Daily Archive for February 8th, 2007

Elephants - Sisterly Love: Video

I was surprised to find the lions right on the eastern boundary near Nyamsaan. That was quite an overnight trek for them. Nearly 10kms. And again it seemed they weren’t successful hunting.

Lurking
The Quelea colony north of Bandama is in full swing with chicks having hatched. And the slaughter has begun too as over a hundred Lesser Spotted Eagles have moved in and are trashing nests to get to the chicks. But it’s not that easy for them. The nests are constructed in the thickest of thorn thickets. So the eagles have their time cut out just trying to access them.
Over the next few days we can expect many hundreds more eagles arriving especially once the other colonies start hatching.

Wildebeest run
Mandlovu and most of the elephant were also right in the east.
Chipfongwe is doing well and feeding a lot more and even chewing. So his first teeth have presumably erupted.

Stompie posing
I had one of those frustrating times following him. I saw him battling to pull this plant out. But to get a clear shot, I needed to move. While driving around, his sister came over and just pulled the plant out and proceeded to eat it. Chipfongwe didn’t give up. He went and pulled it from his sister’s mouth. She then plucked another plant at her feet, ate that and went back to Chipfongwe and plucked half the plant from him. He ran off clutching his little prize. And I went off with nothing to show for it except this photograph.

Chipfongwe's prize
There are so many little behaviour things like this that I miss. Usually ‘cos one is moving or there is something obstructing a clear shot. So in the end when I do get one there’s a great sense of achievement. And today I got 2 of those, the one being the video clip of Chipfongwe’s sister just loving him.

Muddy threat
And the other was Chipfongwe again finding one of these same plants and hassling with it for ages trying to pluck it from the ground. He even tried to pull it out going down on his knees and biting. Then he rolled around on it for ages before giving up and going off to his sister for some love.

Sunset 02/07

Chinzwini No.16

bushmanlogo.jpg

Chinzwini 16A

Is this a hunting scene? There is a human figure at the bottom right and then the promiment figure about the elephant.

And surely these 2 elephant were painted at a different time to the other bigger elephant. In which case when were the human figures painted?

This mother and calf appear to be on the run, typically when being hunted.

Chinzwini 16B