their gaze, when somebody shines a 1,000,000 candle- power light at them. It is also a good idea to shine diagonally behind the vehicle whenever possible. Some animals will hide, but get up and look at the vehicle again when they believe the danger is over. Leopards spring to mind once again. There are also large animals with small eyes that hardly reflect any light at all, such as elephants and rhinos.

- you can not identify animals by the color of their eyes, the color changes with the reflection angle. On the other hand, it may be possible to identify many animals by the way their eyes move (or don't). In other words, how do they react to the light? Do they just stand and stare? Do they crouch down? Run away? Bounce around and jump from tree to tree?

- if the eyes are very distant, a number of clues can aid identification. Is it solitary animal? A pair? A herd? Are the eyes closely spaced? Are the animals bunched together or spread out? Standing, moving or lying down? Bobbing their heads? And so forth.

- in very open areas, it is generally pointless to shine in the far distance. You will only spot lots of eyes so far away that identification is impossible, which is a waste of time. Rather shine your beam no further than 50-100 meters.

- learn as much as you can about nocturnal animals and their behavior. Different animals have different peak activity times, so which animals you are likely to encounter also depends on what time of night you are driving at. In most game reserves night drives start around sunset and last only a couple of hours, which means that species that only become active late evening are rarely seen.

It will be a pleasure to answer any further questions.

johan