However, I was hoping to spot something on the night drive back home, I’d say we did more than spot, I almost drove straight into a hippo! The huge beast of a thing was chilling in the road as I took a corner, it got a huge fright and didn’t know if it wanted to charge or run away. It moved over peacefully after spinning on the spot and offering a challenge.

This morning was another wild dog morning. I didn’t get any signal, good thing Kim was on the hill at the den already and was reveiving a faint signal to the North. Only when I reached the northern boundary, did I get the faintest signal, I did a loop around and then the signal was coming and going. I pictured the dogs having a tough time in that area where there are no roads. There are power lines that run down through the property and when you move along this section it really interferes with the tracking equipment.

This is where the dogs were moving and after backtracking many times over I eventually found the dogs munching on an impala. They were pulling on the ribcage already, but the only marinade was the saliva dripping from their jaws as they used each others weight to tear a section for themselves. Later, they trotted back to the den, where I visited for the first time. The dogs were absolutely exhausted and slept up on the hill out of sight.

There was not a hyena in sight, they pulled their typical scatter and run maneuver with the cubs hiding in the den. It’s kind of what would happen if somebody through a hand grenade…except there were no grenades…and no people with any power struggles…so maybe not. The dogs sniffed around the den for two minutes and continued on their way. I continued tailing them, but eventually lost them just before it was getting dark. I back tracked past the hyena den to see if everything was back to normal and was greeted by the usual inquisitive cubs playing and suckling their mother. It was quite odd to see the hyena cub setting filled with wild dogs instead.

Tanga was also near base camp last night and drinking down at Malilangwe Dam. I tried to catch up with Alan and the leopard this morning but he was in the hills. The Dogs were already long gone so I continued a drive around the hills until I reached Lojaan Dam, where there was a large herd of buffalo in the water – they scattered on arrival, but relaxed after I sat snapping pictures.

I’ve been meaning to catch up with no ears for a while so it was down to Nduna Dam from there. No ears was near the dam, but he looked down and out, there was no snorting, no charging, hardly any movement from the poor guy. He had taken another beating from another rhino and was looking in bad shape. Bruce, the vet, will be looking into the extent of his injuries, lets hope we can give him a top up so he can recover.

They have to stay away for a while. She’ll be protective of them for at least the next couple of weeks.
Right now Puzzles’ is not out hunting at all and totally dependent on the rest of the pack to provide her with food. They should be more than capable, considering Jiggy had to do this last year all on his own!

I’m spending all my time at the den too, familiarising Puzzles with my presence. She seems amazingly relaxed and even more so than when she was pregnant. Maybe she herself now doesn’t feel as vulnerable having lost all that weight.

It’s a great time for me too, to have Lindy and Penny there. They’re of course dying to see the little ones. It’s also the ideal opportunity to get them fully conversant in cameras and how they work. Lindy has for the first time been videoing me with my camera. AND doing pretty well at it!

These weren’t the only lions to leave a trail of destruction upon the land, another lioness had taken down a lichtenstein’s hartebeest at Bandama Pan and had eaten herself to a standstill, well lions barely do anything more than stand still at the best of times, but you know what I mean. She could barely keep her eyes open, even as the sun was setting and the vultures circled low in the red sky, she moved only to reposition her over-stretched belly. The lioness was all on her own and I was not sure what pride she was from, she eventually made her way to the pan to get a drink of water – what an action packed evening…she took a drink.

When a lion eats so much they even battle to breathe, you can pretty much be guaranteed that they won’t be going very far for a while, I left her so I could find some more interesting happenings. I wanted to spend a little more time with Tanga, I really am itching to get some decent footage of the young leopard.

I went across to Sosigi area but couldn’t get signal, Alan was probably on the leopard already, but I couldn’t get him on the radio. Either way, it’s good to get out at night once in a while to just enjoy the night sounds and the odd interesting spot.

Another month is on its back kicking and screaming, the dogs have downloaded, the hyena cubs are growing and healthy, full bellies all round, and it seems we’re caught up in the middle of it all – fortunately!

