Marabou Waltz: Video
Published by Wildcaster 1 year, 9 months ago Tags: adventure, africa, african birds, animal kingdom, birding, birding african birds, blogumentary, buffalo stampede, bush knowledge, conservation, documentary, ecotraining, education, flickr, GLTP, gonarezhou, Great Limpopo Transfrontier Park, hunting, kill, lions, malilangwe, marabou stork, mashable, narrowcasting, Open Content Alliance, ornithology, pamushana, peace parks, photos, podcasting, polls, predators, teach, video, wildcasting, wildlife, wildlife documentary, youtube, zimbabwe.The Marabous Storks were still on Banyini this morning, giving me the chance to recapture the footage that was ruined yesterday when my camera overheated.
They kept me busy for several hours and I only left them once they had cooled off in the pan and temperatures were soaring.
I went on to find the Nduna pride on a buffalo kill right down in the south east of the reserve. The kill was probably made last night and all were well fed. But when I got there, only one lioness was lying in the shade near the carcass, which was out there in the sun.
The others had moved off into deeper shade.
This lioness wasn’t budging. The skies were full of vultures and others were already landing in nearby trees. Had the lioness given them the slightest chance they would have descended en masse and polished off the carcass.
She spent her day guarding the carcass.
Only at sunset did the others venture from their shade and continue to feed. And as overloaded as they were I always wonder how they manage to stuff more meat down their throats.
I’ll be spending the rest of the night with the lions to be with them at dawn when they probably move off and the hyaenas move in. That’s if the hyaenas don’t challenge the lions tonight and take over.
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This is kind of unrelated to the current day’s video but I have to ask anyway. Kim, do you ever find yourself “rooting” for specific animals? Also, do you sort of feel that it’s your “duty” to try to remain “impartial” in who you root for (even though it has no bearing on what happens)? I always wonder about that when it comes to nature filmmakers. I think it was in “Relentless Enemies: Lions vs Buffalo” that the announcer said something about the lions “taking what is rightfully theirs” (in reference to a lion killing a buffalo). I didn’t like that kind of talk because, in my opinion, all animals are just “doing what they’re programmed to do” (eat enough to survive). It felt odd to me that the announcer of that movie was giving an opinion (pro-lion). But, of course, this kind of thing is human nature. Personally, I find myself rooting against lions because they attack the young, old and the weak. In human society, they’d be considered in the “top rung” of evil (e.g. we have laws in place to try to protect our children, the elderly, and the sick). Oddly, I do find myself rooting for hyaenas (I guess they don’t seem as threatening as lions are and I just find them interesting).
There seems to be a problem with this clip. I’m going to redo it.
Kevin. Taking sides changes depends on which animal I’m making the film about and what i want them to achieve. So one day they’re good another day they’re bad. But lions ……… well I really don’t see them as the King of Beasts. We’ve elevated them there, but they don’t belong there. Just as we’ve trashed hyaenas, their real story needs to be told. (And that is exactly what my film Hyena Queen (Hyena’s at War) was about). So look out for my lion film showing them in reality.