Page 56 - Light Dragoons 2022 CREST

The Regimental Journal of The Light Dragoons
On the hunt for hippos in the River Higer
A MUAS bird
The Sahel zone, north of the savannah zone of West Africa is characterised by thorn scrub, sparse, mostly annual, grasses and very low and often erratic rainfall. The most prominent wetland area of Mali flanks the River Niger that snakes through the country before hooking south into Niger and eventually down into the Gulf of Guinea.
Naturally, the weather was hot through- out, although in hindsight – what at first seemed boiling in December was posi- tively balmy. By the time of our last Mobile Task Force Operation – Op Meerkat – in April/May, the temperature was swelter- ing. Usually hovering around the 45C mark, there was one day of no breeze down in Fitili where the dry heat reached 51C. An altogether unpleasant experience. This being said, the Sqn did make use of the
Jordanian jackets provided for us by His Majesty the Colonel in Chief – and they were utilised on many a chilly morning during Op Elwan and Op Seka to the east of the River.
Mali receives north easterly winds from the Sahara, blowing hot and dusty weather southwards. The climax of this is known as a harmattan – a full blown dust storm that can in theory, last for several days. Luckily we never experienced one of these in our open architecture vehicles. The closest the Sqn got was a quasi haboob – where the sky starts raining mud – ideally timed for the arrival of the BBC media embeds. What first appeared as cumulonimbus and alto- cumulus cloud systems lead into a haboob as 1 and 2 Tp began a dismounted patrol into Kygarouten marketplace.
The terrain that the Sqn covered was diverse and lent itself to the wide variety of mammals and birds that we ended up sighting. There were the cliffs and caves to the south of Soudeheri forest, the wetlands along the banks of the River Niger, rocky outcrops along Rte Crocodile between Ansongo and Menaka and of course the dried wadi systems that riddled the terrain across the area of operations – that 2 Tp enjoyed searching for weapon caches so much.
Over the course of six months, as a Sqn we saw just shy of 30 different aviary species. The true total may indeed be far greater owing to the lack of identification ability from our side. Initially the Red Bellied Firefinches and Namaqua Doves stood out on acclimatisation walks around Camp Castor. This only increased as we pushed
Flora and Fauna of Mali
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