ABOUT THIS IMAGE... ‘Death in the Long Grass’

Whenever I visit the Kruger National Park, South Africa, or any other destination for that matter, bad weather will accompany me. It has become standard upon my return for my family and friends to ask, “How many days of rain did you experience?” (They have suggested that there may be a lucrative future for me as a rainmaker – I know my own luck though, and the day I set forth to bring rain to parched areas of the subcontinent, the bad weather will leave me high-and-dry.)

Jacqui and I had spent a week and a half with incessant rain and skies blanketed in thick grey clouds at Tamboti Camp near the western border of Kruger. Despite the bad weather, our stay at Tamboti had so far been delightful – as any time spent in Kruger always is. I had kept busy with photography throughout, focussing especially on the antics of a resident pair of black-backed jackals that kept me occupied for a large part of our stay. So far, however, the wet weather had kept the larger predators skulking in thick bush – not a tail, not a whisker, had been sighted on this trip.

I avoid long trips on photographic adventures. I travel an average of between 10 to 20 kilometres in the early morning and a similar distance in the late evening. Midday hours are invariably spent in camp. However, on this occasion I relented – it was the last full day we were to spend in the park and we were in desperate need of some supplies (tea and tobacco, as one of my favourite songwriters sings). I decided that a day trip to a different part of the park, albeit in near-constant drizzle was necessary and bearable.

The tar road between Tamboti and Satara camps is just over 50 kilometres long, a good three hour drive excluding any time spent at sightings of game along the way. Just eight kilometres out of camp, two massive hyaena females loped across the road in front of us at speed. They were visibly nervous – while travelling quickly, they kept on stopping to approach dense bushes with caution, heads kept low and backs kept high. On several occasions, they leapt sideways (and even backwards) from single bushes, always resuming their hasty trot across the veld almost immediately. Within minutes, they had vanished over the visible horizon. An all too fleeting, yet mesmerizing, encounter. The rest of the trip to Satara proved to be uneventful.

At Satara, we completed our necessary shopping as quickly as possible. After a mid-morning snack and a relaxing saunter around camp, we set off to head back to Tamboti just after midday. Four kilometres outside of Satara camp, the road was blocked completely by traffic. In the midst of the chaos stood at least half a dozen ‘safari vehicles’ with jeep-jocks and clients. A little further along the road from this heap, the front portion of a dead Impala ram, wedged in the fork of a tree 40 metres from the roadside, indicated what everyone was hoping to spot.

I loathe such Kruger traffic jams. Usually I wend my way through the chaos and continue driving. Revving engines, the chatter of people and the inane lectures and inevitable bad jokes of the jeep-jocks make the hairs on this old dog's neck rise. However, on this one occasion, we decided to hang around. We had dipped out on cats this trip, it was drizzling and we were heading home the following morning. It took me a while to manoeuvre through the knot of vehicles. Once we had left the gridlock behind us, I picked a spot from which we could watch the tree at some distance away from the rumpus. Let's give it an hour.

The coffee (tea for Jacqui), rusks and tobacco had relaxed me. I forgot about time. Now and then shouts from the knot down the road indicated that someone had seen the flick of an ear, the twitch of a whisker, among the dense shrubs and tall grasses. Suddenly the traffic jam roared into life; engines revving, hooters tooting, it came hurtling towards Jacqui and my parking spot. Within half a minute 30 or more cars had engulfed us.

With that, a leopard cub started hauling itself up the vertical trunk of the tree. The effort to do this was massive for such a young animal. At times the cub stuck to the side of the tree-trunk like a flat wall-spider to a rock. The cub made the climb and started sniffing and licking at the dead impala ram whose tongue was still protruding from between tightly clenched lips. All youngsters love to play and this leopard cub fitted the mould perfectly. As if used to star performances, the cub strutted along the big boughs, staring out at the bushveld while standing or perching, then circling its prey at some distance. After a few minutes the cub’s performance was complete – it slipped down the trunk of the tree and vanished.

I turned to look at Jacqui. The delight at her first sighting ever of a young leopard was obvious – her eyes switched from expressions of deep thought to squints of inner laughter. Jacqui then looked at her watch. “You know we have just over an hour to get back to camp?”

