Monthly Archive for May, 2009

Broken Peace: Video


Oh my doggies are just wonderful!
As the days go on and I spend more and more time with them, they make me realise more and more what amazing animals they are. Nothing mind blowing, but just amazing AND I’m being allowed to spend my days with them.
The wild dog pack have spent the last few days chilling out in the hills and running sorties into the lowlands at dawn. So successful have been their raids in the mornings that they haven’t needed to hunt in the evenings and continue to spend their nights chilled out in the rocks.

Lone 'wolf'
And all this time, (well not at night) they’re allowing me up close and personal. So much so that I’m now seeing some development in Puzzles’ teats. Her nipples are starting to show, which they haven’t done in the past.
Golly this makes me wonder if I haven’t lost it…………… Staring at Puzzles’ teats and getting excited when I see them. Slow down dude…….!!!
If domestic dogs are anything to go by, Puzzles should have her pups in the next 2 to 3 weeks. At least I’m allowed to get excited about that, but not Puzzles’ nipples……. ☺

Puppy play
This area to the south of the hills at Hlamb Mhlonga, is prime impala country and a great place for the dogs to hang out. Actually it would be an ideal place to be denning with such an abundant food source close at hand. But Puzzles’ hasn’t shown any interest in dens in the area.

Bashing heads
I had left the dogs one morning in the hills and was on my way back to my vehicle when I heard the clashing of horns. Impala rutting season and the males were at each other. I ran over there knowing they would be too engrossed in each other to hear or even worry about my approach, and I did get really close. And I’ve seen it on numerous occasions when with a predator how they will home in on the sound of clashing horns. Easy pickings!

Distracted
Jigging continues to be the killing machine he is. For the last few days he’s been killing on his own and then calling the pack. Yesterday I was on his case but lost him and caught up to him milling around moving to and fro. And then he was onto it, an impala lying in the grass. He had obviously been chasing it and exhausted the impala ducked down in the grass hoping Jiggy would go screaming past. Which of course he did. But he was wiser than that and soon realised its trick. And when Jiggy did get to the impala it was way too exhausted to even stand up. Easy pickings.
And the good news is, Nike’s foot is fine. If I didn’t know she’d had an injury I wouldn’t have noticed her very slight limp.

Nike's trophy
I wish my injuries would heal that easily. My Achilles tendon seems to be torn and the muscle attaching to my hip hurts really badly. That seems to have come away from the bone. I’m sure a doctor would tell me the only thing to do is, Rest it! Well that’s not going to happen, I need to run with the dogs. And anyway if these animals can get over their injuries while still doing their daily ‘work’ then why can’t I? I think we get soft and pamper ourselves too much. And also I think if my Achilles and hip can heal with me using them, they’ll be so much stronger. So there you have it from Dr.Wolhuter!

Gigantic sunset
(Actually here IS something interesting: My wonderful mother, has Alzheimer’s and twice now she’s fallen and broken her hip. On both occasions, within a week she’s walking again. The nurse told me this is not unusual with Alzheimer’s patients, because they don’t remember their injury and so don’t have reason to feel sorry for themselves and carry on as if they’re just fine. The nurse said, other patients who have even smaller injuries take so much longer to feel better cos they continuously worry about their pain. Makes sense?)

Dagga Boy Wallow: Video

I was back at the hyena den early this morning before the sun was up; looks like they have taken the cubs to one of the other nearby dens, because the whole place was abandoned. This was not a good start to my day, because I was hoping to get some good cub footage. I doubled back to Sosigi dam to try and find some happenings on that side, but ended up looking for signal on Tanga. He must have moved a long way last night, because I didn’t even get the slightest bit of signal.

Almost Dark

It is not a simple procedure to track a leopard with radio signal; it can get tough, especially when the terrain is thick bush with lots of ravines like ours. Down at Chikwete Cliffs on the Chiredzi River some of the guides witnessed a breeding herd of Elephant crossing over to the Hippo Valley side of the reserve, not long after that three Rhinos also took the plunge. I took a chance to see what my riverside drive by would bring me – one elephant flapping its ears behind a bush waiting for me to get out of there so it could drink.

