Africa 2006 Elephant Plains Notes: The training to be a guide in South Africa is intense; it includes two years of classes and field work. You can tell they are well-informed (or are very good story tellers!) and really bring a love for the land and the animals to their work. What we saw:
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We were way on the other side of the reserve when the call came in that there was something worth running over to see. Wayne wouldn't tell us what was up, but we soon saw that someone had spotted some wild dogs. Then we see this hyena show up. Then someone points out that the dogs are hunting the zebra! Lots of animal movement and positioning. One of the wild dogs looks like he is going to take on the hyena. We speculated that maybe he was just luring the hyena away from the zebra the dogs were hunting. The zebra quickly gathered around the young one and moved into the brush. While the wild dogs can't take down a full-grown zebra, they can get a baby if they can separate it from the herd. Wild dogs are disappearing in Africa, so we were really lucky to see this small pack. The last time the rangers had spotted them was in April – and before that was a year ago April. |
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In the middle of the chase the wild dogs stumbled on this unlucky impala. The two dogs started eating and then both looked up and abandoned the kill. We followed them as they met a third dog and brought him back to the kill. |
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Wild dogs have complex social structure and look out for all members of the pack. They hunt cooperatively and share food. When there are pups, the adults take turns bringing food back to the den for the pups. |
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Back at camp we found more vervet monkeys hanging around. Lots of the trees and bushes in South Africa have thorns on them to keep animals from eating them. Giraffe have tongues that can work around the thorns and rhinos have strong digestive systems, so they just eat them. |
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We took another bush walk today. We walked past a small hippo pond (no hippo - kind of relieved about that). We saw Egyptian geese (one is above) and lots of small flowers and berries. Right, this poison apple is about the size of a nickel. Back at camp, we found this grasshopper and a black-eyed bulbul. |
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| Below left, a white-bellied sunbird eating from an aloe bush. Below right, a cape buffalo sits down in the field outside of our room. | |
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