Imfolozi dag 10: Wild dog call up being disturbed by predators.

Woensdag 28-11-2018

Imfolozi dag 10:     Wild dog call up being disturbed by predators.

Dieren vandaag gezien / Animals spotted:

·         African wild dog

·         Lion

·         Spotted hyena

·         White-headed vulture

·         Wooley necked stork

·         Elephant

·         Impala

·         Kudu

·         Warthog

·         Buffalo

·         Giraffe

·         Blue wildebeest

Today we were planning on another call up. We were supposed to leave at 4 am. Kat and Jordan were late again. I got in to an argument with Kat about it and Ryan told us to be nice each other for the remaining time. I felt a bit scolded and this made me a bit sad.

We arrived late for meeting Roan but he was still there. We found a good spot to start the call up from and chained up the bait on a tree. Ryan started hoo-calling and it didn’t take the dogs long to start moving. Fi was in the car with Roan and Ryan with us. The dogs came to the bait except for the alpha pair and Oman. Oman was the one who had to be darted so this complicated it a bit. Apparently they were behind Roan’s car. The dogs were enjoying the meet and then something unexpected happened. The dogs started running and a lioness came out of the bush and charged the meat. Another one was close but stayed behind. The dogs scattered and ran. Ryan was so pissed of that he chased away the lions with the car and it worked but the dogs were gone. We turned around and tried to locate them. We got signal but they were not planning to come out of the bush. We drove back to the bait to get the chains. The lions were on the bait but scattered when we arrived. Then a spotted hyena showed up to check out the smell. It was very calm and was a great photo model. Ryan got out of the car very slowly, we could hear the lions growl at him. He succeeded and got the chains and what was left of the bait. We followed the dogs but after a while we decided it was not going to happen. We had morning tea. Roan left and we started looking for the cheetahs: CF17, CM13, CF21. We got signal but all of them were hiding in the bush. We waited for a while but we didn’t get a visual. We left and drove along the fence line. I thought I recognised it and I did. It was near to weare we called back in Neni and Ndaba last time. Whilst driving we came across a white headed vulture. This was special because there are only 8 of them left in South Africa, this means 4 breading pairs. This is not enough to save this species and the will probably go extinct in the next few years. Some more fun driving was happening and we heard a lion in the distance. We drove to another beautiful spot that I had been to only once. It was where the black iMfolozi enters the park. We found footprints and we could hear the lion roar. To see if we could find him we drove to another spot on the river. Wow what a view. And we found a male lion from the Sontuli pride. He was sent marking and then disappeared into the bush.

It had been a very interesting morning and we drove back to camp.

I was still a bit upset and didn’t feel like spending time with the others. Fi had told me that wat Ryan sad wasn’t meant for me. It made me feel a bit better but I still don’t like Kat. So I stayed in my room and around 1 pm I decided to go and sit at the rock. I sat here for 2 hours. I got cold and didn’t see much at all but is was a good way to clear my head a bit. While being her I didn’t really see any animals, just a buffalo, warthog, a yellow billed kite and some cattle egrets. When I got in the kitchen everybody was ready to leave. Apparently Fi thought we were leaving at 3 but the others thought at 3.30 pm. Lucky me, because I thought at 4. I got changed quickly and was ready in time but didn’t have any food.

We left at 3.30 pm to go on the afternoon session. We looked for the cheetah’s but couldn’t find them.