Today’s post covers the drives yesterday afternoon and this morning. Don’t forget to click the photos to enlarge them. And we saw another leopard!
I won’t put up a link or the Latin binomials for animals I’ve done that for already.
At lunch yesterday a vervet monkey (Chlorocebus pygerythrus) somehow found its way into the dining room and made for my plate (I was writing on this site in the adjacent room). But I’d eaten all my lunch, and so it thrust its hand into my water glass and licked off the drops (much like the black cat Toon in Amsterdam). Vervets are social primates that range widely in East and South Africa, and have been extensively studied by biologists. Here’s a photo of the little guy, who was adorable but skittish:
Another day, another herd of impala, perhaps the most common antelope in the reserve. The males are the ones with horns, but they are very skittish and I’ve had trouble getting a front-on picture of the impressive males. I’ll try again this afternoon.
We’ve not seen many common ostriches in the park—just this one. Like the one near the Cape of Good Hope, it crossed the road, giving rise to an obvious joke:
A couple of elephants yesterday afternoon. It’s amazing to come upon one of these all of a sudden; sometimes I can’t spot them until we’re very close to them, as they often stand still.
A blue wildebeest, one of only two sister species in the genus Connochaetes, the other. being the black wildebeest. Both are mammals formerly known as gnus. I asked our guide and driver, Dan, why this one let us get to close to him. Dan replied that this wildebeest was an old friend of his.
Wildebeest poop: extraordinarily small (about goat-poop sized, or the size of blueberries) for an animal this large. I’m told that this is because wildebeest have the four classic stomach compartments of many ruminants, and thus digest the short grass they eat very thoroughly, leaving only small, hard remnants of their food.
In contrast, elephants have poor ability to digest grass and foliage, and their droppings are huge, as we discover when we walk to and from our tents (the camp is crawling with elephants night and day). I’m trying to make a photographic collection of animal droppings for your delectation.
Mother and baby elephant:
Surprised by another elephant standing behind a tree:
A giraffe stood nearby as we had our “sundowner” drinks outside the vehicle. Some misguided zoologists have revised the single species Giraffa camelopardalis into four species based on genetic differences alone. Since no two of them occur in one locality, one can’t use the biological species concept, but my guess is that there’s only one species of giraffe and all the subspecies would interbreed and produce fertile hybrids if they occurred in one locality (see posts here and here).
And two sundown photos of the giraffe:
We left this morning heading for a pride of lions that had been spotted, but when Dan got out of the vehicle to look for them in a ravine, he accidentally spooked them. But we had some serendipity: he saw a leopard sleeping in a tree above him, (the guy can find stuff, I tell you). We maneuvered around the other trucks, which didn’t seem to disturb the cat, until we were right below it.
It looked comfortable as hell, with its legs hanging down as it snoozed away. Two leopard spottings in two days: that’s fantastic.
On the way out, the ever-vigilant Dan, who was driving, nevertheless spotted some leopard tracks in the sand. He circled one of them for me:
A female greater kudu (Tragelaphus strepsiceros) either urinating or defecating. They’re relatively uncommon, so I may not get another picture. I’ve put a Wikipedia picture of the male below mine:
A photo of a greater kudu male from Wikipedia. Its spiral horns are striking:
This is more of less what “the bush” looks like around here, though this patch has a bit more trees than usual. It’s dry as it’s winter, and the rains come in summer; but this year summer was extraordinarily dry and the animals therefore stressed for food.
A panoramic shot of the bush. Click to enlarge:
h/t: Rosemary for IDs and information
Thank you for sharing your experience and photos, Jerry. Fantastic! We mostly just see wild bunnies around here. Brad Day, Boston
Yes, I had an Impala for a couple years. 🤦♀️
Bro, you are seeing some amazing things; I wish I was with you. Why not take your sister the next time?!
Yes. He must.
But you can some visit Susan…… 😊
I would love to someday! Thank you.
Your driver really knows his stuff if he could spot those footprints while driving!
Can you give us a photo of Dan and his/your safari vehicle, please? It will help me picture or at least imagine the scene behind the camera. Thanks!
Jim, I’m pretty sure Jerry included a picture of him either yesterday or on day one.
