A seriously hot day, great for drying up muddy areas and increasing my footprint over the reserve. But only till the next rains.
I picked up the 3 wild dogs again at dawn heading south on the Binya road. They soon did an about turn when they picked up the scent of the Nduna pride from last night. Unfortunately they didn’t stick to the road and headed into those stands of 6ft high grass. A no-brainer for me.
I ended up spending most of the morning searching for the elephants until I found them at the pan they were swimming in yesterday. I had checked the area earlier with no sign of them.
Being a really hot day the herds moved in to swim and wallow, then moved out again. It was only the bulls that stayed behind for about an hour enjoying the water. And so was I, as I again took to the waters naked for those low angle shots.
With little cotton-wool clouds in the sky I wanted a really wide shot of the elephants in the pan. But that meant I needed to be really close to them with my wide-angle lens, otherwise they’d be too small in frame.
So I stalked around the edge of the pan. (Thank goodness there was nobody around. It had to be quite the most hilarious sight, a white bottom trying to conceal itself in the midday heat around a dark grey pan.) I got to the perfect spot when one of the bulls saw me, stood up and came. Not a charge but a determined walk. I stayed to the last, having to remind myself that the wide-angle lens is deceptive and the huge beast was actually a lot closer than the lens was telling me. He stopped about 10m away in the water as I tried to sneak off with my beaming white rear.
I had to leave the herds to get back to camp for some interviews for our Series.
That done I was out again at dusk looking for wild dogs. They obviously weren’t looking for me.
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