27th October 2000
The rains held off for us in the early hours and we were able to get out early on the trail of Tjololo eventually finding him right up in the north. We saw him briefly as he disappeared into the reeds and up the river, but seemed to be traveling alone again.
Eventually intercepting him further upstream he continued up in the reeds before resting up just there.
The rest of our morning, still very much overcast, didn’t provide for much other activity.
In the afternoon we visited the hyaena den and found there had been activity in the area since we were last there a couple of days. This is good news and once Dale is back with the lights we’ll be spending some time there picking up on hyaena behaviour. I expect there will be some very young cubs at the den, those little guys still with a black coat.
Back up north we found Tjololo on the move close to where we’d left him. He showed a lot of interest in some waterbuck while resting up on an anthill analyzing the whole situation. We got some great images with him against the very dark clouds that have been moving in all afternoon.
Shortly a hyaena came by and hassled him, but standing his ground and growling the hyaena moved on.
Probably only some 5 minutes later there was a huge commotion to the south of us. It sounded like a hyaena screaming and some deep growling. It sounded very much the hyaena had been caught by lions. Following up we found a lion and lioness but no sign of the hyaena. It must have got away, but I’m sure it knows it’s lucky to be able to watch another sun set.
Back to Tjololo, he was obviously nervous with knowing there were lions in the area. As it got dark a gentle drizzle set in and we headed back to camp.
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