We took advantage of Tjololo doing nothing, and sleeping at his kill, to shoot some more material of me working in different situations and different areas.
When we did eventually get back to Tjololo around 23h00 his situation hadn’t changed.
Shortly after our arrival he suddenly took off. 3 lions arrived at his tree with the carcass. It wasn’t long and all 3 were in the tree falling over each other to get to the carcass and then trying to fight over the carcass at the same time as trying to stay in the tree. A truly comical situation. Eventually they all tumbled out the tree and scattered with their separate bits.
Tjololo didn’t hang around and headed west all the way to the Sand river where he chose an inaccessible route for us.
The female warthog that visits our camp arrived yesterday without her youngster and has returned again today without. It seems that the unfortunate lighty was on somebody’s menu.
Tjololo had already moved a considerable distance when we found him. Instead of heading south along the river as we expected he was on the move back southeast. An adult male impala was soon in his clutches but he was surprised by the thugs. The impala still alive took off as Tjololo ran for cover and the hyaenas chased after it eventually catching it. There was nothing left for Tjololo and he eventually moved on.
Again he was stalking some male impala, but after a long wait in stalk mode they scented him and took off.
He was now moving back northeast into the area he was in last night. Why?
Here just before dawn he killed a duiker which he treed.
Rain 7mm
No he wasn’t going to be shortchanged and was back at his carcass after dark.
We left Tjololo to work more on interviews and general driving around when the rain drove us back to camp before midnight.
Out early Tjololo had finished off his kill and was slowly on the move in fits and starts. We left him panting in the cool morning air as he generated more and more heat metabolizing away his stomach.
With Tjololo still stoking himself on his kill and 3 hyaenas lying around the Lords table hoping for scraps, the film crew took advantage to do a number of interviews and other basics with me.
At the hyaena den after dark the 2 cubs were out milling around. Only around midnight did their mother arrive and suckle them before moving on again. We left too.
Back with Tjololo, he was feeding and then left to the north west. There was still some 30% of the carcass left but it seems he is leaving strung up in the tree where the hyaenas can only drool over it.
He moved on down into the Sand river and we just made it back to camp as a steady rain set in.
Rain 11mm
Tjololo sure made me realize I didn’t know everything about him. His move all the way east could not have been back to a kill as I had thought, but just him doing an extended boundary patrol. At sunset we found him heading south on the Kruger boundary.
Not being able to follow him there we went on the prowl. The hyaena den proved to be inactive at the time but we did find several lions being lazy. This was an ideal opportunity for the film crew to film me telling my grandfathers story with the lions in the background.
Once they’d finished their act and me mine we found Tjololo back on Mala Mala on his way west on his southern boundary. Luckily he decided to stay out the river so we could follow him. Besides some hyaenas treeing him for a short while he’d been on the move all night. Really tiring stuff for us, so imagine even more so for him doing all the walking.
Pre-dawn he killed a subadult male impala and treed it. We tried doing some filming but were constantly swamped by swarm upon swarm of some small type of flying ant. They were so many the white paint on the floor of my vehicle turned to black. Attracted to the lights, they turned it into what looked like an inferno bellowing smoke as the insects were roasted by the heat of the lights. The insects got in everywhere and while trying to film I was continuously swatting myself all over and trying to get them out my clothing. We eventually gave up and killed the lights and moved away from our vehicles to get away from them.
Dawn didn’t come quick enough, as only then did they disappear. This had to be the worst I’d ever seen them.
A very long night on the move and not much more than handfuls of roasted insects to show for it.
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