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In the space of about an hour and a
half that evening, we saw a kori bustard, ostriches, our first secretary
bird on this trip (that teeters along as if on high heels), a large herd
of springbok, blue wildebeests, 2 jackals, ground squirrels, a Kalahari
tent tortoise and several buck carcasses.
The next day we drove the long loop and, in addition to the above, saw
loads of gemsboks (oryxes), 6 steenboks, a mongoose, cape glossy
starlings, a northern black korhaan, a swallow-tailed bee-eater, a
crimson-breasted shrike, herons, several southern pale chanting goshawks
and a nesting couple of vultures. We were about to give up on seeing any
lions, when a couple driving in the opposite direction told us to look
out for a mating pair that they had seen about 14 kms from Twee Rivieren
gate. We found them all right, but they seemed to be exhausted from
their day’s exertions and were lying rather far apart. Lions are known
to mate about 10 times a day while the female is on heat and they even
forget to eat or drink!
After a long wait of about an hour, we decided to drive back to our room
for a short rest and then return shortly before park closing time at 7
p.m. to see if we could catch them in action. But nothing doing! They
were lying close to each other this time so the cats had probably been
playing while the humans were away…
13 November 2007. Feeling like a couple of would-be paparazzi, we
entered the park at opening time 5.30 a.m. and headed straight for the
place where we had seen the lions. Angela was the first to spot the male
and then the female, lying about 100 m from her mate. They had moved 2
km south during the night. They were much further from the road and we
would probably have missed them if the male hadn’t been sitting up as we
approached.
We waited and waited for something to happen. After about half an hour,
the male got up and started to walk towards the female, but then slumped
to the ground and went back to sleep. About an hour later, there were
mighty lion roars from both of them. And after almost two hours of
waiting, we were finally rewarded by some lion action that lasted all of
10 seconds. One could almost call it an ‘anti-climax’!
We drove the small loop today and almost ran over a bright yellow cape
cobra that darted out of the way into a hole. On our way back south on
the western side of the loop, we found a jackal devouring a fresh buck
carcass. Another jackal had picked up the scent and was making its way
towards the carcass as we passed.
Quite apart from the animals we saw, the scenery was quite beautiful
with desert flowers and different colours of sand, sometimes changing
abruptly from pink to beige. |
Yellow mongoose
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Cape glossy starling
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