Looking For The Lion

Wednesday 17 april

Everyone at the camp knew that the female lion was somewhere in the vicinity, injured but still mobile. We went out looking for her in the morning before it was hot. Although our excellent guide was confident that she was in a particular thicket, our circling it a few times in the vehicle did not bring her out. Too bad. But here are some tracks:

We did see some cool birds. Because of the sound of its call, this one is known as the Go-Away Bird:

We also saw the smaller group of elephants as the researchers expected we would. And we saw this indentation in a steeply sloping sand dune (sorry for the shadow):

which is evidence of an elephant sliding down the dune. No kidding.

A new animal was the steenbok, smaller than the springbok, and much less frequently encountered, at least by us:

This particular Wilderness Safaris camp hosts (in addition to the lion and elephant researchers) a woman who is studying brown hyenas. She gave us a fascinating summary of her work, giving us a new apppreciation of scavengers in general and hyenas in particular. Not a job you can do from an office.