Tag Archive for 'warthog'

Snorkeling Hyenas: Video

Published
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Wildcaster
on October 17, 2009
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I was out early in the morning and I hadn’t gone a kilometer down the road when I met up with a male hyena carrying a limb back to the clan. He turned to judge the threat and realized the familiar purr of Dozer’s 2.4L finely tuned motor almost immediately.

Zebra Snack

Readjusting his grip on what looked to be a Zebra front leg, he continued his trot along the road back in the direction of the den. After three kilometers or so he took a short cut through some thickets and I went around to meet him at Manuchi Pan. He was already there when I pulled up and the one older cub was at the pan gnawing on the limb. It wasn’t long before the gathering of the clan and the party once again got out of control.

Shadow Warrior

The males love hanging around with the cubs, they run up and down chasing each other and wrestle around in the pan, this is very funny to watch.

Father Cub Relations

I have been checking up on the dogs while Kim is away finalizing things on the Wild Dog movie. All the dogs are all doing well, they seem to be hunting early and catching quickly, because they are back at the den by 9:30/ 10 am. They’ve been heading straight into the hill where the den is after a short greeting ceremony and stay there until after 5pm every day so far. The pups are growing up fast, it’s been great spending time with them again.

Greetings

I took a visit to the Hwata Pan which has dried up, and also to Chimize Pan, which is full at the moment. The white rhino have been drinking there and this is exactly what I’d hoped for. There were five rhinos nearby the pan, with a large male trying to chase the younger calves away from the female so he could get down to business. Things don’t always go as planned and for now he had to come up with a better plan to maneuver his way in there.

Hazy Hyena Morning

It feels good to be back in a routine after the whole buffalo capture saga, it really pays off, putting in the hours with the animal you’re working on, I’m getting some amazing footage at the pan lately. Yesterday I watched the hyenas take over the pan once again and refuse entry to all other animals waiting in the shadows. Eventually three warthogs were brave enough to challenge the hyenas and eventually came out tops. The hyenas end up giving each other a fright and when one panics they all high-tail it out of there. Another one for the hooves.

Brave Warthog

Deceptive Dawn: Video

Published
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Wildcaster
on May 14, 2009
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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.

Buffalo: Video

Published
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Wildcaster
on December 24, 2006
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It was almost a bad hair day!

Head shake!
I was filming the buffalo this afternoon and just about to put the camera away when I noticed one of the switches on the wrong setting. This meant all that footage would have been useless, so I thought. I wasn’t too concerned as the footage wasn’t anything unique, but back at base I found it all to be just fine.

Waiting
This morning Mandlovu and her herd were near Lisililije spring. We followed them into the hills as far as we could. And a ways up there found another spring that they were using and this time the cows were dominating the fresh water from the spring keeping the youngsters away.

Lining up
With them moving out of range deeper into the hills, I took the girls to go check out some other springs. Chikwelane is flowing pretty strongly. There weren’t any elephant there at the time but they are using this spring too.

Girls at Chikwelane
I was told about another pan to the south of the reserve that was a good spot for black rhino. It was a pan I didn’t know about. Anyway I spent the afternoon there with most of the time just waiting. Eventually a lone warthog boar came for his afternoon session followed by the herd of buffalo.

Raging retreat
And by dusk I was still out of luck with black rhino, so called it a day.

Team fun

Wild Dog bitches confront: Video

Published
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Wildcaster
on December 10, 2006
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Chipfongwe’s foot is really looking bad!

IMG_3186
The elephants are still in the Chimbiya area and they had me running up and down the rocky outcrops to get ahead of them to take photos.
At one stage Mandlovu became aware of me. Aware of something. She was nervous so I spoke, just gently. And once she realised who/what it was she calmed down.

IMG_3192
It’s so great dealing with such intelligent animals. Much like when I worked with the hyaenas, which were so clever too.
But poor little Chipfongwe. He’s still limping, no worse though. His left foot is really swollen, as you can see. I’d be surprised if a thorn could cause such a swelling but then I don’t know what it could be.

IMG_3151
The dogs are really lean again. And they’ve only got themselves to blame. Their enthusiasm to hunt the last couple of days has been close to zero. This morning they got lucky with a baby impala only. And this afternoon they caught 2 very small baby warthog, the first I’ve seen this season. Those 3 kills were enough food to satisfy only one adult.

IMG_3144
Having moved a quite a long way west this morning, they returned to the east along the fence line at dusk. They sure know what works for them.

IMG_3178

Elephants Struggle to Survive: Video

Published
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Wildcaster
on October 26, 2006
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[Click here if you cannot view the video, above]

Although it was not quite stepping out of London into Africa, it sure is hot! (England was great for that short while and I had a very successful trip to the Wildscreen Wildlife Film Festival, with a lot of interest in Wildcast. But it’s sure great to be back)
With temperatures around 100 degrees F in the shade, it was just great to be back smelling the dust, the heat, the sweat and all the animals there to great me.

Being away for 2 weeks I was expecting so see some big changes in the bush at this time of year. Trees in full green flush and animals happily taking advantage of them. But none of that. No rains have fallen yet and with temperatures soaring daily the way they are, nothing is going to chance sending their innocent lush green leaves into the torturous world of heat and instant attack by many hungry animals. One of the few mopanie trees with it’s stunning flush of shiny green leaves was the first victim. Being the only green in sight the tree was felled by an elephant bull to statisfy his desires.

Although Africa is harsh, the animals have adapted over the millenia. The zebra were their usual fat selves. It’s extremely rare to see a thin zebra.

Patterns

The giraffe hugged the river banks where some trees were sprouting green.

Giraffe herd

The warthog are taking strain. They are always some of the first victims in a drought. Although this lad is looking rather lean he’s still got lots of life in him and will be sure to survive into the rainy season. Well unless he’s that unlucky that a predator makes dinner of him.

Warthog dude

The impala are great survivors. Being grazers and browsers they are extremely hardy and often survive bad droughts.

Thirst Quencher

The little Sharpes Grysbok too is a great survivor and doesn’t need that much food. Browsing in the lower canopy these little guys do well, except when they have to compete with big impala herds. So they tend to keep to the thicker bush and in the hills.
Sharpes Grysbok

The buffalo though are looking rather lean. Being bulk grazers and with grass cover right down, they are taking strain. But they adapt too and with any green flush they are known to resort to browsing for a while until the rains come.

Buffalo undercover

Apparently the forecast for this year is not that bad. The rains will start a bit later than usual but they expect we’ll have a slightly lower than average year. Whatever the case, these animals are used to dry years and well adapted to it. It’s just extra hard on the old.

So Africa goes on.

Action at Bandama: Video

Published
by
GameWarden
on October 12, 2006
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You can usually count on Bandama waterhole (:map:) as a hotbed of game activity.


[Click here if you cannot view the video, above]

Most animals usually stay downwind of the pan (on the Southern side) to avoid the unwanted attentions of the predators that may be lying in wait. The problem of course is that the Southern side is where the mus is thickest. Check out the clip to see how the warthgs, eland, zebra, etc deal with this muddy mess.

Another world
Chiloveka dam