Pic Of The Day. |
Morning
Drive.
(
Shadrack.)
Elephant
( Breeding Herd) / Motswari – Marula Pan.
Elephant
( Kambaku's) / Motswari – Motswari Dam.
Buffalo
( Dagha Boy) / Umlani – Madala Kaya.
Lion
( Machaton Pride) / Umlani – Donga Lookout.
Afternoon
Drive.
(
Grant, Shadrack & Andrea.)
Leopard
( Makipi's Male) / Peru – Appleleaf Rd.
Elephant
( Kambaku) / Peru – Argyle Rd.
Elephant
( Breeding Herd) / Rockfig – Argyle Rd.
Elephant
( Breeding Herd) / Peru – Woza Woza Cutline.
Lion
( Machaton Pride: 3 x Females & 7 x Sub Adults) / Umlani –
Donga Lookout.
Daily
Synopsis.
Another
great morning out in the bush and this was only a half of what was
out there on offer. That being half of what we found, who knows what
we didn't. Not wanting to curse things but it looks like we are on
the turn around, touch wood. We'll see when Jacky and I return to
drive this afternoon for a couple of days. Jury is still out.
Looking
forward to getting out there we set off from camp heading to the West
to follow up on Makipi's and his brother Shindzuti, who had been
found in the morning with a young male Impala kill. Both Andrea and I
planned to visit the Leopards and then make our way far South to
visit the Machaton Pride, also a find from the morning. Not exactly
the way we both like to conduct our first drive but these days you
take Lion when you can get it, especially when your guests are
staying two nights or less.
Shadrack
having seen them in the morning was on a mission to find Elephant and
then keep looking around to see if he could pick up any sign for the
male Lions that had entered our traversing area the day before.
Meanwhile
our plan was going accordingly with Makipi's being relocated very
close to where he had been left in the morning and by the time we
joined the sighting he had returned to the remains of the Impala
carcass, which was only a couple of legs and a rib cage held together
by a string of coat. It had been hoisted up into a Tamboti tree and
did not offer any great photographic opportunities but the sighting
itself was fantastic as he tried to precariously balance in the tree
while getting his mouth around the ribs. Reminded me of Herold and
Chad at lunch. Having had ourselves a great sighting and still having
to travel to the other side of the world and back, we took our leave.
Jacky
and I had prepared ourselves to find things along the way, as you
always see plenty of stuff when you have somewhere to be. First up
was a lone Elephant Bull, shorty followed by a breeding herd of
Elephant. We then caught a break when things went quiet but this was
undone by the most relaxed Jackal I've seen here in the Timabavati.
Usually they see a vehicle approaching and high-tail it in the
opposite direction but on this occasion he barely lifted himself to
get out the road and stood nonchalantly next to it waiting for us to
pass as if he was going to return to his resting place and how dare
we interrupt his afternoon siesta.
Eventually
managing to get away we arrived at the Lion sighting shortly after a
typical autumn evening sunset. They had changed positions from where
they had been in the morning obviously the heat getting to much for
them, so they decided to move into the coolness of the riverbed with
it's shade from the large surrounding trees. Their overheating could
also have been due to the very round tummies of all of them clearly
having eaten well over night and were now suffering the effects of
indigestion. We sat with them while they lay in the riverbed not
getting up to much apart from occasional lifting a head or two but
this was short lived as they returned to sleep. With the sun having
already set and it getting dark quickly it did not look like these
Lions were going to stir any time soon. With a long way home we took
our leave stopping for a quick nightcap along the way.
The
rest of the gang had themselves pretty much a similar afternoon
except that they all found different groupings of Rhino, this was
unfortunate though as they were all after dark and they could not
view them as we don't shine the spotlight on them. We also found
ourselves a breeding herd of Buffalo but again this was once the sun
had set and we to could not view them. Least we know they are there
and it is something for us to follow up in the morning.
No comments:
Post a Comment