Monday, September 16, 2013

It's All About the Kill - Part 2



Our theme of "the kill" continued into our evening drive. Word in the bush was there was a female leopard who had recently made a kill and was sitting in a tree along with the spoils of her victory. Off we went.... We were the first to arrive so had no one to point her out to us and we had to seek and find. Our brilliant back-up guide and tracker, Jeffrey, brought us to within 50-70 yards of the very tree in which she lay, unbeknownst to us. We looked, looked and looked ....in trees, on the ground, everywhere. Just when we were considering giving up, we spotted her. In the large tree at the edge of the ridge that led down to the riverbed. There she was...on the first large branch of the tree that extended out over the ridge. She was facing the tree trunk, belly on the limb, all 4 legs hanging down around the branch, with her head laying on the branch facing away from us. She was apparently quite exhausted from the energy expended during the kill. She wasn't moving. Where was the kill? Did she already eat it? Then, far back at the edge of the same branch on which she lay, almost in a nest of smaller branches, lay the kill. A steenbok. The smallest in the antelope family here. She had hardly if at all eaten any of it. It just lay there waiting for her when she was ready. We drove around to the other side of the tree where we could see her face. We could also see the front of the steenbok as well. She never moved. Apparently that kill took a lot out of her. Her meal would wait.
We went off then to see the same family of rhinos that we had seen the previous day. The 3 youth of varying ages, mother and father. Father was always away from the others. Apparently the mother-father relationship is somewhat tenuous and the family gets a little fussy if he gets too close. The youngest rhino was laying next to mother. The middle child came up and wanted to get in between, but neither mother nor youngest child were willing to move to let in the middle child. So, the middle child started to whine as he was trying to nose his way in between them. There was only enough space for his head. His body was way too big to fit into the small space left between the youngest and mother. His whines got louder and more upset about his being blocked out. Of course he could have gone and laid on the other side of mother, but that apparently was not good enough for him. He had to be in between mother and the youngest. How funny it is to see similar human familial relationships play out in the wild kingdom as well. Finally, after about 5 minutes of whining and trying to nose his way into this small space in between them, he nudged harder, and the little one gave in. The baby moved away and the middle child, very satisfied with himself and finally quiet, lay down next to mother.
 



Our last sighting for the evening was back with the 4 lions we had seen earlier in the morning chasing buffalo. The sun had set now, so it was dark and the poor lions were having bright lights shone on them in order for us to see them. They were all intertwined with one another like a litter of kittens all curled up together. They could not have been more adorable or more reminiscent of a house pet. Seeing these gorgeous creatures looking so contrary to their hunting and killer role in the wild always makes it difficult to see them as dangerous.. Just as it was with the 3 male lions earlier in the week where the thinner one was being looked after by the middle male lion. We know that they are dangerous killers, but we can also see the nurturing and loving side of them for their own kind, and it just makes them even more beautiful.


 To see more of my pictures while on safari at Tanda Tula see here: African Safari - Best Shots 1 and here: African Safari Best Shots - 2

Tuesday, September 3, 2013

Everything BUT the Cats




Our drive this morning could be called "Everything but the Cats."  It was my first of 4 drives thus far in which there were no cats to view, despite hearing the lions early in the morning about an hour prior to our 5:30am wake up visit from our friendly Guide, Formen, to serve us tea & coffee. We saw most of the other animals I have been wanting to see and photograph. While I have seen and photographed the very old female elephant around camp here yesterday, I wanted to see a herd. My wish was granted this morning. The herd tried to give us the slip by changing direction, but Formen seems to have a sixth sense about anticipating where to go and how to get always on the other side of them to give us the best view - seemingly outsmarting both the animals and the other trackers in the other Rovers. I am thankful that I am "stuck with" Formen, as he put it, for the duration of my stay here.

Several of the different animal herds have either a young child or have a VERY pregnant female with them. A herd of zebras in particular had 2 pregnant females; one of which looked like she would give birth any day now. How exciting it would be to witness that....





A herd of elephants we came across had a young elephant about a year old or less. Given that the gestation of an elephant is nearly 2 years (a fact I learned today), you don't always have a newborn elephant every year, even with multiple females in the herd.So, this was a treat to see this youngster.






