Monthly Archive for May, 2009

Sweet Water Elephant: Video

Last night I was trapped in an authentic African sonic phenomenon, a hyena’s whoop echoed across Lojaan dam, through the hillside and repeated itself three or four times each time. The sound of hyena at night is a reminder you’re in the wild, not to mention the overriding lion’s roar. I had to force myself to move onwards and upwards, but I could easily have spent the entire evening there.

Thirsty Elephant

Hlamba Mlonga Dam is often used by elephant to drink from, so I thought it would be a good idea to stop off on a regular basis. Last night was an imediate hit with two elephant pulling in to taste of its sweet waters. Another familiar face I bumped into is Manyari, she was lazing around on Banyini Pan with one of the males and to my horror had taken out that newly born zebra foal. That’s how things work in the circle of life. I followed them up into the mopane woodlands hoping they would spring into action - I should’ve known better, they just ambled around hoping to walk into some unsuspecting animal.

Manyari Appears

I took the back route past Sosigi Dam today spotting a herd of eland dashing across the road and three giraffe at the dam. The sun was falling behind Sosigi hill already and I was on my way to the hyena den to check up on the youngsters.

More Hyena Cubs

The light was failing when I got there, so I tested their reaction to my lighting; needless to say, they weren’t perturbed by the brightness at all. The most amazing thing is that they must have similar genes to actual “Gremlins”, you know like that old movie - these things are multiplying! Now there are six of the little guys all in the same den and the adults are extremely tolerant of them all.

Sosigi Hill

It was only after dark that I had some success today, I ran into three rhinos at Banyini Pan so I hung around there for a while until I decided to call it a day.

Scraps for backs: Video


The dogs had a double whammy today. They’re killing machines at the moment, killing every day and sometimes twice a day.

Ear silhouette
Today they killed a female impala and 8 of the dogs fed themselves to busting. In the meantime the other 2 pups had killed but they had company, a couple of hyaenas.

Skin attack
Only when the others had finished their kill did they realise the 2 needed help and scooted off there.
But the dogs were all well fed and not too concerned with the hyaenas picking up the scraps. That’s all that was left, the skin and bones. With each scrap the hyaenas took, the dogs took advantage of their mouth’s being full and ran in to nip the hyaenas on the backside. The funny thing of course being, the hyaenas squealing in anticipation of each nip!

Proud
Over the last few days the dogs have been covering a lot of territory, from right in the very west, to the very northern boundary and now nearly on the very eastern boundary. I wonder if this is Puzzles in her pregnant state being restless, and why would she want to travel so far?
On the hunts she now lags back all the time, her big tummy weighing her down.

Sunset
Well actually I wonder at times if her tummy is bigger than the others. They’ve been so successful hunting recently that they all have big rounded tummies. But I think hers is the biggest. There’s till no sign of any teat development though, and also no sign of her digging at any other dens.

Playtime
I’ve been making good progress with my walking ventures with the dogs. And a couple of days ago when hyaenas stole their kill and were feeding I got out the car and walked towards them. The dogs were standing around them chattering and not concerned with my approach, but when the hyaenas saw me, they panicked, dropped everything and ran. I think I scored some points with the dogs.

Expecting

Egyptian Dance: Video

Sometimes I wake up in the morning not knowing where I’m actually going to go. I have to ask myself, “should I head all the way past Nduna to the east of the reserve in the freezing icy cold wind for the chance of rhino spot?” This morning was one of those mornings, I opted out and headed for Sosigi Dam. There was a chance of me passing Kim along the way, because the dogs are once again back on this side of the property near the Khayeni area! I will leave it to Kim to fill you in on his happenings tomorrow.

Six Chicks

It was at Sosigi that I spent a little time watching a family of Egyptian Geese with their hatchlings. The bird life has done its turn around again, with the Woodland Kingfishers moving on to warmer parts of the planet, and the same with the Red-billed Quelea moving further north. With the turning of the season, there are so many different sounds we hear every day and trees turning different colours.

Autumn Sunrise

A familiar sound though was the roar of the lions, they sounded quite far south. I drove past Nyari and missed Alan collaring a new leopard, talking to him about it he said, “it is a big male and is fierce.” This is nothing like Tanga, who was relaxed form the start.

Camouflage

I reached Banyini area hoping to find our lions spread out in the golden grass. I seemed to miss them, but a guide vehicle spotted them so I will be sure to head back there this afternoon and try pick them up. It feels like a long time since we spent some time with those lazy guys (I really do like them). I counted over sixty zebra in the area, with plenty of wildebeest and giraffe making use of the open expanse of grassland – they obviously didn’t know that there were lions in the vicinity.

Pied Kingfisher

Buffalo Waders: Video


Winding my way up through the hills, I heard the screeching cry of an elephant. I wondered if it was our friend George giving someone a rev early in the morning. I pulled up to Nyari Pan thinking I could be lucky enough to have the adrenaline pumping again; instead, I watched the sun rise until it reflected off the pan - hardly a compromise I would say.

