27th June 2000
A never ending night as Tjololo kept us on the go all the way and only after sunrise did he decide to call it a day, or night, after having been on the move soon after sunset.
He moved east from the Sand river and picked up an interesting scent. Sniffing a small area intently, grunting, meowing and chuffling as he did so, he was obviously very excited. I think he had picked up the scent of a female in oestrus. Something that would surely get his hormones pumping and send him running around frantically calling and taking up the trail. But after about 3 hours he still didn’t have any results and continued to call.
Before midnight he rested and we were happy we could now get a bit of shut eye too. But then a monkey spotted him and started its highly irritating chatter warning others of the predator. Tjololo wasn’t going to put up with it and headed north. That was the end of any chance of sleep for us. He continued all the way to his northern boundary on the Kapen river and then headed south west to rest up.
I was able to shoot a fair amount of behaviour of Tjololo calling and marking which will be useful and very necessary for the film. So although a very tiring night there was definitely some good in it.
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