A small herd of buffalo bulls were wallowing down near the Mahande river. They’re a little nervous these guys in the deep south, so I approached slowly.
Suddenly, coming from the side, I saw a big elephant bull bearing down on me. He was a big dude and looked really threatening but not scary enough. I stopped and he came to an abrupt halt too.
Still frustrated, being in musth, he turned his attention on the buffalo and chased them all over the place. All the while a few other elephants stood calmly feeding close by.
When these guys are in musth they have a serious change in attitude and can at times be really dangerous especially if one is on foot. And it’s also when they’re in this hormonal stage that they give the females a hard time and cause havoc in the herds. These are the guys who usually get to mate with any female in oestrus.
This bull finally left the buffalo, and lost interest in me, to go and join the herd.
In the early morning I had the lions north of Nduna and spent a few hours with them totally passed out. Eventually I left them to it at mid-morning.
But when I got back there in the afternoon there was no sign of them. We had had a little rain about midday, so presumably the lions used this cool weather to move on.
Eventually I picked them up right on the northern boundary. Sleeping.
It’s always a concern when these guys are moving around the boundary as they might find a hole in the fence, usually caused by elephant, and hit soft targets (cattle, goats) on the other side. It is then that they get persecuted. At least for now they are still in the reserve.
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