African wildlife adventures live from the bush
Just to the right of our previous group of paintings we find this herd of Giraffe.
There are no human figures in this group. Quite striking is the fact that two Girrafe are facing to the left and two, drawn in more or less the same fashion, facing to the right.
What does this all mean? Was it a dream that the artist was trying to communicate to fellow artists and have their feedback and hopefully on his return find out what it all meant?
Malilangwe Drugs Course is on.
For the next week some 70 wildlife veterinarians and students from across Africa are at Malilangwe learning the latest in wildlife capture techniques and the use of medicinal drugs.
Today the practical was to dart this elephant bull. All went according to plan and he was soon on his way again, probably only nursing a slight hangover.
Earlier in the day I was happy to find Snorkel again. He still has a breathing problem but it’s a lot better than last week. Although he’s now only breathing through his trunk, not through his mouth any more, you can still hear he battles with each breath. Unfortunately I wasn’t able to stay with him as he moved into the wet clay soils. We were hoping to use him for the drugs course and at the same time try and alleviate his breathing problem.
The collared lioness was on her own today with no sign of the rest of the pride. No doubt they’ll join up again tonight.
Tomorrow for the drugs course we plan to change this large cumbersome collar for an implanted transmitter.
Earlier while walking in the hills try to locate the lioness I came across this young Spotted Eagle, probably only just out the nest. It sat around for me, just long enough for a couple of photos, but when I got too close it took off.
Chipfongwe’s got competition! This new little female elephant calf can only be a week or so old. How cute is that? Mom was drinking at Chekwa pan, but little miss wasn’t sure what to make of me and wanted out. But mom was relaxed. When mom did leave, the little girl took off ahead of mom.
I managed to find some old truck springs at camp and was able to make up another complete spring for my vehicle. So it was me back on the road soon after midday.
I received a report from the game scouts that a huge flock of Abdims Storks had spent most of yesterday on the Runde river at a waterhole. We had a similar concentration of them in Etosha National Park many years ago. I remember the birds would arrive at the pan around mid-morning and spend the rest of the day there. And they kept coming back to the same pan for about a week.
So I took my chances and headed right down to the deep south. But my luck was out. There was no sign of any birds. But I did find this bunch of hippos. They were really chilled, so I ended up spending the afternoon with them hoping they would either, fight (to the death of course), give birth or mate.
Of course none of these happened.
So I spent my afternoon lying on the river bank in the soft sand waiting for all this action.
It was so peaceful and relaxing. When the hippo grunted it sounded like a bunch of old men sitting at the bar, beer in hand, grunting at each others jokes.
Kim and his photos have been featured on Flickr’s Animal Kingdom group in an interview with Noah Bulgaria, the curator of the group. Some interesting questions and a nice selection of images from the photostream.
An extract from the interview:
What was the most extreme thing you did to get a photograph or film clip?
I have been out of the car with all the Big 5* to get low angle shots in various different situations. But I suppose the most extreme thing was flying an ultralight aircraft with a camera strapped to the wing, through Bogenfels. This is a rock arch that extends out over the sea on the desert coast of Namibia. I only had about 2 m clearance on each side and a rocky ocean below. Won’t being doing that one again. Will use a radio controlled plane next time.
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