Animal Planet Got Nuthin' on Us!

See our animal album at African Animals

Looking for and at animals is the main reason for this trip, so it seems only fair to write about them. First of all, you need to know that Africa has a shitload of animals, but it is a HUGE place, so they are not always evident. A very common sighting throughout the trip was the "African Salute"', the rear end and tail of an animal who heard us coming and decided to get the hell out of there.

The first park we visited, Chobe National Park in Botswana, has an elephant herd estimated to be 130,000 strong, so were pretty confident we'd see some. We did, up close and personal. Our guide would drive down the "road" and was very skilled at finding them. He'd shout out,"Six elephants are on your left!" and, sure enough, there they were. After we got close enough to take a zillion photos, the herd would take notice and slither off into the woods. Slither! What was freaky was the fact that they would take a few steps and be gone. Elephants! Enormous, bulky elephants in a not very dense forest would stroll behind a scrub tree and become invisible. They were graceful and surprisingly fast, and were one of our favorite animals.

Hands down winners of the "cutest animal butt" award were the zebras, which should be no surprise to anyone who has ever visited a zoo. A group of them is called a "dazzle of zebras" because their stripes confuse predators and thus protect them. We saw a lot of them, too, often hanging out with wildebeests, one of the "ugly five". The other four uglies are hyenas (didn't see those), vultures, maribou stork, and warthogs, of which we saw plenty.

The biggest thrills were the cats. On our arrival at Hwange Park in Zimbabwe we took a game drive before dinner. (Hwange National Park is HUGE.  It is the size of New Jersey, but bettter organized). It was cool (cold) and rainy, and we wore our own rain gear covered up by the camp's flannel-lined ponchos. Our guide and driver, Mafuka (be careful how you pronounce that one!), drove through the woods like a bat out of hell. We sat there shivering and thinking,"If you aren't even going to look for animals, take us back to the lodge so we can have a drink and warm up, for crying out loud!!" Some of us thought in cruder language, but you get the idea. Then, ahead of us in the road, ww saw a pride of lions. There were 11 of them, with a huge, black-maned male lying in the road with three cubs. Some of them walked very close to our vehicle, five feet away from us, and we were truly awestruck. Mafuka explained that the animals see the vehicle as one large entity, so we were in no danger at all. But it was very freaky to make eye contact with a wild lion the size of a Harley-Davidson and NOT be a little shaken. Back at our camp, we heard lions roar at night when we were in bed. Very cool.

We also saw a lion in Botswana that had killed a cape buffalo (not too recently, if the hordes of hovering flies mean anything) and was standing guard over it. An enormous flock of vultures stood guard, too, waiting for an opportunity to dine. There must have been over a hundred, waiting, watching, and occasionally skulking toward the buffalo, looking exactly like they appear in cartoons. Once, several sneaked all the way to the kill and started tugging at its innards, spurring the lion to run toward them, scattering them like leaves on a windy day. The lion then loped back up the hill to sit, wait, and watch, and the scene replayed itself several times. Our guide pointed out that the lioness was a nursing mother and would need to return to her hidden cubs soon, leaving the kill to the vultures who would strip it of meat in a few hours.



Mike and what was once a wildebeest. Yuck.

We witnessed the aftermath of another lion kill where vultures and jackals were sharing the remains. Mike, our guide that day, drove right up to the carcass, which resulted in the animals scattering. He explained that the animals understood the hierarchy well, and since we were higher on the current food chain, they would defer to us. This was a wildebeest who had been killed the previous night. With CSI- like precision, Mike deconstructed the scene, showing us where the kill occurred, where the lions had dragged the body, and showed us the footprints of those involved. Babies were part of the feast since some of the small lion prints showed claw marks. Lions can't retract their claws until they are 4 months old, and the tiny prints showed tiny claws as well. The big lion prints were massive. The photo shows a lion print with Linda's foot for scale, so please disregard the chipped toenail polish. We are roughing it, after all.

Lion, left. Linda, right.

Leopards are shy and not easy to find, but we were fortunate enough to see two on this trip. Two of our group members had been on five safaris, and had never seen one before. One of the leopards got bored lying on a tree branch while we watched, so he climbed down the tree and sauntered into the woods. There should be a video in the photo album, so check that out. We also found a cheetah, but he did nothing but sleep, so he was not as much fun to watch.  



Dung beetle on a roll.

Our favorite insect on this trip, and possibly in the whole world, is the African dung beetle. You can imagine that with all the hippos and elephants walking around that there is an abundance of dung. Well, these male beetles, about two inches long, take that dung and roll it into baseball-sized balls. Then, upside down, they roll them down the road, with their hind legs on the ball and their front legs walking on the ground. A good ball attracts a female (uh-huh) who deposits larva into the ball. The kiddies have lots of undigested elephant food to eat as they grow and develop so they will be strong enough to roll their own balls of dung when they grow up. We have videos of them too, of course!

We saw many, many animals, as you might imagine, and quickly became jaded toward some of them. "Oh, it's just a herd of impalas." We never got tired of the babies, though. We saw nursing elephants and zebras, week-old baboons riding on their mom's backs, baby hippos, impalas, waterbucks, and giraffes, and even the baby wildebeests were adorable. The birds were impressive even for us non-birders. Linda was quite taken with the Carmine Bee-eater, nearly falling out of the Land Rover trying to get a shot of them in flight. We took lots of photos and immediately forgot the names of most of the birds we shot. With a little luck, research,and Gail's assistance,  we will try to caption the photos in the album properly. If we are not successful, call them what we do, "Pretty Bird".