Wildcast

It was more a day of adventure for me than finding the elephant herds, which I didn’t get right.
I decided to work all the way down the Chiredzi River and on to the Runde River to see if there was any evidence of the elephant herds down that way.
No sign of the herds but I did find Stompie and a couple of other bulls feeding on an Acacia they’d uprooted. Stompie of course gave me the headshake just to make sure I didn’t challenge him further, and then carried on feeding.

Right in the south I walked down the Mahande River all the way to the confluence with the Runde. It was lovely walk where the river bank is lined with yellow Fever trees.
I continued on along the bank of the Runde River. I had to do this, as the watercourse was right up against the bank. But the bush was extremely dense along the bank, which meant most of the time I was crawling my way through along paths that had been made by hippo. They were the last thing I wanted to meet down these dark alleys. And of course this was also a great haven for buffalo to rest up in.

Yes, stupid to be walking in there in the first place. But then doing stupid things is pretty common in my work.
Luckily the hippos were all in the river and I never encountered any buffalo. But as I came out the thickets and stood up, I was confronted by the most deafening trumpet. Towering above me on top of the river bank was this huge elephant bull.

Luckily the bank was too steep for him to jump down and he stood above me kicking up dust. Of course I had to snap away a whole pile of photos before I ducked away hugging the river bank until out of sight.
Further down stream I got to the hippo pool I’ve filmed at before. I surprised the hippo resting on the bank and they dived into the river. (I’m not sure that ‘dive’ is the appropriate term for a hippo entering the river. Definitely not that elegant.)

And just across the way from them on the other bank was this fisherman. He was standing in the water with the hippo only meters from him. As I thought about it, that seemed fine, but what wasn’t fine was the fact that this part of the river is infested with huge crocodiles. And these guys know it but they still take their chances. Apparently people are regularly being taken by crocs along this river. Not surprising.

As I left the river to head back to the car I disturbed this flock of Egyptian Geese and Spoonbills.

I drove on east to Chiloveka dam before making my way north visiting all the watering points on the way. No sign of elephant herds.
But at Nduna dam there were tracks all over the place. It was now late and I didn’t have time to follow up on them, but will do tomorrow.
On my way home via Manyuchi the Nduna pride were still lying up in the area and at dusk slowly, very slowly, wakened and headed off hunting.