Monthly Archive for May, 2009

After-dinner Titbits: Video

Through the aftermath of George’s destructive temper I crawled to get to the hyena den. This elephant knows how to fell a tree and get it to lie across a road so it cannot be pushed out the way. The cubs were out and about late yesterday afternoon when I pulled up to the den. To these hyenas, it is all normal for me to float in and out of their precious area. They are just so intelligent it blows my mind. They realize early on whether or not you are a threat.

Play Wrestling

The cubs were the most active I’ve seen them so far, at one stage I had a cub on each tyre testing their puncture resistance - as you know, this could possibly not turn out well! I sat amongst the sporting play with the adults often joining in way after the sun had set. This has undoubtedly become my favourite thing to look forward to during my excursions.

Cub with colour

We have a road that winds through the hills with nice open areas between two peaks (this is not twin peaks). In between these hill tops is where animals love roam, especially at night while coming down to drink during the day. I discovered a narrow corridor with rocky cliff faces on either side that made me think of the “hot gates” in the battle of the Thermopylae. Of course I had to explore, but not surprising there were at least 300 buffalo spread out in the open grassy area on the other side! So this is not how that battle went! I backed up and got out of there, only to be held up by more of Georges road blocks.

Grinding holes

The elephant bull was at Nyari pan last night, but this time was completely relaxed. He must have held it in and then walked up into that part of the hills later and vented. I headed down the hill to Nyari to see if I could find him this morning, I found evidence of him being there, but no elephant.

After drinks

Down on Banyini there were twenty or so giraffe drinking in the flowing water. They continued to do their usual necking late into the afternoon. It has been a really hot winter’s day and I spent part of it checking a few of the leopard baits. On the camera traps we once again captured a brown hyena and so far we have nine leopards in the northern most part of the reserve – they say there is always more leopard than what you think, I hope this is true.

What’s on Sable’s Mind?: Video


You might be thinking to yourself, ”who held a council meeting and decided that the bovids get all the attention of late?” Could it be that antelope everywhere complained for the lack of wildcasting and who’s sponsoring this campaign, if it can be called that? Or even more outrageous, ”was I held at horn point by a rebel bachelor herd to swing the camera in their direction? If by some small chance you were thinking along those lines, you’d be wrong!

Zebra Dust Bath

The real reason is that they are actually doing something other than grazing for a change. I even caught a herd of Eland on the airstrip horning each other just for sport, they are normally such shy animals, but this herd has been around Banyini since the grass dried up and seem to be used to the vehicles.

Eland, Malilangwe

This is what happens when my wife is away, I speak and write nonsense. So, moving swiftly on, I headed for Hlamba Mlonga to catch the sunrise with baboons on the hill, but no baboons, so I weaved my way through the Mopani woodlands on route to the Chiredzi instead.

Sunrise Portrait

I spotted some strange movement in the water, which were the spawn of some sort of fish I must still look into. Kim was over on the Hippo side, I took a drive through hoping to catch a glimpse of the dogs, but the signal was bouncing around off the sides of the cliff, as it turned out, they were all the way on the western side of the reserve again.

Schools Out

I ended up identifying trees, I’m trying to bring myself up to scratch on my tree knowledge, but it is so difficult when you’re out on your own each day. I normally take a clipping to my friend Bruce, who I call wikiB, then he raps off a name from memory each time – I’ll keep trying. I have to fill you in on how the hyena cubs are getting on, but I think I will save that for tomorrow.

Tyre Titbit

Sunset Rhino: Video


The sun rose to the sound of ground hornbill calling this morning, they must have been close to Malilangwe Dam, that rich hooting was resonating between the hills. I was on my way to look for rhino movement from Ganyani through to the Bandama area. There was plenty of tracks of black and white rhino, but I failed to track down any of them this morning.

Rhino and Calf, Malilangwe

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However, I did find a white rhino and calf drinking at Banyini yesterday at sunset. Rhinos may not be the predators that most people want to see, they may not hunt or jump around like the dogs, but they are incredible in their own way and they are also inquisitive. A black rhino was caught on one of the camera traps set up on the property at the moment. The traps are intended to photograph leopards by aiming it towards a bait in a tree, even so, this rhino bull was just wondering what was going on and moved in just after a leopard had been on the bait. He tried out his “blue steel” pose once, then again, and once more just to make sure he had it nailed and then moved on. A while back I took footage of a sub-adult playing with a calf, one just has to stick with the animal just like we do with the others and then we will see some amazing behaviour.

Sable Antelope, Malilangwe

This afternoon I headed out with Simon to find the Sable Antelope around the bandama area. Simon is doing the study on the Sable and is getting to know the animals really well. I was hoping to get a little of the mating, where the male will put his front leg inbetween the females back legs, then the female will urinate and he will stick his nose in the stream.

Sable calfs, Malilangwe

Once the romance is out the way, he then goes for his badge. I managed to get bits and pieces of the whole ceremony, so I will definitely be visiting this herd in the near future to finish what was started.

Chiredzi River Track

A Horny Game: Video


Jiggy hasn’t been living up to his name as the big killing machine. For 3 days now he hasn’t eaten, but the rest of the pack have.
The pups killed the other day and Puzzles and Jiggy never got to the kill. But when the pups joined them Puzzles made sure they regurgitated for her. She begged from 4 pups and they all fed her well, but there was none for Jiggy.

