The rains were still here at dawn but soon lifted and stayed dry for the rest of the day.
But for most of the day the animals seemed to be in hiding.
With the girls I dug up a Jatropha plant, which has just a few leaves on the surface but then a large potato like bulb about 2ft underground. Elephant love to eat them and dig them up with ease. Unfortunately we can’t eat them.
I spent the afternoon on Banyini filming termites. In the cool weather they were out building their castles, like thousands of workers hard at it.
The jackal family were getting active just before sunset, all five of them playing in the road. The sixth member, the little guy with the broken jaw, seems to have died. He wasn’t with them.
Happily sunset came with a slight clearing in the clouds. So maybe the rains will be away for the next for days.
Rain, rain, rain. So it did all night and most of the morning.
We only got out filming with the girls in the late morning, but nothing too dramatic. We shot a bunch of interviews before they got hungry.
Dropping them off at camp I went in search of elephant. I really expected them to be in the sandveld but not a sign.
Banyini was also fairly quiet although it did have its compliment of giraffe and impala.
I took a walk around the pan when I heard impala snorting to the south. Were they snorting at me?
My investigations turned up an impala carcass. It was already just skin and bones with a few vultures feeding on it. It appears it died of natural causes as no large predators had fed on it. The bachelor herd of impala were in the area curious as to what was going on with their friend.
Strangely they didn’t seem nervous about the threat of potential danger, a big predator in the area? They kept grazing by and checking on their comrade and eventually when the vultures moved off the herd moved on.
While filming I heard the elephants a long way to the south. They were in the clays. Obviously a no go area for me.
The rains are here again keeping us indoors for the early part of the morning.
Then my daughters took over taking themselves for a drive through all the puddles and mud. And again they encountered elephant on the road, but calmly they watched them go by before proceeding themselves. Of course Barend was there to film it all.
Then it was dad’s turn to do some filming. A couple of bulls were wrestling in the cool weather and were soon joined by a third bigger dude. They greeted with trunks in each other’s mouths and soon resumed their wrestling.
Another bull arrived in the area, and the 3 would have none of him, chasing him with serious aggression well out of the area. What he’d done I don’t know, but those 3 seriously didn’t want him around.
At this time of year the elephant spend most of their time grazing on the fresh crop of grass.
Marula season is coming on again and already some trees are dropping their fruit. This bull wasn’t going to wait for the fruit to drop and with his huge hulk he shook the tree sending the marula berries tumbling to the ground.
The bad weather has brought with it its technical problems. Apologies for today’s delayed upload.
An early start was well worth it, as by 8am it was already seriously hot.
But today success was not on our side. Well definitely not in the morning.
We didn’t find any rhino, although Darryl had a fleeting glimpse of 2 backsides disappearing into the thick undergrowth.
So it was we accomplished little filming with the girls this morning, and we were back at camp by 10am, very hot!
Midday the storm struck. It wasn’t so much a storm but a massive cloud burst. In half an hour we had 2inches of rain.
We took advantage of it all to film the girls and me trying to work when the downpour was at its peak. We got totally soaked in our attempt to put the cover over my car. But all was fun.
I dropped the girls off at home completely rained out and longing for a cup of hot chocolate while I headed down to Banyini keen to film animals in the rain.
All the way there the roads were raging torrents. Many new streams appeared out of nowhere. And even the Simbiri stream, usually dry was now raging away about knee deep.
And then as I arrived on Banyini and found some giraffe, impala and zebra, the rains stopped. So there I was all soaked for nothing.
After the downpour a family of jackal and a bachelor herd of impala gathered on the roadside, which had very little cover and more open than the surrounding 4ft high grasslands. They really weren’t up much just milling around each other.
With so much water around I had little chance of any off road driving for the afternoon and headed back to camp to carry on with vehicle maintenance.
For the next week we’re needing to pick up additional material for the Series on the girls. As the first day out on this mission we were with little success.
We did find a number of elephant herds together around Makeche and were treated to them arriving at a small pan in the mopanie veld where the little calves were beside themselves. They just wanted to spend the whole day there but their mom’s were having none of it.
The especially small guys were still learning the rules and procedures around a waterhole and always just that one step away from being trampled or rolled onto. But the older elephant seem to be constantly aware of the little guy’s presence and they just don’t get trampled. Also mom knows not to keep them there too long and after a drink and little mud bath mom moves off with the little guys.
By 10h00 it was already very hot, too hot to walk barefoot on the open sand. It was too much for the girls and I took them back to camp for a swim.
As it cooled in the afternoon I checked out Malilangwe dam. There wasn’t much access down there with the water having risen so much, so I ventured on down to Banyini.
On the way there I encountered this little jackal. His bottom jaw was broken and just hanging there. He also had a few body scars, so presumably he’d been fighting. Or had he pushed his luck and tried to take on a zebra or wildebeest? Whatever happened the poor little fellow’s in a bad way and it’s unlikely he’ll make it. The harsh reality of nature!
It was a day of leisure, being Sunday.
If only I could say that about every Sunday. But then of course I forget that in my job every day is Sunday. (Much like the day the lions are having. Except I shot this clip several days ago after the lions had painstakingly tried to get that tortoise out of its shell.)
It was only in the late afternoon that I got out for a drive before sunset. There wasn’t much going on on Banyini except for a few impala.
And the airstrip with the grass now 3 or 4 feet high is not the most desirable place for many animals. They’re all looking for the areas of shorter grass. Which actually I don’t think they’ll have much luck with this season.
But for this lone giraffe bull the grass is of no consequence.
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