Mandlovu and her herd continue to evade me.
But I was lucky to find the other breeding herds. Judging from the numbers this was probably all the elephant on Malilangwe except for Mandlovu and her herd.
This big herd were way way down in the south and I spent most of the day with them. There is good grass cover down there and that was about all they were eating. And eating they were. Like machines they just keep shoving it in stocking up for the coming dry months, but also because they have such an inefficient digestive system.
The herds were as usual amazingly relaxed with my presence.
This big bull was the first dude I found and being in musth he challenged me, but it was no more than a big show.
Then the elephant cow with one tusk, walked past my car, stopped and came back. She walked right up to the front and proceeded to push on the bull-bar. Then left just as casually as she had arrived. She did this 3 times over the course of the day. Who knows why. And never did she show any sign of aggression.
An adult bull also came to give me a shove and moved on.
Maybe I have that look on my face that says I like being pushed around.
Then once the herd decided to get moving they moved and walked for over an hour to get to Chiloveka dam where the play began. The whole herd went swimming in their own little groups.
The light was lovely and was just the most awesome finish to a really hot day, even though I wasn’t able to swim. Just watching them swimming, as if in slow motion, is actually very therapeutic . For nearly 2hours they swam, and for all that time I was filming and taking photographs. (with a fly stuck in my ear)
At dawn I spent time with the wild dogs hunting on Banyini, my dream location for the dogs to hunt on. But at this time of year it’s worthless as you’re lucky to even see the dogs ears above the tall grass.
They killed an impala, but as usual I only got there after the fact with other pack members.
On the hunt I was with BB when she took off after some impala. She kept on a track for quite some time which meant I could keep up with her and incredibly I clocked her at 55km/hr, even with her limp! When she took off across country I lost her and a while later she came back empty handed.
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