Not sharing
The next day the dogs were right in the south and when I got to them I saw one dog on the opposite bank of the Chiredzi river. Not able to drive down there I ran down to the river to see where the other dogs were. No sign. Then I saw an adult male impala running along the far bank of the river. It looked tired. It ran around the bend, so I had to run down the river too. It got to a donga/ravine and tried to jump across but fell short, being so tired, and thumped into the side with its chest. It lay there a while, then got up and ran on before disappearing into a thicket. Then I saw the wild dog pup came tearing along the bank. Got to the donga, sniffed around, then carried on. Got to the thicket, turned round and headed back the other way. Then turned again and back to the thicket. Just then the impala ran out and across the river.

Perfect spot

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It’s very shallow now and mostly sand. The impala was exhausted and had already nearly stopped in the sand when the pup grabbed it. I had to sprint back to the car in the soft river sand. Drove further down and then tried to drive down into the river. The bank was steep. Then I was on 3 wheels. Then teetering on 2 and finally came to a grinding halt on a huge tree stump. I couldn’t go further, so grabbed my camera and ran to the dog and impala. The pup was now full and leaving to call the others. The impala was still standing with its backside having been eaten. I managed to get some footage before it collapsed on the ground. The pup was gone a while so I ran back to the car to try and jack it off the stump. Then I saw the other dogs arriving and had to rush back to the kill. This running in soft river sand is tough going. The dogs were great, even with me running at them they scattered at the last minute but only briefly and were back on the kill. I spent the next couple of hours with them in the river feeding and playing with them all around me. Even Puzzles. Just amazing to have this experience and to be accepted like this. Truly awesome.

Reflective kill
When the dogs eventually left I was left to dig myself out. Jacking the car wasn’t getting me off this massive tree stump. In the end I had to chop through this tree, nearly 2ft in diameter, and only then did the car start moving. Many more jacking attempts and digging and eventually about an hour and a half later I was out!

Can't float
With all this going on Jiggy got to the kill about half an hour late. There were still scraps but he didn’t even bother, as if too proud to eat from their kill.
And today the dogs were just being domestic. Just acting like domestic dogs. Lying around, playing a little and not up to much.

Playground
A herd of wildebeest got the pups attention for about 10mins and then all was quiet again, until sunset when the pups heard a white rhino nearby and decided to hassle the bull. It looked like a lot of fun with this huge tank repeatedly charging them but they were too quick. Unfortunately it didn’t offer me any opportunity to film it.

Blue waters

Hyena Thirst: Video

I am very pleased about the hyena cubs being back at the den, this means the saga can continue. The adults are so relaxed with me at the den now that they are sitting next to the vehicle licking and scratching themselves - not to mention nibbling the tyres every now and then.

Hyena Thirst

Last night I found one of the really big females at Manuchi Pan, she is really huge and she had a massive thirst, drinking for ages. I headed for the den where she arrived not long after I did. The cubs came out the den and I managed to stick around well after dark.

Golden mom

The little guys’ colouration is starting to show nicely now, even looking at their snout, they already look like they must have quite a bite on them.

Poser

At Sosigi this morning I was waiting for the herd of buffalo I saw last night to arrive at the dam to drink, but I got side tracked by the sound of an elephant trumpeting like he was being tormented. They were like death cries, so I quickly headed towards all the commotion, it was a little of a long shot thinking I’d find him, but I could bet it was our friend George giving somebody uphill again. Later today I ended up waiting around in the river bed, Kim crossed over earlier and had seen a herd of elephant coming down to drink, I was hoping to be that lucky. It turned out to be a very peaceful afternoon watching kingfishers dive bombing the flowing water.

malachite kingfisher

Things may not always turn out as we hope, but there’s always a treasure to be found in front of our eyes.

The Impala Problem: Video

Today is Africa Day, an official public holiday in Zimbabwe. This is something we don’t know the meaning of; so instead, we invited Craig the chef over for a potjie, which is a stew done in a cast iron pot on a fire – a true African style celebration… and a science.

Impala at alert

Well, I thought I’d celebrate Africa’s diversity by finally waiting for our most overlooked species, the Impala, to engage in their so called “rut”. I like these animals, when just about every other animal is running for cover and trying to hide from you, the old faithfuls are always game for a good old wildcasting! The female herd doesn’t make it easy for the poor males, they have to literally surprise attack the females to get any action out of them. He wastes a lot of energy just chasing them around all day, and then there’s the other males to deal with who want to rut for the prize – he’s got problems.

Juvenile Bateleur

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Down on Banyini, I’ve noticed three juvenile Bateleurs who don’t mind someone getting close enough to get a good picture. In fact, there have been a lot of birds of prey out and about lately. I took a drive to the northern boundary line yesterday and decided to make my way to a pan that I have never been able to find a road to - Picaninni James Pan. I managed to get there, but I still couldn’t find a road. There was only a family of Helmet Guineafowl there, I have noticed a lot of them running around lately, their chicks have grown a lot so they are almost fully grown. You get that typical picture of a family of guineafowl running single file in front of the vehicle until they finally run out of steam and dive for cover. Picaninni James Pan is a really great looking spot, and it still has a decent amount of water in it; whereas, many of the other pans are drying up.

Helmeted Guineafowl

I had a spectacular sun downer with the hyenas today. First, at Manuchi Pan I had the female drinking, which was great to watch and then all six cubs back at the original den. To the Africa Day crowd, this is how you add social energy to Africa, interacting with a cackle of hyenas during an extraordinary Autumn sunset!

Hyena Thirst