Big old buffalo

Oh well, luck was not on my side today, nevertheless, I continued on a loop around Nyari and Banyini. There has been an old dagga boy hanging around Banyini for a few days now, he looks really old. Today he was back wallowing in the pan and not concerned about who came past for a good stare. Every now and then he would stand up and urinate for as long as two to three minutes! On the way back to base camp I spotted a few vultures circling an area. It is not that easy to find what they are after, but a took a drive through the riverbed to the other side bank where I thought they were settling down. I didn’t find anything but dry bones.

Crowned Hornbill

I continued on my way and photographed our new family of Crowned Hornbills looking for scraps around the house. This afternoon my wife and I had tea down at the river with some friends, it is good to go out without only looking for footage. Normally that is when you get the good stuff, but this was not the case this time. We ended up driving around into the night; it is a whole new world after dark…different sounds, different images, different animal behaviour. Unfortunately today was not to be my day and I had to be content with just enjoying the surroundings.

Red and Yellow

Toothless Young Hippos: Video


The wild dogs were still in the hills around Malilangwe Dam. I was hoping to catch them along the way as I ambled around the edge of the dam, but the signal bounces off everything in the hills. Instead, I came across a pod of hippos right up at the northern most part of the dam.

Grumpy

This pod was full of youngsters that tried hard to put on some sort of threat display, however, their toothless mouths only proved to announce their doddering bluff.  The heavy clouds were doing somewhat of the same thing today with the weather showing rain for today. A light mist is all it could muster up and then the sun came out and warmed things up.

Sink Hole

First thing in the morning I headed for the hyena den to check up on the little fellows. There was only one adult left at the den to look after the cubs. It took a while for the cubs to suface and with the sun still behind the clouds, they decided it would rather sleep in and that is where they stayed. I then did a loop around Nyamasikana Pan to check up on things in the north, but found myself trapped…caught in a trap…in a camera trap – it felt like I was back in the city!

Scratch!

Okay, maybe I’m over exaggerating a little, these camera traps are meant for the leopard census, but they did take me by surprise. I then left them with a surprise of my own – a few interesting poses! Moving swiftly on, the day turned out to get a little more interesting when I found a Puff Adder basking in the sun.

Little puffy

I also tried to track down Tanga the leopard. I had strong signal and I knew he was close, but the bush skirting the river bed he was in, was just too thick and I had to abort. I will keep trying to get Tanga in some open ground during the week.  Allan is away and someone has to keep working with him otherwise he doesn’t make any progress. He is not moving around a lot, but his leg has healed up nicely and is hunting again.

Wild Mist: Video


I crept my way in through the Mopani woodlands east of Banyini Pan to park amongst the wild dogs. They had missioned all the way from Nduna during the course of yesterday morning and I was so glad they were closer to home that I had to go see them. Kim had already come and gone, so I just enjoyed the mild sporting and lazing around until the sun went down.

Early parade

The lions were calling into the night and I wondered if I would pick them up in the morning. I began the day where I left off last night and headed straight to where the dogs were. The mist was lying heavy over the valley and the sun had made its appearance, beaming its rays through the cloud. I had to stop off and capture the sunrise. The wildebeest were sporting around and I’m not sure if they were chasing a young male out of the herd or if they were just playing games; either way, they can portray some interesting behaviour. Another great thing about these Autumn mornings is the therapeutic  sound of the Magpie Shrike calling amongst their social groups.

Magpies

I didn’t get any signal on the dogs; they must have bolted early this morning. I radioed Kim to get a position, but got no answer. I then heard the lions calling again to the east, where the dogs had been last night. They might have had a run in with the lions and high tailed it out of there. Turns out, they headed for the hills then made their way down into the Malilangwe Dam valley. I didn’t find any of the lions, but they were definitely in the area. I headed down past Chekwa Pan, which has dried up, then across to Hwata Pan to have a cup of coffee.