I didn’t even break out the video camera, I just enjoyed the whole moment, but taking the odd photo. The older bull then built up the courage to edge his way in to see what the chunk of metal was all about. He put his trunk up against my bullbar and gave the vehicle a little push, then pushed a little harder…then decided he liked the feel of steel against trunk and used the bullbar to scratch his trunk. Another magic moment in the African bush!

I didn’t want to take any photos with him so close, in case the noise of the shutter unsettled the rather large fellow, it does leave one’s heart racing looking straight into their eyes knowing he could crush you any time he wanted. I noticed on the elephant from Nyari the other day that the one bull had lost the end of its trunk, probably to a snare or something, he was also inquisitive and came just short of touching the vehicle, at least he’s not an angry chap like George.

I spent a little time with Tanga again just before dark, Allan was parked next to Sosigi Dam and I came in from the opposite side hardly believing my luck. Tanga was in a little ditch on a mound next to the water, nobody would ever know he was there if they were just driving past, this is the beauty of technology. Alan reverse from the top of the mound to allow me to get in there to get some pictures. It had been a cloudy day with insufficient light, but I edged my way in and sat quietly to allow Tanga to relax. I slowly got the video camera out, then my stills camera, got into position and focused the lights in his direction. I’m not sure what it is with this guy, but he has some phobia against camera lenses. He began sneaking off just when I thought he’d stick around for a change. He’s a clever cat. The most important news for today…Kim found Puzzles at the den and she has downloaded! That is all we know for the mean time, but we will keep you posted.

Following up I saw all these vultures in the trees. Then found Manyari, Magwaza and her 3 cubs and another female all on an adult male kudu.

I headed back to the dogs as it was now almost dark, only to find they’d moved into the hills towards where the lions were. Bad idea!!
We were out early as usual into the very chilly dawn all wrapped up in our sleeping bags. Me too! I’ve mastered the art of driving while sitting in my sleeping. It’s called ‘survival’!
The dogs’ signal was well into the hills to the east. Then we heard the distress calls of a dog. We waited and the calls would come intermittently.

I didn’t get a chance to walk in there after them as more important matters took over. I needed to attend to Penny’s birthday party. We’d invited a bunch of friends and all met up on the river, the ideal place to play in the sand and water. Even a herd of buffalo and a lone elephant graced the party briefly.
I was anxious to get back to the dogs. Why had the pack been calling incessantly and for that long this morning? Had one of them been taken by a lion last night? Now I was getting concerned.
I battled to find the dogs in the afternoon as they’d travelled so far north and were in the area of a den Puzzles had dug several weeks ago.

As Murphy had it, I arrived at the top of the hill just when they’d moved off to the bottom.
So I’m not sure if they were at the den I suspect, but when we were able to count heads, there were only 9. Puzzles is missing!
Hopefully this is a good “missing”, cos she’s got pups!

Tomorrow morning I should know what’s going on.
There’s still that little butterfly in my tummy that thinks something might have happened to Puzzles. But then again, if it had, the pack would be calling incessantly for her.

There are still times when you get more done in a day than you expect to, but those days are getting fewer and fewer as life goes on. Having said that, I did manage one of these extraordinary feats during the week and captured and edited some elephant and a few extras.

Today’s video was when a small breeding herd of elephant descended down the hills around Malilangwe Dam to drink. I was lucky enough to spot them on their way and headed straight for a large flat rock that I know is a good spot to sit and wait for animals to come down, while staying well hidden and inaccessible. It was a magic time watching them drinking and spraying mud.

Today I did another riverside drive ending at Chikwete Cliffs where I had that herd of buffalo earlier in the week. It was rather unsuccessful, but besides the freezing cold morning, was pleasant to get out. I ended up shooting some arbitrary stills to keep busy. The lions that were seen at Banyini yesterday were not the same pride as the one with the snared cub, I was thinking about that poor little guy and I heard they were spotted in the area and the little guy is still alive, now we just need the right time and place to get that snare off.

