uMkhuze dag 3: Finding MCM23

Woensdag 24-10-2018

uMkhuze dag 3:      Finding MCM23

Dieren vandaag gezien / Animals spotted:

·         African wild dog

·         Cheetah

·         Impala

·         Nyala

·         Spotted thick-knee

·         Giraffe

·         Zebra

·         Blue wildebeest

·         Vervet monkey

·         Baboons

·         Eastern stripped skink

·         Spotted hyena

This morning session was about MCM23. We left at 4.15 to go and find him. On our way we came across a spotted hyena. I saw him while he was running. When we pulled up next to him he walked back. He picked up a bone with some meat left on it and crossed the road. He looked around a few times to make sure we didn’t follow him

We moved on and got back on the road on the fence line. The signal was stronger than yesterday. After we had apparently passed the cheetah we turned around. Emilie saw him lying underneath a bush. It was difficult to see him. We waited till he got up, because we had to see if he had eaten. But he didn’t get up. After waiting for about an hour we decided to drive a little bit closer, trough the branches. He got up for a second and then laid down again. After that he got up two more times, once to stretch and the other to walk away. We then took of to look for the dogs. We didn’t found them so we went back to camp. Here we arrived around 10 am. I decided to go back to bed. I woke up again at 2. So almost an 4 hour nap. It did me good.

At 3.30 pm we left for our afternoon session. We went for the dogs. It did take us to long before we found the 3 boys. They had been hiding in the bush first and then laid down on the road for a long time. One of the yearlings was grooming the other two dogs. This was so lovely to watch. He took his time to do this. During all of this Teegan explained about the trip to Saint Lucia. All four of us decided to go. When we drove of the dogs were following us. I think this is because they think they are being fed.

We tried to look for the females but while we were doing this Teegan got a message to inform her MCM22 got out again. So off we were. When we were almost at the gait we heard he was back in the park. We turned around and drove back to the camp. We arrived nicely on time and made some paste. The boys had made a fire in the mean time and this is where we had dinner.