Photographerwild
AFRICA 2007
In January 2007, I had my 3rd African adventure - with a focus on getting deeper into the bush and emersing myself for several days in a few select areas of Botswana. My friend Skova, a field guide, game ranger, and professional hunter guided me again. This was a truly magnificent experience as I observed rarely seen animal behavior and species interactions (some that may have even been new adaptation). In 25 days, we visited six different parks and game reserves, and observed over 115 different species of animals and birds. Of those, the Elephants, Cheetahs and Lions were numerous and extra special. Below are some highlights of these encounters.
Elephants - Nearly 1600 observed/encountered, from small breeding herds to individuals to extremely large herds of more than 150 - 200 animals. Two particular encounters gave the trip an extra flare. On New Year's Day, as we ascended a hill on a narrow dirt road into Pilanesberg National Park, a large bull Elephant in Musth came over the hill and rather than stopping when he saw us, he came right for us. Initially we had to descend the hill in reverse, but Skova soon realized this would likely end badly. By observing the Elephant, Skova believed we might have a shot at calling the Elephant's charge, so he stopped the vehicle and revved the engine...it worked! The Elephant stopped where he was and deliberated for a moment while Skova spoke to him in a soothing but firm voice. The Elephant then moved off the road but kept a very wary eye on us as we passed. A fun way to start the New Year for sure!! About 2 weeks later in Savuti Game Reserve, another very large bull Elephant entered our camp in the middle of the night. Standing between our tents and bumping up against us or trying to pull the corners of Skova's tent up to look for tasty seed pods from underneath the tent, he gave Skova and me the most frightening 15 minutes of our lives. Well okay the river experience a few years earlier certainly ranks closely with this encounter :-). In this gallery, look for pictures of an Elephant near a tall brick wall - that's our camp visitor!
Lions - several close encounters within a few feet of the vehicle. Some Lions just ignored us and others growled and bit each followed by a very loud roar. One morning in Moremi Game Reserve, we tracked some Lions and located 2 males that were meeting with the 3rd member of their coalition. We watched them for a long time then decided to come back later. We went off in search of Leopards and other wildlife and then started out again in the evening to find our lion coalition. Now they were a bit closer to the road so we stayed with them waiting for sundown in the hope we might see them hunt. As they began to walk toward a water hole, we noticed Wild Dogs. Very excited, we drove around the Lions to get closer to the Wild Dogs, who had by now caught sight of the Lions and began moving to the far side of the water hole. As they did, the Wild Dogs began barking at the Lions. Amazed, we watched the Lions roar back at the Wild Dogs! This is unusual as Lions usually don't bother with Wild Dogs.
Cheetahs - early in the trip in the Central Kalahari, we encountered an odd but large coalition of Cheetahs. At first we thought there were only 3 in the group but it turned out to be 5. We watched and began speculating that it was a mother and 4 cubs. or possibly an unheard of coalition of 5 males. Soon we discovered it was 2 adult males, an adult female and 2 cubs (a male and female). The cubs were certainly old enough (or soon to be) on their own, and we couldn't figure out why the female and cubs were with the males. We stayed with them all day to see if they would hunt some Springbok, as there was a large herd close by. The Cheetahs did not hunt during the day but rather behaved more like Lions, lying in the shade all day and as soon as the sun went down then they hunted!! We thought this might be a fluke so 3 days later we set out to find them again (thinking it unlikely we'd see them again). To our surprise we did find them, still together and still behaving like Lions - sleeping/lying around until sunset and then hunting!
