Hyena Standoff

Last night we followed the Lions from Banyini into the thickets of the Mopane forest – somewhere you don’t want to be. Kylie raised her alarm at going in, but testosterone once again sent out the battle cry, “we’re going in!” Manyari was keeping up a steady pace, I think she was “miff-kid” about losing out on a kill earlier in the day.

Dozer, the Toyota Hi-lux 4 x 4 I drive, has no roof and bullbars all around it. This is not always a good thing, because we push a few small trees over in our path and all the living world of insects in the forest land up in our laps! So that was that, we got out of there, and Manyari succeeded in losing her tail.

All was not lost, we got up early and found two Hyenas at Sosigi Dam again, two young adults taking it easy on the cracked earth where the mud had dried up. This was their turf and no one was going to tell them otherwise. Especially when a herd of Eland, with a massive bull, decided they wanted in.

The one hyena scampered off, but the other was quite resilient and he was not giving in that easily. Anyway, it was great to watch and I captured as much as I could on video in a two part series. Oh yes, it’s like that – to be continued…