This morning we were up at 5:45am for our early morning
game drive. We were joined this morning by Tariq and Tamara who are Jordanian
couple living in Dubai. They were great fun to be with and so enthusiastic.
Victor
told us that it looked like we would have more rain today, the camp had
experienced the arrival of the short rains earlier than usual with rain two
days before we arrived. This had resulted in the reserve turning a beautiful
bright green but also the animals now going further afield as the
waterholes now had water and the animals
no longer needed to come to the lake for water.
About 10 minutes out of camp we had our first elephant sighting….back across
the lake in camp!!! We also saw a number of new born Impala and Victor
explained that as soon as the rain came the impala start to give birth as the
fresh grass ensure plentiful food. The females in each herd will give birth
within a day of each other ensuring some of the young survive. The foals are so
sweet but amazingly quick within 30 minutes of being born.
We also had our first sighting of
wildebeest but only a solitary males.
This was closely followed by a fabulous
Palm Nut Vulture surveying the area for prey.
We were also lucky to see a family of waterbuck quite close up. These are very nervous animals who often turn tail as soon as the cars are around. The have a wonderful round circle on their bottoms and often that is all we got to see of them during the week.
As the clouds blackened and rain
started to fall we came across a single female lion. She had been rejected by a
pride and was living a solitary life and she looked as though she had been
through some scrapes and looked quite thin. Victor thought she had not eaten for a number of
days. We sat and watched her sleep, roll over and then as the rain started to
fall more heavily she started to head off in the hunt for food. A family of
giraffe followed her every move and signaling to the other giraffe in the area.
We were heading to our bush breakfast
location when we initially came across three elephant and as we followed them
we then saw a much larger herd. The guides always view elephants at a distance
especially when there are babies in the herd so we watch from a distances as
they made their way in line…it reminded my of a scene from The Jungle Book.
We then headed off across the river
which with the rain still coming down was an interesting experience and took us
five attempts to get up the other side. We wondered why we did not continue to
follow the lioness but all became clear as we came across a pack of hyena with
a buffalo kill. There was another landrover from the camp already there and
they had been lucky enough to see the hyenas appear from all directions and the
subsequent battle that took place between the two lionesses who made the kill
and the hyenas. The lionesses have 5 cubs between them and with their cubs at
risk they eventually relinquished the kill to the hyenas but they had a good
feed before being surrounded.
Below is just one of the less gory
pictures I took but it was amazing to watch how the hyena hierarchy works
whilst feeding from a kill.
We then headed off in search of the
two lionesses and their cubs but couldn’t locate them. Victor explained that
they would have taken them away and hidden them to protect them from the hyena
pack.
We finally stopped for breakfast at
nearly 10am where Victor and Kumkumba
laid out the chairs, table and a lovely picnic breakfast. Luckily the rain had
stopped and we enjoyed our breakfast in the warm sunshine.
Bush breakfast of bacon, sausage, eggs, toast, bananas, fruit juice and tea
A hat is a definite must when you have been soaked to the skin
As we were about to leave a group of
White-backed Vultures landed and appeared to be eating a small rodent.
Heading out again we saw a huge and
quite beautiful Monitor Lizard who was out picking the insects after the rain.
He really was impressive and a glorious colour.
We continued on our driving enjoying
the large herds of Imapala, a large herd of giraffe, buffalo and also a pair of
African Fish Eagles who were getting friendly in a tree.
We then came along the
shores of the lake heading back to camp
for lunch where we saw Great White
Pelicans and some more hippos.
After a lovely lunch we headed to our
tent for Graham to have his afternoon nap and for me to write my journal whilst
watching the buffalo in the lake in front of our tent.
At 4:30 we headed out again but this
time on our own as Tariq and Tamara had decided to take a boat trip. Victor was
determined to locate the lionesses and we headed back to the area they were
last seen. Just out of camp we had our
first zebra sighting and Victor explained that they had not seen zebras for
almost a week as the rain had meant they had spread out to enjoy the fresh
grass so we were lucky to see a mother, father and young foal. The father was
watching out whilst the mother and baby fed.
We continued on our way and it was
amazing to see how green the savannah had become just after a few short showers.
We finally located the two lionesses.
Initially we only saw one and as we were watching the first one Victor suddenly
pointed and we turned around to see that we had driven past the second lioness unfortunately
the cubs were nowhere to be seen and Victor explained that they would be nearby but hidden away from any potential harm. One of the
lionesses was initially very agitated on our arrival and Victor thought that she
probably related the arrival of the vehicles with the arrival of the hyenas
earlier in the day and was therefore still very on edge. We sat and watched for
a while and they gradually relaxed both taking it in turns to sleep whilst the
other kept watch.
On the way back to camp we saw a large
herd of wildebeest along with a number of giraffes. They were extremely on edge,
probably because of the close proximity of the lionesses.
We then came across a lone hyena
walking up the road and we sat and watched her pass, as we continued we
gradually saw more and more and we realised it was the pack who stole the
lionesses kill that morning. The dominant female was showing scars from the
battle and also an extremely full tummy so much so that she didn’t even move as
we got close to her.
We then saw our first warthog but he
was really difficult to capture on camera as he was extremely nervous and
headed off as soon as we slowed the vehicle down.
We then watched the sunset before
heading back to camp to share drinks and dinner with everyone along with the
stories of the day.
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