Daily Archive for February 9th, 2007

Elephant calf plays cat and mouse: Video

Scary day.
Luckily the footage I shot today wasn’t the most riveting stuff ever because then I’d be cursing.

Actually working
Barend was out there with me today hoping to shoot footage of me with the elephants but we never got to them. We got side tracked by about a dozen Marabous Storks on Banyini. Some were at the pan drinking and just standing around and others were hunting the grasslands plucking unsuspecting grasshoppers.

Real wingspan
They really don’t look the most appealing of characters with their balding, scabby heads and pendulous pink air sac. But at least their mothers love them AND they do a great job in cleaning up the veld of rotting carcasses. And more recently as man invades their territories they are found cleaning up at rubbish dumps.

Gathering
Down at Chimize pans we encountered 2 sets of White Rhino cow and calf. They had their compliment of Yellow-billed Oxpeckers that kept them clean from external parasites and are their watch dogs as the rhino’s eyesight is really poor.

Real wallow
The rhino’s were wallowing when we arrived but came to investigate us initially before heading on their way.
And what do we have to show for it? Well there are a few photographs BUT no footage even though I shot plenty.

White or Black?
While shooting the Marabou’s I commented to Barend how hot the camera was. On the side where the tape goes in it was too hot to touch because of the sun baking down on it.
And although we could see the images on the computer we couldn’t download them as the tapes were faulty. They had probably been stretched/warped from the intense heat. But I wasn’t consoled until I’d shot more footage to be sure it wasn’t the camera that was faulty. That would have been a disaster as I don’t have a backup camera. I do have a small Panasonic but it just isn’t good enough for what I’m doing. It’s just another of those cogs that you don’t want to lose a tooth. Could put us down for days.

TopDeck
So the video clip for today was actually footage shot yesterday, of Chipfongwe playing with his plant.

Chinzwini No.17

bushmanlogo.jpg

Chinzwini 16A

This male human figure is not drawn in the detailed way other men have been drawn. Was this possibly a vision of someone whilst in a trance. Note the headdress, very elongated body and different leg sizes.

Maybe this is the artists impression of what was going through his mind whilst in a trance, imagining himself hunting elephants.

Chinzwini 17