Bold red hartebeest

Out of the blue Sjambok showed his face, he was looking a little like he’d seen a ghost. I headed over, but he was so jittery that he made his way into some dense shrubbery. He continued south, disrupting a black-backed jackal in the grass and past a heard of lichtenstein’s hartebeest. They are clumsy looking antelope, then I thought they were stupid as well when I saw them trotting straight towards Sjambok - they were trying to chase him off, it was an interesting little incident to watch… and it worked! Sjambok continued on his parade and I let him be to continue with some bird watching.

Green Wood-hoopoe

Personal feast with wild dogs: Video


The dogs have continued for the last few days on their travels east all the way to the boundary and then this morning did the long trek west again.
Although they’ve fed every day, conditions for hunting impala aren’t the best in the east and numbers too aren’t that great.
But when they headed west this morning, Jiggy leading the way, he seemed to know they were in bad impala country and kept up his steady pace west.

Should we?
On arriving at the airstrip the dogs were already tired and collapsed in the first shade they found. But Jiggy kept moving. He didn’t have to move far and soon saw the most pleasing sight to his keen eyes. Piles of impala!
The chase was on, impala scattering everywhere. When I did eventually catch up with them, they’d killed an adult male impala. This was a great feast for all.
Knowing this kill would take them a while to finish I was out the car walking around the kill filming them. They hardly seemed concerned. Amazing that they can accept me like this. It really is exciting times as I feel myself slowly making my way into the pack.
And as I do this I become so much more involved with them that seeing Nike today with her front paw injury, makes me just want to help. I know I can’t and I won’t but she is suffering a bit. She hurt her foot yesterday on the hunt and will put pressure on it when walking but not when running. So it can’t be that bad. But she also didn’t feed much on the kill today. I wonder if she finds it a bit hard to compete with the others with her sore foot?
The dogs have been up to a few other tricks the last few days.
They targeted a herd of buffalo but were soon sent packing. Of course it was always the pups playing the game. The adults were beyond wasting their energy on these ‘no brainer’ situations.

Buffalo challenge
Having killed an impala yesterday morning the dogs moved off to rest up in some shade when one of them found the dried out remains of a Grysbok. It was just skin and bone. But that didn’t stop the pups fighting over it and actually eating the whole carcass of dry skin and bone. So much for the literature that says wild dogs don’t scavenge and will only feed on freshly killed carcasses. And this was just after they’d already killed too.

Scavenging
Today we also had to replace the collar on Tanga the leopard as his had become faulty. All went really well and he was soon on his way again.

Tanga paw

Hyena Mischief: Video


It was another misty morning after a few hot days creeping up to thirty degrees - damn I sound like the weather man. Anyway, this has brought the chill back to the point of me breaking out my balaclava.

Misty Mornings

I spent a little time at Nyari Pan, basically because I didn’t feel like driving miles and because I‘ve seen some action there of late. Even though there wasn’t a lot going on this morning I had a good time out listening to sounds and birding.

Kurrichane Thrush

I spent some time at a new project about to be launched on the reserve, it is a buffalo breeding program aimed at breeding various wildlife TB free. It will be exciting to see it adding to the various wildlife populations over the years. I took the winding road home past the hyena den, down past Manuchi Pan and into the Sosigi area. On the way there was a leopard sitting on top of an ant hill as if he was king of the jungle, which he is just about, definitely more so than the lion in our opinion anyway. It is great to stumble upon leopard like that, without the help of tracking deviices.

Leopard Quick Exit

Another interesting thing happening is the nine camera traps up around the reserve at the moment, which is intended to get a count of the number of leopard in the area. Since Saturday we have had three hits on the baits that have been placed in various positions. After I passed Sosigi Dam I was ready to head home and I spotted two honey badgers moving through a ravine. Those guys are resilient creatures, always a great to watch, even if it is only for a moment. Old George the elephant was back on one of the main roads today, I hope he behaves himself, but I think he will test a few more peoples nerves.

Which way is up?