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.
Hello Kim
Thank you for the fantastic videos and images and for risking your bare bottom to get them. I realize that Malilangwe is exclusive but was there a possibility of a Landrover pulling up with a group of gawking tourists while you were doing the nature thing?
On another note, white rhino are my passion, there seems to be a fairly decent amount (308 in 2005, possibly more by now) in Malilangwe. Have you run across any as yet? I would love to see a video or some of your wonderful photos of them. Thanks again.
Possibility of a Landrover pulling up? Are you crazy, a Landrover would never get there. This place is tough. Only Toyota’s can handle it. Anyway I was at a pan deep in the mopanie where the drives don’t get to. So felt rather safe. Lucky tourists if they did arrive - a once in a lifetime sighting.
There have never been so many white rhino’s on Malilangwe and it can’t sustain a population that big. Today there are 74 White Rhino and doing so well that most years some are being captured and re-located. Somewhere in the Wildcast archive there are some video clips of white and black rhino and several pictures on Flickr. White rhino’s are cool but I’m a huge fan of black rhino’s.
Elephants are probably the animals I admire the most because they are strong, powerful, yet, gentle. And, obviously, the duck knows that. Wonderful footage.
Great footage - what a privlege to witness something like that.