African wildlife adventures live from the bush
We launched a new feature this week, namely Polls. You’ll see one there on the right-hand sidebar. Use it to tell us what you think we should be filming next now that it looks like the Wild Dogs have headed off from their den.
We’re also using the poll to test your bush knowledge. Here’s the first brainteaser which you whould ave seen if you’d been following the conversation on :flickr:
Check out the pic and poll below…
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You can usually count on Bandama waterhole (:map:) as a hotbed of game activity.
Most animals usually stay downwind of the pan (on the Southern side) to avoid the unwanted attentions of the predators that may be lying in wait. The problem of course is that the Southern side is where the mus is thickest. Check out the clip to see how the warthgs, eland, zebra, etc deal with this muddy mess.
I’m away for a while attending the Wildscreen Wildlife Film Festival in Bristol, in the UK. I’ll also be on a panel discussing Wildcast.
While I’m away I’ll be putting up video clips of events I filmed in the last month on Malilangwe. These are all new clips of stuff that just didn’t fit the blog when they occured.
It was a strange day today for this time of year. At dawn the clouds rolled in and the temperature dropped. And then it drizzled slightly on and off.
Of course in this sort of weather all the animals disappear. Well so it always seems. And still no sign of the wild dogs.
Driving past the burn from a few days ago, we found this huge Terminalia tree burning at its base and surely about to topple. Seeing this I reversed back to take a closer look. Just then we heard the tree creaking, so I moved on a bit. I wanted to film the tree crashing to the ground and thought if I got the girls to give it a nudge it would do just that. But I’d hardly stopped the car and the tree crashed a mighty crash as it shattered completely on the exact spot where we had stopped earlier.
Now that was close one!
The quelea were on the burn in their thousands feeding on seeds dropped in the fire and kicking up their own dust cloud. Moving on to Chekwa pan, I watched a couple of elephant bulls leaving the water.
And just behind me a rhino and her calf were waiting for the pachyderms to move off before they came to drink.
There is still no sign of the dogs.
But all of Malilangwe’s other animals were out to greet us. A couple of herds of eland were watering on the Chiredzi river and a few elephant bulls making their regular rounds to Chekwa pan.
In the afternoon we ventured right into the very south of the reserve. I haven’t been down this way for a few years. Our destination was Chiloveka dam (:map:) It turned out to be all but dry. There were catfish/barbel floundering in the last remaining mud and what seemed to be a resident Fish Eagle that would be taking advantage of them.
The dry mud on the dam proved to be an exciting playground for the girls. Well especially Penny. A warning of “Careful, the mud looks hard but is soft just under the surface” went floating on by on the same wind that carried the message to her. And then “Daddy, I’m stuck!” And stuck she was. Her one leg just wouldn’t budge and her ears were totally blocked to dads advice on how to extricate herself. She continued tugging on her leg but it just didn’t budge. By now dad was contemplating sliding across the mud to help her, knowing that if he walked across there his heavier body would sink in before even reaching her.
Finally Penny mulled over using a little of dad’s advice. “Pull slowly, very slowly and your leg will come free”. Indeed it did, but then the other leg got stuck. Well only just and soon she was out running across the mud back to me.
On our way home we were rewarded with this white rhino cow and her calf. It’s amazing how placid these animals are compared to their ‘bad tempered’ cousins.
Well not really. They were playing and the heavier bull pushed the younger bulls head into the mud.
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