Ear injury

I then heard Alan coming along from a distance, turns out he was the one who bumped into the elephant – I think he was due for a change of underwear.
I took the route down to Chikwete Cliffs on the Chiredzi River and didn’t expect to see a whole lot going on, but normally I pick up on a little white rhino action. I ended up having tea overlooking the river; subconsciously I think this was my plan.

Autumn forest

I heard a report of a zebra with a young foal not more than a few hours old; I headed for Banyini, but didn’t find it there. Later in the day I positioned myself at Mapanzani Weir in the east of the reserve. I had chosen a terrible spot, because when a large herd of giraffe came along my line of sight was obscured, then I heard a rustling in the bush behind me and huge herd of buffalo were moving around the weir.

Mapanzani Herd

They came out on the other side and I had two large bushes in front of me! I had to get these guys wading in the water so I ended up leopard crawling to a spot to get some footage. Buffalo can be pretty stupid at times, but they are always alert. I managed not to disturb them and I enjoyed my afternoon at the weir. I headed for home past some rock paintings near a cave where a rhino was reported to be sleeping.

Rock Painting

Suckling Hyena Cub: Video


I’m having trouble knowing where to begin today, there has been a lot on the go since yesterday. While Kim is joined at the hip with those wild dogs, I’ve got a little freedom to move around and catch up with other areas on the reserve. From the sable antelope in the east, to tracking down those black rhinos, which are still eluding me. I drove past Banyini Pan area and landed up amongst a herd of twenty four giraffe yesterday. There are also herds of zebra coming out of the woodwork, they are spread out amongst every grass plain I come across.

Circling Elephant

Last night at Nyari Pan I witnessed the most amazing sequence of events I’ve seen so far. Our old elephant bull, named George, was up to his old circus tricks again. He gave me a lesson on how to toss a two ton rhino without breaking a sweat! An adult rhino and a sub-adult were drinking at Nyari, minding their own business. I was quite enjoying their roaming around the pan with this huge elephant bull in the foreground. The elephant proceeded to circle the entire pan then pretended to scratch up against a tree near the rhinos. The rhinos were looking a little on edge when suddenly the elephant turned on the taps and broke into a full charge. I won’t lie, he tossed the poor rhino like he was a monkey jumping from a tree. The rhino squeeled like a baby, then turned and charged full taps into the trunk of the elephant. Old George has had a few more confrontations than this rhino, so he knew how to bush fight and ended up tossing the rhino a second time with his tusk. It was an intense few seconds, but the rhinos tucked tail and bolted. I was left in the direct line of an angry elephant, I started up, banged on the door, backed up a little and he was fine. He just walked off calmly and I followed him into the hills.

My what a big nose

I’ve also had a chance to spend some quality time at the hyena den. The cubs are doing well, all four of them are at the den again and are as playful as those wild dogs of late.

How to crush a horn

I watched an interesting cerimony of the matriarch pulling rank. She was giving one the of the cubs a hard time and just wouldn’t allow it to suckle its mother.

All 4 Cubs

The cubs have been out of control, they are all over the show and there’s permanently an adult trying to round them up. It’s great fun hanging around the den, I just hope I don’t start to woop.

Steam Train

Deceptive Dawn: Video


It’s me back on my bi-weekly Wildcast ‘special’. Well at least I can call it a special, just cos I can!
The wild dogs are all doing so well and have killed daily. Kudu on Monday, impala on Tuesday and Wednesday.

Misty dawn
AND the good news is Puzzles really does now look pregnant. It’s so hard to tell when the dogs are killing regularly like this and all their tummies are swollen but Puzzles does seem somewhat bigger than all of them.

Mahande crossing
And today the pups were all over her. One of them would go up to Puzzles resting, and nuzzle its muzzle in her groin and soon all the pups would be doing it. And Puzzles accepted all this harassment. They kept doing this through the morning. Do they know mom’s tummy is growing and something’s about to happen?

Always playing
I was resting with them in some thick mopanie when a pup took off after something and the next thing I realised a big warthog boar was beaming down on me with dogs on his heels. Thankfully he swerved at the last second and was left to go on his merry way when the pups realised he was too much to handle.

Totally out

But on Monday early, the dogs had been hunting and in the cold morning rested all huddled up together in a small sunny patch in the mopanie. Suddenly a pup took off past me and the rest followed. 2 young kudu calves had come trotting their way and seemed to be playing, until they saw the dogs. They froze not knowing what was going on. The pups too froze about 5m from them, not knowing what to do. Usually their prey runs away from them, but these guys weren’t and now they were puzzled. But the kudu soon gave in and took off and the one youngster wasn’t lucky. 5 minutes later there was hardly anything left to talk about and the dogs had moved on.

Kudu kill

And now today the dogs have again crossed the Chiredzi River. They seem little concerned with the water these days and cross easily. I too am a lot more acceptable of them being on the other side of the river, but I do worry if they move too far to the west.

Walking back to the car after following the dogs I came across these 3 elephant bulls in the river. Luckily they had already past there when I arrived.

Them bulls
Some more interesting news, 4 wild dogs were seen in the north yesterday. This is in the heart of my dog’s territory. Where did they come from? What will happen when the 2 packs meet? Are they too not possibly denning in the area? Is Whisky one of them?
I wonder so much about them, but I’m sure in time we’ll meet.