While driving around, on the hunt for our next lion sighting, half of our group left with our tracker, Jeffrey, on a walk about looking for the lions that everyone thought couldn't be that far from camp given their roars just before arising.  Those of us who stayed in the Rover saw a group of 3 young male giraffes. They are such majestically gentle creatures that seem so different from the other animals. While our walk about group missed the elephants, we picked them up near the giraffes, so they too were able to see these gentle giants.

Then it was off the rhinos - another of my desired sightings that had alluded me until today. We saw a mature female, a very young one and another older youth. They were quite skittish and tried to keep a good distance from us, regularly turning their backs on us and moving away. A picture of a rhino's behind wasn't exactly what I had in mind . . . As Formen attempted his usual play of anticipating their moves to get on the other side of where they would head, this small group of 3 was having none of it. They kept moving, heading away from us at a steady pace. Just when we thought we were going to be continuously rebuffed by the group of 3, we spotted the bull on the right in the river bed. Although he was probably 200-300 yards away, he posed beautifully for us. A beautiful, thick and strong specimen with beautiful horns. He would face us, walk a couple of steps towards us, stop, turn sideways and stay there for another minute or two. Then, he would turn to face us again, walking a couple of steps in our direction, stop and turn sideways again to look up the hill in front of us. He would stay in that position for another couple of minutes. Fabulous views of him.

If only he had been closer, they would be even better pictures. We'll see - nearly a dozen more drives to experience.



 Along the way also were owls, beautifully colored birds, kudu, impala and nyala  - which look almost just like impalas, but they are striped instead of spotted, and have much larger ears and are without the large horns of mature male impalas.


All things considered, it was a very successful 3.5 hours, despite no large cat sighting. My next wish is to see a herd of buffalo and ideally a cheetah. The cheetah will be a miraculously rare sighting if made, so I'm told, but the buffalo should be very doable over the next few days.

To find out more about my safari lodge, see here: Tanda Tula






To see more of my safari photos, see here: My African Safari Photos - Best Of 1 and here: My African Safari Photos - Best Of 2

Monday, September 2, 2013

It's All About the Kill - Part 1




It was an unusually quiet night overnight and I awoke to a calm, still morning that was pleasingly mild in temperature.  The sun never really broke through the clouds, though, so it stayed rather chilly throughout the day. Instead of stripping off the layers one by one starting around 7:30am and down to our base layer by 9am, we kept our full packages on throughout the morning ride.

This morning's drive was another viewing of all of the "Big 5", but it could be characterized more by the importance and role of "the kill" to the kingdom here. We started off by revisiting the hyena's sickly buffalo kill that occurred overnight on my first night that we observed that first morning. We had returned to it the previous evening and found it to be a mostly hollow shell but still had much of the skin, the legs still remained, and the skull and head were still mostly intact and completely recognizable as a buffalo. This morning, however, there was nothing left but about 1/2 of the rib cage and a "barely-there" skeletal remnant of the neck and head. The horns were the only thing that revealed this animal to have been a buffalo. In only 12 hours this carcass had been ravaged beyond all recognition - which was only 24 hours from the kill.  As our Guide, Formen, described, most of the carnivores of the wild kingdom had played a role in this 24-hour cleaning. The various 5 types of vultures had picked the bones clean of all sinew and meat remnants on and in between the ribs and all other places with a few other small animals having maybe had a piece of the meal. The hyenas had taken care of the rest - meat, skin and bones alike.

 Just on cue to illustrate Formen's point, a hyena showed up to start chowing down on some ribs.



She then moved to the pelvis that had been left laying on the ground disfigured from its natural position when it was held in place by the muscles and ligaments. Another hyena soon joined her. They fought over the pelvis, and the newcomer won.  The original on-site female relinquished herself to some ribs again. It was amazing to see an animal picked so cleanly in such a short period of time.

Then, it was off to a sighting of a leopard which was reported to be a difficult viewing. They were right...but they didn't have Formen!  She was in the very thick brush laying down with a carcass of her last kill. The other Rover full of people decided it was not worth the time and moved on. Formen, on the other hand, said "Let's just wait here for a short while . . .she will come out."  Always trust Foremen. Sure enough. After about 5 minutes of hearing her crunching on bones herself, she emerged. She lay out next to the brush to clean herself just like any cat. Her beauty was spectacular. We were a mere 10 feet from her. We watched her delicately and assiduously clean

herself, licking her paws and wiping her face over and over again, using one paw than the other.

