ZA - Africam

http://www.Africam.co.za/ gives everybody "an uncle with a farm in Africa." It is every nature-lovers delight.

The main focus of this website is (naturally) the web cams. At the time of writing, a total of 19 web cams. The cams are divided in 4 distinct groups, namely Waterhole cams (12), Safari cams (4), Marine cams (2) and Specialty cams (1). More about the cams later....

Front page

The front page is roughly divided into three columns.

The left column, containing the cam tracker. This is a view screen alternating between all the different cams that are active at any given moment. This column stays with you throughout your visit to Africam and also contains links to the various cams.

The right column contains a schedule for the Safari cams and times given in Central African Time. It also contains links to several external, but related cites.

The center column or actual page contains various in-site links as well as the Pic of the day before. Links to Pic of the Week, Pic of the Month, as well as videos, field guides, Afrinews, some detail on participating game ranges, The Boma (a chat forum) and of cours the AFRISHOP!

Videos.

One researcher had trouble downloading the video clips, but the teasers certainly looks worthwhile.

Field guides and field lists

Each of these is a topic of its own, containing a lot of individual topics! Included here you can find: Newmans's Bird Guide, Mammal Guide, Bird checklist, Flower Field list, Spoor (track) Field list, Marine Field list and the reptile Field list.

The guides are of outstanding quality and contains almost everything that a hitch Hiker could need to identify any African creepy, crawly or buddingly. One shortfall is that there is no Tree Guide. This region has a rich variety of indigenous trees.

The Mammal Guide is quite inclusive and provides all the necessary info on most of the more common mammals.

The Bird Guide is rather of a disappointment as it does barely more than help you ID the birds.

The Flower field list barely scratches the surface of South Africa's rich botanical heritage. It is truly just a list of flower names with attached pictures. It does not make the identifying of flowers easy, as it is unstructured and a person must physically wade through all the pictures in the hope of finding what you are looking for, just to be rewarded with very little info on your subject. The pictures are nice to look at though.

The Spoor field list is very helpful in identifying tracks, as it guides a person through a kind of key to lead you to the track (spoor) you are trying to identify.

The Invertebrate field list falls in the same category as the Flower list. Nuv said.

Although the Marine field list is similar to the Flower field list, it does have some sort of structure to it and it tries to elaborate a bit more on the different species. It is clear that this is a work in progress and that it will definitely mature with time.

The Reptile field list is very similar in structure and content to the Marine field list and it will probable be worthwhile to warrant a revisit at some time in the future.

The cams

Since cams are continually added or removed it is senseless to go into each cam specifically. Let us rather look at the different types of cams.

Waterhole cams. Waterholes are the pubs of Africa, game comes here to drink, socialize, play, eat and be eaten! You can be sure to see some action at any waterhole. The drier the water, the more action you will find here.

Safari cams. These cams go out on day- and night- game drives, they are warden-controlled and you are bound to see some spectacular scenes! The only drawback is that they are only periodically online. Refer to the time schedule for the best time to log on.

Marine cams. What more is there to say, except that there is no need to bring scuba gear!

Specialty cams. These change regularly and in the past have included topics like a hyena denn, a black eagle nest and a behind the scenes look at the making of a documentary on leopards.

All said, it is easy to understand that www.africam.co.za is officially the most popular website of the previous millennium. A definite worthwhile visit.