Thanks debi. Yes. In the “sundowner” tailgating picture yesterday. I had not remembered or it just had not registered with me. Got a sense both for Dan and the vehicle in that.
It’s coming, Bat.
Most qualified guides (though not all) have to pass a rigorous exam (via FGASA – Field Guides Association of South Africa). Tracking and identifying animal scat (and more) is part of the training.
The vehicle (also) moves pretty slowly over dirt roads and it’s a game vehicle, open on all sides with clear views of the ground/dirt.
A few months in the bush and you would have no great difficulty identifying most of the common tracks (prints). It does take time and effort though.
And some of these guides are (indeed) brilliant.
CliffsNotes:
https://africageographic.com/stories/kudu/
Quote:
“There are two species of kudu – the greater kudu (Tragelaphus strepsiceros) and the lesser kudu (Tragelaphus imberbis). Though humans could probably have done a better job with the common names (“lesser” is a bit pejorative, is it not?), the monikers accurately capture the size difference between the two.”
Male Kudu have the largest horns among antelopes; spiraling up to ~6 feet.
Eland:
The Giant Eland is the largest antelope in the world. Both males and females have horns; the females (generally) have smaller, thinner horns.
Eland and Elephant | Ranger Insights
Great video, Rosemary. Thx
I love these big bulls.
… I can watch them all day. And sometimes I do while on a field trip with the community kids.
🐘🐘🐘
Six-foot long spiraling horns! Wowza!
[ speechless ]
^^^no words can express!
/written language limits
Great series and narration!
Some year’s ago, my wife enjoyed a safari in SA. Our ranger referred to “ABIs”: another bloody impala. 😀
I love the story about the monkey taking water from your glass. He is indeed a cutey. And the leopard sleeping in the tree is priceless. What a fun fun trip you’re having. I’ll bet returning will be tough.
He’s going to stay in the bush. With the monkeys.
Having gained vervet approval and undergone their initiation ceremony…
🙂
Yes.
So enjoying this series of photos and the background info. Today, the “old friend” wildebeest does look like a dear old thing. Here’s an interesting tidbit from LiveScience on the nomenclature:
Wildebeest is an Afrikaans name that means “wild beast.” Gnu is a derivation of the name used by native Africans. The names are used interchangeably. A gathering of gnus is called a herd. However, James Lipton (of “Inside the Actors Studio” fame) coined the phrase “implausibility of gnus” in his 1968 book “An Exultation of Larks.” He didn’t explain what he meant. The term caught on, and according to the Terms of Venery blog, there have been at least 63 published works that use the phrase.
This calls for Flanders & Swann: I’m a gnu.
I’m a gnother gnu!
G stands for Gnu, whose weapons of Defence
Are long, sharp, curling Horns, and Common-sense.
To these he adds a Name so short and strong,
That even Hardy Boers pronounce it wrong.
How often on a bright Autumnal day
The Pious people of Pretoria say,
‘Come, let us hunt the—‘ Then no more is heard
But Sounds of Strong Men struggling with a word.
Meanwhile, the distant Gnu, with grateful eyes
Observes his opportunity, and flies.
MORAL
Child, if you have a rummy kind of name,
Remember to be thankful for the same.
–Hilaire Belloc
A Moral Alphabet
Thanks for the photos. What a great trip.
Great photos! Thankyou. However no mention of elephant dropping and dung beetles as yet; I hope you can get to observe them; they put on quite a show!
I’ve looked in a cursory manner. With so much elephant dung around, the park should be overrun with beetles but I’ve seen nary a one!
Such beautiful photos. Quite the experience.
There’s a nice article today in the print version of the Washington Post about an elephant sanctuary (the article is from late June it seems but still): https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2024/06/28/kenya-elephants-reteti-sanctuary-rewilding/
“For your delectation”? More like “defecation”, amirite? I’ll be here all week.
Much like the monkey, when my 10-month-old granddaughter is confronted by an unfamiliar beverage, she dips her hand in it and licks it off.
I’m interested in the concept of identifying species by genetics alone. How would that work? How much genetic difference would be enough to say that there is a species difference?
It is purely subjective so specify a cutoff number. But that’s what they do. One way around this is to look at the average genetic distance between sympatric species that don’t interbreed, and use that as a rough estimate, but this number varies tremendously between species!