Not long after that we found ourselves in the middle of the buffalo herd again. An immense sea of black bodies and grey-white horns. The buffalo are not particularly trusting animals - not like the cats we've seen - and are quite edgy about our presence. They raise their heads up from their grazing, stare you right in the eye, watch you intensely for 30-60 seconds, then move further away from you - often times in an abrupt head raise and uneasy trot in the other direction. Given that these are such large animals with rather intimidating heads of horns, I'm always hoping their abrupt and uneasy movements are always away from us.





As the herd moved towards the back past and right of us, our eagle-eyed guide, Formen, called us to notice the lions who had just appeared to our left on the top of the ridge. We could just see her head through the tall grass. We all gasped. Then another lion head appeared to her left, then another to her right - each about 20 yards from her on each side of her.  They all started walking towards us. Clearly they were stalking the herd of buffalo. We all delighted in what we believed was going to be a chase and meal attempt in our presence. Then a fourth lion head appeared on the ridge. Four!! We had 4 lions stalking the herd. Oh this is going to be great!!! The herd already seemed to have mostly passed by us though...we hoped this scene would still play out in our sights. 











The 4 lions eased their way towards us over the next few minutes and stopped on the edge of the dirt path on which our vehicle was standing. The lioness was just 10-15 yards from us. She started crossing the dirt path, but walking diagonally across the path towards our Rover. She passed the back of our Rover within 6 feet. More amazing photos secured. The 3 front lions continued passed us onto the right side of the field and started picking up their pace. There was the 1 female and 2 of the 3 males with her. But where were the buffalo? They were already nearly outside of our viewing range at that point. Then we saw 2 large bulls bringing up the very rear. I don't think that is what the lions were expecting. Formen said they were probably hoping to pick off a smaller buffalo towards the back of the herd so as not to get into a herd rush in which they could be trampled. Two large bulls were not what the lions were planning I'm sure. Nonetheless, they crouched, and took off after them and gave a brief chase. I was able to only see the very tops of their heads and backs as these 3 gave chase. The fourth had crossed the road at this point, but did not participate. 
 
If that stalking and chasing scene weren't enough to excite us all, here come a small herd of elephant over the very same ridge on which the lions had entered the scene. Are you kidding me?! This is incredible! How often do you see all of these animals in one space?! Again, the image of a documentary scene came to mind, yet I was witnessing this first hand. What would the lions do about the elephants we wondered...we couldn't wait to find out!  The elephants gave off a horn-sounding cry...they apparently smelled the lions and were none too happy about it. They took the path of the buffalo, across to the right and back behind us, never reaching closer than about 40 or 50 yards from us. 



Where were the lions at this point we wondered....leave it to Formen. I had wanted to follow the herd and the lions to see what if anything would transpire or if the lions had just given up and stopped following the herd. Well without agreeing to such, Formen started driving away from the last sighting of the lions giving chase, which had been a huge disappointment for me. I was thinking that Formen decided that was just a bit too risky for us, and I resigned myself to being quite overjoyed with the scene I just witnessed. Then after about a minute of driving, Formen took a right, then another right, and there they were....all 4 lions sitting on a mound raised up and clear from the brush from which position they could see the plains better. We had the most perfect lion sighting. 


They were all sitting next to each other in about a 6 foot by 6 foot space, looking about, seemingly reconsidering their next move and whether to follow the buffalo, exhibiting the affectionate interaction I've come to see in various lion stories now.  We couldn't have been more than 10-15 yards from them. It was just unbelievable. Of course, more amazing photos were taken.
  
This young group of 3 lions and a lioness were just not quite experienced enough to take on 1, let alone 2, large male buffalo, but luckily they made no mortal mistakes and would live to try another day.

For more information about the lodge at which I was staying for these incredible drives, see here: Tanda Tula

To see more of my photos while at Tanda Tula, see here: My African Safari Best Shots - 1 and here: My African Safari Best Shots - 2