Three wild dogs appeared in front of the camp, from the west. They were hunting, and moved off into the woodland. Two more dogs came to the water hole the next morning to drink. Towards the middle of the month, the pack of five again rested in front of the camp.
Lions were seen almost every day that we went out on drive. The big pride of lions (16 of them) were fit and well and spent a lot of time lounging around the main waterhole. They also came to the camp, to sample that water hole as well, but they were continually interrupted by grumpy elephants that were not keen to see them around.
The cheetah mother with two cubs was also seen, and is doing well. They had hunted and killed a springbok near the Wildlife camp, and then another one next to the main waterhole.
As the heat continues, it was elephants, elephants and more elephants making life difficult for other animals and humans alike. With up to 400 coming to the camp waterhole, crowding was at its maximum, with queuing systems thrown out the window. Breeding herds, not often seen in large numbers at Nxai were pushing their way to the front, to make sure that they had enough to drink so that they could produce milk for the youngsters. Smaller animals had to wait and wait and wait. As the larger bull elephants also got sick of waiting and bullying each other, they continued to make forays into the camp, completely ignoring the boosted up electric fence that had been erected. Everyone is constantly looking skyward, in the hope that rain will arrive and the majority of the elephants will disappear, leaving only (very large) footprints behind (and a lot of broken deckwork…)
