Urikaruus, the final episode! (almost!)

As the morning dawned on our final day in this lovely little bush camp, we awoke to find a number of eagles visiting our small haven as they had at various times over the last few days. There was a tawny eagle far away on the other side of the watering hole, just too far for me to get a useful photo. We decided to go out on an early morning drive this morning, and not long after we left camp we saw this eagle with two fork-tailed drongos in attendance.

We had decided to head off in the direction of the lion kill we had seen the day before to see if perhaps there were now other predators or scavengers nosing around what the lions had left behind. Well we were in for a surprise, the lions were still there! This must have been close on 24 hours after they had originally made the kill. There were a number of jackals nosing around in the area, but they were giving the lions a very respectful wide berth. The wildebeest carcass had ben reduced now down to the head and some bones!

This was one of the every hopeful jackals that were patrolling the area.

As we had spent quite a bit of time with these lions the day before we decided to move on, and were rewarded only a few minutes later with the sighting of 3 secretary birds. Two of them were moving in an area quite close to each other and the third was 20 or 30 metres away from them.

As we were watching them one of the birds found something interesting in the grass.

Immediately the other bird rushed over and tried to claim the prize for itself. This started an amazing dance duel!

And just as it started it was over! In fact the time stamps on the three photos above show that each shot was taken one (1) second after the other! So three grand seconds of display and it was all done. Life returned to normal and they continued to forage as they had before.

A little further on we spotted a Namaqua Dove sitting in a tree quite close to the road. These a very pretty little doves (at least in my opinion!) and I had been wanting a decent shot of them for sometime. This was not too bad, but still I'd like to get a better one.

Later on we spotted another secretary bird, some large herds of springbok, one almost get bored with the springbok becuase you see so many. Then a juvenile martial eagle sitting in a tree.

After that we decided to head back to camp and make brunch, we had been out for about two hours and had some nice sightings. I'll leave this post here and wind up our Urikaruus stay in my next post, then we moved on to Nossob .... but that's another days post :-)

all the best

Ivan

http://www.andersen.co.za/

In and around Urikaruus - part 5

Well having given you some bugs (spiders!) and birds in my previous post, we'll move to the bigger beasts again for a while! As I had said we were told that there had been a kill just 8km from our camp. There were apparently four lions (Panthera leo) that had taken down a blue wildebeest (Connochaetes taurinus), and were busy eating it near the road. Now I must warn you, some of the images I will post here you may find a little upsetting or disturbing. It is not my intent to do either, but to simply illustrate what we saw and how nature operates in these wilderness areas. If this concerns you, please skip this post and come back tomorrow when I've posted the next installment!

So we headed off in the direction towards Mata Mata hoping that the lions would still be there and we'd be able to see them nice and close. We had seen lion a few days earlier, but they were so far away and lying still in the shade, so we could not get a decent view, never mind a picture, of them.

Well, just as described about 8km up the road we came across the lions and their prize!

This picture is of the younger female (in the foreground), and the two young males behind her. There were fours lions in total. Two older females and two young males. The three in the image above were lying right on the side of the road. The sandbank you can see in the foreground of the picture is the edge of the road!

The older of the two females was still nibbling at the carcass of the wildebeest. From this picture and the one following it you can see that the lions had eaten the rump and stomach areas of the wildebeest.

But what I found facinating were the butterflies that hovered around the kill area. Clearly in a world where moisture is at a premium these delicate creatures find something of value in the fluids distributed after a kill like this. Did you notice them in the images above? Take another look, click on the image to get a larger view.

After this lioness had eaten a little more she nochalantly picked up the carcass in her moth and dragged it into the shade of the nearby thorn tree. Now an adult wildebeest, which this clearly was, can weigh anything up to 274kg and the maximum weight a female lion is likely to reach is only 182kg. Ok, sure they had eaten a significant amount of meat off the carcass, but chances are that what remained was as heavy if not heavier than the lioness.

Here she is clearly enjoying another nibble after the exertion of moving the carcass.

What followed next was also, for me, an interesting interaction. Firstly, the lions, all four of them, seemed totally unperturbed and uninterested in the four or five vehicles that had gathered around their lunch table, despite the close proximity. Plus the camera lenses sticking in their faces and clicking sounds of photos been taken and the hum of voices from the various ocupants in the vehicles, all seemed to be of absolutely no interest to the lions at all. But I digress! The lioness that was at the carcass had gotten up and one of the young males had started to move towards her and the wildebeest. 

As he moved past the lioness that had been lying in the shade beside the road with him, he lent down and rubbed his face against hers as she lay there, totally unmoved.   He then moved towards the other lioness near the carcass, her reaction was completely different! She pulled back her ears and snarled at him!

 He simply responded by turning around again and going to lie back down where he had been before!

Just as a matter of interest, for those of you that are a little technical, the shot above of the snarling lioness was taken with 160mm focal length and has not been cropped at ALL. In fact the only shots cropped in this post are the one of the butterflies and the portrait of the male cub. That's how close we were to the action!

all the best

Ivan

http://www.andersen.co.za/

It's been a long time .....

I haven't managed to get around to posting here for some time, as I've been busy / distracted / lazy .... or whatever else you may care to call the excuse ;-). I've decided to change the initial direction a little, and focus more on my experiences of taking photos and how my journey is developing (pun intended).

So, if you don't like it talk to her ....... ^  ................. this beautiful lady allowed us within metres of her and her small pride on a recent trip into the Kgalagadi transfrontier park. I'll detail some of our experiences in later post. In the meantime I've created a new website which I am populating with my images, and would apprecaite any feedback comments/ input you may have.
http://www.andersen.co.za/

all the best
Ivan