Another cold dawn and the elephants had moved east towards Ganyani. Mandlovu’s herd were feeding peacefully on the fruits of the Balanites tree. Suddenly the all froze. They’d heard the deep rumbles from other herds. Something was wrong.
Mandlovu took the lead and moved rapidly south with her herd. They must have travelled about a kilometre before stopping to feed again. Then all seemed fine. What the disturbance was I don’t know.
I left them to see if I could pick up on Whisky. I didn’t cover the whole property but didn’t have any joy. It’s quite possible that now he’s on his own he’ll be travelling far and wide looking for other dogs to join up with.
Earlier I was alerted by reserve guides about a leopard kill in the south. I got there to find 2 hyaenas in the shade of a bush with the rib cage and spine of an impala carcass. And in a nearby tree was the rest of the impala. I didn’t see the leopard. More than likely what had happened is the leopard had killed the impala and the hyaenas stole it away. But then somewhere along the line the leopard had probably snuck in and snatched the remains of the carcass back and quickly treed it. They can be amazingly brave sometimes how they’ll steal back carcasses knowing they can tree them to safety.
After fixing a puncture I was again back with the elephants in the afternoon still feeding in the mopanie. And only after the sun had set did they venture out into the open on Banyini using the ‘safety’ of darkness to drink at the pan.
Seeing them in the open like this is so stunning but they just won’t do it in full daylight hours. Maybe I should lay a trail of sugar cubes out there!!!
There aren’t many drawings at this location. But some of these images are very different to anything we’ve seen elsewhere on the reserve.
It’s not easy to see, and not easy to paint, these images on this rough surface. But they almost look like dogs having a face off. They more ’stick-man’ like drawings.
9th June 2000
Luckily Tjololo was as exhausted as us and spent a fair amount of the night sleeping, of which we took advantage and did likewise. Don’t know why he should have been so tired after having an easy night last night too.
We found him at dusk heading east from where he had the kill last night. I’m not sure whether he’d been back to the kill but he sure hadn’t eaten, as his bulge was more respectable.
He continued on south all the way down the middle. Moving down the road his approach is always quiet with no grass or leaves to russle, so any animal close to the road is in danger of his silent approach. So it was with a steenbok and her youngster. As they fed in the dark Tjololo was able to sneak up on them effortlessly along the road. But what surprised us was he charged in after the steenbok at about 50m and nabbed the youngster. It was not much bigger than a hare and soon devoured.
Moving on southwest he rested up for several hours, moving on again in the early hours.
Next he was hunting Impala, when he suddenly surprised a male steenbok about 20m away. As it took off he gave chase while we listened to steenbok and leopard crashing through the undergrowth. It seemed at that distance Tjololo had no chance, but he was relying on the animal stumbling into bushes and losing pace and he soon caught it. More like cheetah hunting techniques than leopard.
With his carcass in a tree he rested up until dawn before feeding, as a hyaena lay patiently waiting for scraps from the boss’s table.
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