Wild Dogs - Up in the hills

As planned I was down at Malilangwe dam at dawn. It’s just such a great place to watch the sun rise.

As usual it was alive with bird activity. White-breasted Cormorant chicks demanding more food from their parents, a Great-White Egret patrolling the shallow waters for fish, Pied Kingfishers doing their kamikaze dives after fish in the shallows AND being successful.

Egyptian Geese causing their usual riot when anybody tried to invade their airspace.

At dawn some hippo slowly made their way to the water. A few impala were sprinkled on the green flush coming up along the shores, but they felt cornered between the water and me and took off to safer ground.

And still no sign of the dogs. So they weren’t going to venture down to the dam as I hoped. I was imagining all sorts of things with the youngsters chasing after those oh so tempting geese and ducks waddling along the shores. Alas another dream trashed for which those birds are happy I’m sure.
I decided to venture right to the top end of the dam where the Nyamasikana River comes in, somewhere I’ve never been before. The dam narrows in the upper reaches and looks more like a river and the higher up I went it eventually dried up. Stunning countryside up there.
The muddy shallows up there are alive with fish AND ‘fishermen’. Marabou Storks, Yellow-billed Storks, Great-white Egret and a Darter were all delving into this ‘honey’ pot.

Where the river dried up I abandoned the vehicle and went walking, barefoot as the sand was nice and soft. The sandy riverbed was alive with fresh tracks of elephant, rhino, hyaena and baboons. But none of these provided me with a sighting. Elephants had dug a hole in the sand to get to fresh water about a meter and a half down and many other animals had taken advantage of this.

Being out here walking the place had that very wild air about it and I was happy to be on my own. Then I saw a couple of animals on the bank ahead but couldn’t see what they were. At first I thought rhino but putting the camera to my eye I was surprised to see they were bushpig. These animals are strictly nocturnal and I’ve never seen one in the day and only twice at night. I wanted to get closer for a better look. Sneaking up on them I was doing well until about 30m away, in my stalk mode I was confronted by a carpet of paper-thorns. I didn’t see them but sure did feel them and trying as hard as I could to keep my composure I had to keep going a couple more steps before I was able to relieve myself and pluck away removing these tiny irritations. By now the bushpigs had moved up into the hills and with a little more stealth I was able to get another glimpse of them before they scrambled up the hill. Just seeing them was such a jackpot!

By now it was already getting warm and I was sure the wild dogs would be resting up. I picked up their signal in the same area as last night and managed to drive a little closer but was soon brought to a halt by a sandstone ridge in front of me. Desperate to know how the dogs were doing and to see if the pups were up there I took to the hills on foot. Not far over the top the signal got really strong and then they blasted me with their alarm barks. I saw a bunch of adults and some alpha pups scatter from an overhanging rock. That was enough to tell me they were all there and fine and I left them in peace not wanting to torment them any further.
On the way back past Sosigi dam I encountered the same pair of Giant Eagle Owls from yesterday.

And coming down to the dam was a good-sized elephant bull with fairly impressive ivory.

Joining him for their daily drink were zebra, impala and a few eland (the heaviest antelope weighing up to 940kgs). Eland are not common in Africa but occur in good-sized herds on Malilangwe but have always remained slightly nervous not standing around for their photos to be taken.

It was yet another wonderful day in Africa and if only I could spend more time walking. And that is one of the reasons why I want to do the Ground Hornbill film ‘cos then I’ll be following them on foot everyday.