Daily Archive for March 7th, 2007

Lions march on: Video

Having left the lions on the move late yesterday, it seems they kept on trekking south all night.

White Stork
When I eventually did find them this morning they were holed up right in the south east near the Goto triangle, and still not having hunted successfully.
And again they were on the move at dusk moving boldly east, still without their pride male, Nduna.

Must we?
The Quelea are back in force. The flocks that started breeding about a month ago all abandoned their nests soon after the chicks hatched due to the intense predation pressure of about a thousand Lesser-Spotted Eagles.
But now the Quelea are back in even bigger numbers and seem to be nest building all over the reserve. When driving around there is not a second in time when one doesn’t have a Quelea visible. They’re just everywhere!
And maybe they’ll nest successfully this time as many of the eagles might have already started their migration north.

Plenty
On my way too look for the lions I stopped to film a francolin in a tree when I heard some beast wallowing in a pan close by. Armed with my camera I found this lone buffalo wallowing. He was oblivious to my approach but just as I got to the edge of the pan he suddenly saw me and bolted. Luckily the other way.

Panic
Over the last couple of weeks, in my absence, the rains had been really good so that now the grass stands 4 to 5 ft high and even white rhino are hard to see. (So following wild dogs is going to be interesting if I do find them.)

Hidden
Although looking at these impala on this anthill you wouldn’t say there had been much rain. But anthills are always the first areas to be heavily grazed by animals. Because the termites bring nutrient rich soils to the surface, the grasses on anthills tend to be that much sweeter and so more heavily grazed.

Impala herd

Mabhakweni No.11

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Mabhakweni 11A

Now this is a hunting scene! But a seriously complicated one.

What is the very strange beast they’re hunting, or more like the beast is hunting them.

Mabhakweni 11B

But actually this beast is of such strange proportions that it probably was painted after all the other more delicate pictures of human figures. So what then are all those figures doing? And where or how does this beast fit in? See tomorrow for more images.

Tjololo 6th March 2000

The Tjololo Diaries

6th March 2000
With all our efforts concentrated on looking for Tjololo I haven’t even given the project much thought. In the last week I haven’t shot any film, which is a worrying thought, but am happy that we are rather concentrating our efforts on finding out the well being of Tjololo. Once we’ve found him we’ll focus on the project again. Things are looking more and more promising as we pick up male leopard tracks in other areas of his territory. It would be unlikely that another male leopard would have moved in to his territory and already be using it to the full extremities. They will normally move in slowly taking over more and more of the territory over time.


“Oh No. Not again!!” reverberated across the bush as we heard last night’s weather report. Cyclone Gloria will hit us tomorrow and heavy rains are again expected. We’ll take it as it comes.