20 Jun
Sardine Run 2011: Cows at sea?
A promising start, a few disappointments and a rather strange encounter. It’s just another day filming the Sardine Run.
Tag Archives: carcass
13 Jun
Snakes Alive!
Imagine running into not one, but two, huge pythons on the same day… And what if both snakes just happened to be in the process of ingesting baby impalas? Here’s a collection of images from two unforgettable reptilian encounters!
13 Jun
Pride separates
As we came round a corner on the road, there were a number of vultures in the trees and on the ground. Obviously something had died here and we discovered a dead spotted hyaena (Crocuta crocuta) close to the road. On closer inspection, it appeared to have been killed by lions. There was a large bite mark on the hyaenas back and this is a typically fatal injury when tau (Panthera leo) kill a hyaena. Besides some scavenging from the vultures, there was little sign that anything else had fed on the carcass. Hoping that the tau were still close,…
5 Jun
A buffalo goes a long way
With the Xakanaxa pride moving on during the night, it was time for the scavengers to take advantage of their departure. In the early morning light, those scavengers that held back yesterday had already started to feast on the remains of the nari (Syncerus caffer) carcass. 2 phokoje (Canis adustus) were feeding on different pieces of the carcass, while the numerous hooded (Necrosyrtes monachus), white-headed (Aegypius occipitalis) and white-backed vultures (Gyps africanus) watched on, waiting for their chance to feed. The phokoje kept a wary eye on these winged scavengers and chased off any that got to close. As the…
4 Jun
A scavenger’s breakfast
Bellies full, the lion pride abandons a carcass in favour of a snooze, leaving the scraps to the scavengers.
3 Jun
Persistence pays off
Having left the Tau (Panthera leo) of the Xakanaxa pride pursing the Nari (Syncerus caffer) deep into the dense mopane forests the previous evening, we decided that this mornings mission was to pick up the trail. It proved not to be too difficult to track down some 800 odd hooves. Now we hoped that it wouldn’t be too long before we caught up to the tau. But the early bird catches the worm and even leaving camp at 06h00 is sometimes too late for the cats. For when we caught up with the tau, they had already caught their “worm”.…
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