Tag Archive for 'acacia'

Elephants - Sisterly Love: Video

I was surprised to find the lions right on the eastern boundary near Nyamsaan. That was quite an overnight trek for them. Nearly 10kms. And again it seemed they weren’t successful hunting.

Lurking
The Quelea colony north of Bandama is in full swing with chicks having hatched. And the slaughter has begun too as over a hundred Lesser Spotted Eagles have moved in and are trashing nests to get to the chicks. But it’s not that easy for them. The nests are constructed in the thickest of thorn thickets. So the eagles have their time cut out just trying to access them.
Over the next few days we can expect many hundreds more eagles arriving especially once the other colonies start hatching.

Wildebeest run
Mandlovu and most of the elephant were also right in the east.
Chipfongwe is doing well and feeding a lot more and even chewing. So his first teeth have presumably erupted.

Stompie posing
I had one of those frustrating times following him. I saw him battling to pull this plant out. But to get a clear shot, I needed to move. While driving around, his sister came over and just pulled the plant out and proceeded to eat it. Chipfongwe didn’t give up. He went and pulled it from his sister’s mouth. She then plucked another plant at her feet, ate that and went back to Chipfongwe and plucked half the plant from him. He ran off clutching his little prize. And I went off with nothing to show for it except this photograph.

Chipfongwe's prize
There are so many little behaviour things like this that I miss. Usually ‘cos one is moving or there is something obstructing a clear shot. So in the end when I do get one there’s a great sense of achievement. And today I got 2 of those, the one being the video clip of Chipfongwe’s sister just loving him.

Muddy threat
And the other was Chipfongwe again finding one of these same plants and hassling with it for ages trying to pluck it from the ground. He even tried to pull it out going down on his knees and biting. Then he rolled around on it for ages before giving up and going off to his sister for some love.

Sunset 02/07

Elephants combat ozone depletion: Video

The rains held back today but their effects bogged me down.
I got reports of lions on the Binya road at dawn. Not having seen lions for some time I was keen to follow up, especially as I wasn’t sure where the dogs were. I have my own little rule, where I’ll nearly always go for the bird in the hand, as I did this time.

Nyala bull
But there was no bird. I didn’t even find any lion tracks although some impala did come scooting out the mopanie. I followed up taking the chance that the black cotton soils would have dried up somewhat. And they had. Until a little patch found me and down went the vehicle. While digging myself out and putting logs under the tyres, I wasn’t sure if the lions were around. A good friend came visiting though, a Spotted Hyaena. They will always investigate anything new in their area. He, well I think it was a he, stood around watching my antics for some time before moving on, bored.

Tall Camouflage
Having only just got out of there, another report of lions came in, different ones, much further north on the Binya road. Again I was out of luck. All I found up there were numerous vultures on their way catching thermals.

Diurnal moths
Mandlovu and her herd were back out of the ‘jungles’ of Malilangwe in the area of Chimbye but heading south. This area just south of the hills is sandy soils and easily traversable. But I only caught up to them in this mud wallow.
They are all well and Chipfongwe is becoming a real elephant by the day.
All well coated in mud the herd headed south into mopanie country and black cotton soils. I wasn’t about to risk it again and let them be.

Pachyderms on the move
It’s not so much the getting stuck each time that really hassles me, but when the vehicle bogs down like that it leaves deep damaging ruts in the landscape, an eyesore and ecologically damaging.
Right in the very east I found the dogs resting up near a lovely open pan. It was the ideal spot for them play in the water. Well it was ideal from my point of view for filming them in a great location.

Wild dogs were here
The non-ideal bit was they too were on clay soils which were fine to get me in there, but when they moved on south, without having a play session in my ideal pan, I had to abandon them too.

Pincushion perspective
Trusting the weather is clearing I hope to have more access into the clay areas and better luck tomorrow.

Red-banded Rubber frog

Elephant Calf Coordination and Discipline: Video

It’s been 3 days now that the elephants have stayed in this small area on the Chiredzi river.

Thundering to water

Ofcourse this doesn’t make things easier for me. The bush they’re hanging out in is really thick and I barely see our little calf all day. (This photo looks like elephant in some tropical rainforest. Actually it’s extremely dry. The tall trees behind are still without leaf)

In deep

I’ve always wanted to film/photograph the elephants sliding down the steep banks to the river. And today I sort of got it right. The elephant were already moving down towards the river and I didn’t have time to get out my video camera, so I ran down there with my digital camera. I really needed to go right to the bottom of the bank with the elephant coming straight towards me, but alas my nerve didn’t allow it. As it was, standing on the bank they came within about 10m of me. The big cow saw me and stood tall for a while……. then continued down the bank. And I did get a few photos.

Slowly now

It was cloudy although warm for most of the day, but the sunset cleared up sufficiently to produce this amazing spectacle. Each time I thought I’d got the best shot, but turning around to face the sunset, it had again changed and was more beautiful. What a way to end the day!

Sunset geese

Elephants are challenged: Video

I was so excited to see our litte guy again today in in the Chiredzi river.

The whole herd just hung around the river all day not moving very far as they had all they needed right there. Including their own obstacle course.

Sunset 11/08

And a rather frustrating day for me. My CF card in my camera started playing up after I’d taken a pile of pictures of elephant in the river and then great stuff of Quelea drinking with lovely light. Well I lost the whole lot. Gone into thin air.

But luckily I also capture most things on video too. The quelea were amazing in the lovely late afternoon light as they descended on the shallow water at Banyini pan. But they weren’t just drinking. They were also bathing. Shooting this all in slow motion there are feathers and wings everywhere together with water splashing right across the frame. And then imagine this all backlit - it’s totally awesome! I’ll show it to you one day, but today I had to focus on those acrobatic elephants.

Sunset 11/08

Rains of little consequence: Video

Although it drizzled on and off for nearly 18 hours, the highest recorded rainfall on the property was only 13mm (1/2 inch).

Nobody got too excited about that, except the game seemed to disappear as they do in this cool weather. But temperatures are expected to move up again from tomorrow.

Splashing out

I traversed a large area of the reserve today, firstly looking for the elephants. I found this bull at Chekwa. This green tinge around his mouth was probably from feeding on fresh leaves of the Knob-thorn Acacia which he might have pushed over just to get to the leaves. A few mouth fulls and moved on. They can be such wasteful feeders. But hey, I’m not giving this guy any credit. He might have fed on the spoils of another bull.

Latest fashion

There was no sign of our little guy and his herd. They still seem to be west of the Chiredzi river.

And our other film stars, the wild dogs were again seen today in the south. Rush as I did to get there, they had already moved on and disappeared into that never ending bushveld.

Setting sun - Banyini

I did encounter a white rhino cow with a very small baby but she was being very protective of her little one, and not to harrass them too much I left them moving into a thicket.

But this bull was drinking at Chekwa pan and with my approach he dropped his head and then…………………………………… just stood there.

Coming!

Rhino dust dancing: Video

I spent most of the day at Hartebeest pan far down in the south of the reserve.

Spray Paint

As the temperatures danced up into the nineties and over the animals moved down to the pan for some relief.

Marching on

Elephant, zebra, lichtenstein’s hartebeest, sable, rhino, impala and flocks of quelea.

Leaking hose

I took refuge under a Knobthorn, the only tree with fresh foliage in the area, which was great to be out the heat. And the quelea had similar ideas. With so many of them it didn’t take long for my vehicle and myself to look like we’d been covered in confetti. Little white specks of quelea droppings all over the place.

Getting down to it