I headed straight for the hyena cubs this afternoon and again went wild with the stills, getting a little of the cubs playing and the mother hyena looking very suspicious of us. I needed to get home early, because we have a dinner date at the stables for a change – yes, we can still have a good time out in the bush.

Now I recall from yesterday talking bout my stubborn visits to Nyari knowing there was not much going on, well, victory was mine. I met up with five elephant bulls about an hour before sunset and spent a bit of time with them.

It was nice to have a few chilled characters for a change. They were very inquisitive coming right up to the vehicle smelling and exploring the unknown.

I was chuffed! I then dashed over to Banyini to get the sunset with a dragon like cloud spreading across the sky. Last night the lions were reported at Banyini, but the interesting thing was this time there were four lionesses, three cubs and the two males. Looks like they are importing females from down south…Sjambok, just can’t seem to get enough.

Nothing had changed, so I moved on to the Banyini area. A big herd of buffalo had just finished drinking as I pulled up on the scene. I followed them into the Mopane woodlands and then let them carry on, I was wondering if this was the same herd I had at the Chiredzi River the other day, but I can’t be sure.

I headed back to the pan to try catch a huge colony of guineafowl messing around at the water. They had moved on, but this afternoon I was pitter pattering around Sosigi Dam capturing their “fowl play”.

A lone giraffe had just pulled up to drink next to the guineafowl when Alan called on the radio, he had Tanga on the opposite side of the dam and had seen me, so I headed over to get some footage of the leopard. He is still a little non-compliant, so it was difficult to get any quality shots. He is a lot better now that Alan has been following him at night. I carried on following the dude two hours into dark until I decided to call it a night. Eventually I hope to do some descent leopard wildcasting – patience is the name of the game though.

The wild dogs have continued to travel extensively and even went right to the very western end of the reserve across the river for just one night and then all the way back east. And poor Puzzles just tags along trotting behind everybody with her huge tummy swaying from side to side. She’s pretty huge now.
We took guesses as to how many pups she would have.
With her being so big I decided she’d have 12. Lindy said 11 and Penny says 9. Your guesses??
A few days ago I had an interesting day or 2 with the dogs. The pups found themselves a honey badger. This animal must weigh about a quarter of the dogs weight, but as vicious as they are 8 pups against one honey badger was no match. The badger won and went off on his merry way.
The dogs moved into the river and I followed on foot. A lone hyaena came sniffing by and was soon sent packing by the dogs. They continued along the river bank staring at the water, terrified but curious. AND of course wanting to cross. Maybe they were hoping Moses would be around. I wasn’t able to help.

As we moved along the riverbank stopping periodically to stare at the water, we were suddenly surprised by a lion stalking the dogs. But when it saw me it bolted out of sight.

The dogs were all a little nervous now, and then I saw the brute had come back and was standing on the riverbank staring at me! I had to pull a brave one, as I wasn’t about to lose face in front of the dogs. I returned the lions stare and with the dogs standing to my left, I made a lunge at the lion. Well he truly lost it and with a growl he took off and I could hear him running at pace grunting down the road as he disappeared.
The dogs were impressed…………. ☺

They moved on down the river and chased an impala into the sandy riverbed. I saw the impala cross the shallow water, but it was totally exhausted nearly falling over as it crossed and lay down in the reeds. The dogs eventually arrived but were nervous of crossing. I rushed around in my vehicle so I could film the action and ended up nearly rolling the vehicle in a donga/ravine. While I battled jacking myself out of there I heard the impala die!
Just not getting this action on film these days.

I also had another interesting encounter several days ago. The dogs were resting up in the hills when a family of bushpigs came wandering into the area. These pigs are nocturnal and very seldom seen and must have been heading to their resting place for the day. There was a boar, 3 sows and 3 piglets. The wild dog pups just had to harass them, but these pigs are pretty vicious and stood their ground. They even wanted to have a go at me when I ventured closer! The pups had no joy with them and the pigs soon moved on.