It’s the magical hour – the hour before dawn, when animals that made it the night start to feel a little at ease, and when the predators seem to find the air at its coolest and it’s the best time to move. Guests are sleeping peacefully, the early morning call from their guide still a few minutes away. Perhaps a few of them are awake already, listening to the early morning sounds: the rustle of the impala moving next to the rooms, the alarm call snort of one impala that has spotted something that is making a move at this early hour, the pandemonium of rushing hoofs as the herd begins to move at pace to escape, and the metallic “thunk” of the… actually, what WAS that? In a scene reminiscent of a Tom and Jerry cartoon, the speeding impala, rushing away from the lions that had decided to take a stroll through camp, dashed through the workshop. One impala was unable to hit the brakes in time and slammed into a parked car. Leaving a few tufts of hair, and some fancy footwork in the sand (skidding hooves…) The impala managed to live another day.
One of the rarest animal sightings a visitor can have is of an aardvark. Sadly, these sightings are now even rarer, as an early morning game drive discovered a male lion breakfasting on one. It was probably a fairly easy catch for a lion, if the aardvark didn’t make it to his hole in time. On a protein-rich diet solely of termites, it was obviously tasty for the lion. Three cheetahs, later the same morning, had a rather more conventional choice of diet, and managed to catch an impala for brunch, with the hunt witnessed from beginning to end.
There was definitely something missing from the lions diet this month, as they ventured into the odder delicacies – three lionesses were found fighting with a pangolin, trying to kill it. Luckily for the pangolin, they couldn’t quite figure out how to make this particular kill, and they ended by giving up and walking away in search of something that was a little more accessible, and didn’t require a can opener.
It is jackalberry season, and it’s a race as to who can eat them all before they disappear. It’s a pretty strong competition, with entrants including elephants, baboons, monkeys, squirrels and humans. The huge jackalberry trees that dot the camps don’t all give fruit, but the ones that do are checked daily to see if the ripened fruit has fallen. The small, yellow-beige fruits taste a little like raisins. Of course, if you are an elephant you want to eat a LOT more of them than a squirrel, so there is some sense of priority. It’s when those tricky people have built their camp – and decks – around the trees, and the smell is just too tantalising… well what is an elephant to do but lean and stretch as far as he can? I am sure those people can just hammer that pole back in to the deck tomorrow…
