Wildcast

Let the good times roll! Things are going great for the wild dogs at the moment.
It was a truly miserable morning with a very unimaginative rain, not really raining, but enough to keep everything wet. And it just didn’t stop. The dogs were huddled up in piles – adults, alpha pups and BB pups, and I was huddled under my tarpaulin.

When the dribbles let up the dogs took to veld and a hunting they went. It was a short sweet hunt for them, but not so sweet for 2 baby impala and a female impala.

When impala lambs are only a few days old, their mother will stash them away and leave them while she goes off feeding. And presumably these 2 little guys this morning had been stashed. But there is very little cover around and they just didn’t stand a chance.
Well fed, and still loaded with piles of energy after a short hunt, the dogs took to the pan just south of the old airstrip and really enjoyed themselves – the whole pack.

A herd of zebra also feeling overly energized by the rains went galloping past the pan and spooked the dogs who left to go and lie up in the mopanie for the day.
Moving through the mopanie I found a number of dogs kept rolling on things. This is not unusual as they do do this, but not this frequently. It turned out they were rolling on millipedes. When crushed they release quite a pungent smell which was probably that special eau de cologne the dogs were looking for. But then they proceeded to eat the millipedes, which was very odd in that millipedes have cyanide in their bodies as a protection, but this just didn’t hassle the dogs. Well I hope not and I hope I’ll find them all alive tomorrow.
And then Sash, probably high on millipedes thought he would take on this giraffe.

Being a little cooler today the dogs were on the move earlier in the afternoon and the pups, now having totally lost their fear for water, just couldn’t be kept out of it and nearly got left behind on the hunt.

Milling around near Manyuchi pan we heard hyaenas greeting near their den. The dogs didn’t hesitate and took the conflict to them. They encountered 2 adult females greeting and proceeded to harass them before heading south into the now dark night.