Prowling for Food
Day 6
The Chase
First, I will get into the adventures of the day, and then I
will give some other interesting tidbits of information about this place if you
care to read on and be fascinated (how’s that for a grabber?).
The morning safari starts at 6am, after a 5:30am light snack
with juice and coffee. It’s cold in the morning, and since it is winter, the
sun is not yet up to warm us. So, we are all bundled up, but they also provide
us with blankets and hot water bottles to sit in our laps. Again, I could list
lots of animal encounters – beasts and birds – but I will only recount one very
interesting one.
While driving through the bush, we saw a giraffe head rising above the lower bushes and trees about 30 yards away (9 meters for the international crowd). That giraffe started to walk toward the road and then scampered quickly onto the road – again about 30 yards ahead of us. It was staring intently back into the bush and paying no attention to us. Our guide, Tracy, says, “Hmmm. There must be some threat back there in the bush.” With that another giraffe scurries onto the road about 60 yards down the way. Then the first giraffe began to walk hastily toward the second giraffe, and they both ran off down the road and out of sight. [BTW: it is pretty cool to see those long-legged creatures running right in front of you with long, loping strides.] Tracy says, “Let’s sit here a minute and see what’s up. Perhaps some lions are lurking.” Sure enough, about 30 seconds later, there’s a female lion walking out from the cover of the deep grass and bushes. It was invisible before that. Then another, and another, then a male and soon the whole pride of 9 lions appeared from nowhere and came walking right past our vehicle within feet of where we were sitting. They look pretty unhappy that they didn’t land a 3000lb (1400kg) giraffe for the pride to eat, but they paid very little attention to us for reasons stated previously in this blog. They crossed the road, and we waited. Then we followed them into the bush a little ways, and they were bedding down for the day after a long night of hunting. Of course, we sat quietly and watched the whole episode unfold without disturbing these gracious, powerful animals.
One other quick story (I know … I said I would tell just
one, but it is irresistible). Elephants eat constantly – for adults about 700lb
(350kg) a day. They tear down branches of trees and bushed and chomp through
the thick ruffage effortlessly. The other thing they do effortlessly … if they
want the branches or leaves at the top of a tree, they just snap the tree trunk!
And I mean 5-6 inch diameter trees! The fully grown bull elephants are knocking
down 10-12 inch diameter trees! They are laying on the ground all over the
Reserve just snapped off about 3 feet above the ground. We witnessed one young
male grab a 5-inch thick tree with its trunk and lean into it. Within a second,
the tree trunk just snapped with a very loud “crack.” Business as usual. A man’s
gotta eat!
OK – one more. On the evening safari, we saw a leopard with
its male cub high in a tree where the mother had killed an impala and brought
it up to the treetops for safety. Imagine climbing a tree with a 120lb impala
in your teeth and positioning it in the tree branches for dinner! A hyena stood
patiently below catching the scraps.
That’s all … but after the pictures, there are a few other notable
items at Thornybush Reserve.
Leopard visible in the tree. Antelope head and neck dangling straight down. Mother leopard is the darker image barely visible behind her son. We got close enough to be nearly under the tree.
Notable items
1 – At the risk of being ‘hoity-toity’ (is that how you
spell this?), we have our own butler (Vero) and our own chef (Willie) at the Kamara
House. We are spoiled as Vero, who speaks all 11 official languages of SA,
caters to us and serves us meals etc. while Willie makes the most amazing
breakfasts, lunches, and dinners. I mean truly 5-star meals at every meal. We
have had to ask him to ‘tone it down’ a bit since there is an easy opportunity
to overeat at every meal.
2 – Our driver and naturalist (Tracey) and tracker (Orlando)
escort us on our safaris, which consist of driving on dirt roads and paths through
the bush on this crazy large reserve. Orlando is always looking for tracks to
indicate where various animals are or may be heading, and Tracy is fabulous at
explaining the various wildlife – from large animals to ground animals to birds
and even a big tree lizard that we saw. She is a font of information, and we
are always amazed at Orlando seeing a track in the dirt while sitting on the
front of the vehicle.
3 – The weather has been spectacular. Very clear – hardly ever
a cloud to be seen and bright blue skies. Warm in the day at 75F (23C) and cold
during the night at 48F (9C).
4 – Our pool is not heated, so swimming is not really in the plan. The water is too cold and the temperatures modest.
5 – Monkeys come and visit our villa every day. We have to keep the doors locked because they know how to turn doorknobs and dead bolt locks and get into food. So, everything is key locked. They don’t bother us sitting out on the patio or around the pool. No problem there (I am writing this on the patio watching them swinging through the trees and running along our roof).
6 - Dominant male lions roar through the night to let any 'competitors' know they are in the vicinity, except the vicinity is a huge area since you can hear the roar from miles away in the quiet night of the savanna. We here them off-and-on throughout the night.
7 – The lodge is totally open air – lobby, restaurant, bar, etc. The view from the dining area and bar into the Reserve are quite striking. All of it is dry now, but in the wet season, the water flows strongly through the adjoining riverbed.
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