Great excitement early in the morning, elephant tracks, lots of them all heading east.
Just as we arrived at the pan north east of Chivi a herd was moving in to drink. It was still early. They drank and then moved into the mopanie to the south, foraging close by.
As the morning heated up the same herd kept coming to the pan to drink and then later wallow and finally swim.
A small calf got himself caught up in mud hole and just wasn’t getting traction to get out of there. Eventually his mom came and rescued him with a nudge of her trunk.
The resident Dabchick was happy to have company as the elephant’s activities in the water stirred up aquatic animals that these guys feed on. It was a little scary watching this little guy swimming amongst the giants but he was a confident little dude.
The elephant moved off about two hours later and this lone buffalo came down but seeing us parked in the shade, took off. He obviously wasn’t keen to be with us.
At dawn a large herd of buffalo were hanging out at Banyini pan. They had probably spent the night there in the open.
Later in the day when we got back to Banyini about 40 elephant were in the pan. This is very unusual for them to be out there in the open in the day. Our arrival spooked them and they took off into the mopanie. Mandlovu was there too, taking up the rear.
We were just about to leave Banyini when vultures came tumbling out the sky. They had found themselves a wildebeest carcass. I took a closer look to see if I could see any cause of death, but none. The vultures though were having a tough time opening the bull as their beaks battled to penetrate the tough skin. Other bigger scavengers hadn’t been there to open it up for them. But even so, they’d managed to open up the carcass at the rectum and will no doubt eat it from the inside out leaving just skin and bone.
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