It took me more than a quarter of an hour to navigate through the tangle of steel that had surrounded us. This left exactly the time required to get back to Tamboti at the maximum speed limit allowed. I had broken the rules of photographic outings and would now have to travel in a manner that I did not agree with – speeding through a most magical park at 50 kilometres per hour during the last hour of the day. I was disgusted with myself. To make matters worse, the light was fading rapidly because of the dense cloud cover. There was no time for game watching or sightseeing. Both Jacqui and I peered straight ahead into the gloom that stretched out in front of us, concentrating on every dark blob and blotch beside the road, knowing that at the speed we had to travel and in this light an elephant stepping into the road would prove disastrous.

Eight kilometres from camp, as we slid over a rise, the car’s headlights picked up a shape on the road. A very large male leopard sauntered along in the same direction we were travelling. I slowed immediately, allowing the leopard to move at his own pace. As we neared, he decided to head into a thick clump of grass.

I stopped the vehicle some 15 metres ahead of the leopard and set up my camera. I knew from experience that I had an extremely slight chance of making the shot. I knew too that if I could pan the camera at a very low shutter speed (1/5^th of a second in this case) and track exactly the movement of the beast, the dense grass in front of the leopard would be blurred to non-existence. With a bit of luck leaving an outline of the beast sufficiently well-defined on the exposure. I took five shots – only one proved useful in the end: ‘Death in the Long Grass’.

We made it to camp just on time, despite the five-minute stop for this most majestic of old hunters. Never again have I travelled like this.

REMINISCENCES: A Yellow Mongoose Marvel

 
The Kgalagadi Transfrontier National Park is a favoured destination for local and overseas wildlife photographers alike. The wide riverbeds of the Auob and Nossob, as well as the undulating red dune-fields, provide clear shots of wildlife unencumbered by thick bush. Sadly, I have not had enough opportunities to visit this unique gem in the past.

Several years ago, I decided that Jacqui needed to experience the world of the Kgalagadi. At the time, the only vehicle I could use for the trip was a reliable but very low Ford Lazer Tonic. I had not visited the Kgalagadi for several years before this trip. Therefore, I was not prepared for what lay ahead of us.

At Twee Rivieren, our entry-point into the park, we were informed that the southernmost half of the road leading to Nossob Camp was closed to traffic. We first would have to follow the Auob River that winds its way down from Mata-Mata, then use the Dune Road to cut back onto the Nossob River Road. This detour would add many hours of travel until we finally reached our camp.

We had planned our stay for late December. Having arrived at Twee Rivieren in the middle of the morning, we now trundled off in fierce heat. When we arrived at the junction of the detour and the actual road to Nossob, the second disappointment was revealed. The parks board had decided not to scrape the road along the Nossob River – this was done as part of an ongoing effort to test which best-practice of road maintenance should be implemented in the future to preserve the fragile roads and the environment.

This cessation of road maintenance had left a deeply-rutted track, flanked on each side by a very high shoulder of soft sand. Often, the track was so deep and the verges on either side so high that all Jacqui and I could look at from our very low vantage point was the road ahead. Very often, for a kilometre or more, we could not see the riverbed at all. Worse still, the Kgalagadi had decided to refresh itself with daily thundershowers. Low-hanging grey clouds blanketed the sky early in the mornings and late in the afternoons. There was no chance of capturing exciting images of the Kgalagadi and its many denizens in spectacular soft light on this trip.

At dusk on our second day at Nossob, a large, handsome yellow mongoose male ran hither and thither across the open camping ground. This piqued my interest, and I watched the male mongoose’s actions carefully. After his last foray to the fire-sides of the various groups of campers – to filch some boerewors or a carelessly discarded lamb-chop bone – the mongoose shuffled to a quiet spot far away from all campers and disappeared down a burrow.

Before sunrise the next morning, I scouted out the location of the mongoose burrow very carefully. The yellow mongoose male was nowhere to be seen. On our early return from a morning drive, I noticed that a very sleek female yellow mongoose was sitting just outside of the burrow entrance. From a low grassy knoll, the male approached the female. Their friendly greeting-ceremony left no doubt in my mind that these two adult mongooses were a pair. My suspicions were confirmed when a very small head popped above the lip of the burrow, to look at the strange animal sitting close-by, clicking away at a strange machine held tightly in its hands and balanced on sun-reddened knees. An over-hasty camper approached – the mongoose family fled down their burrow.

In the evening, I again managed to approach the female and her two pups slowly and carefully. They entertained me with glimpses of yellow mongoose family-life. The male did not join in. Sadly, this was in all likelihood the last glimpse I got of the yellow mongoose family.

At midday of the fourth day, I had all but given up on the yellow mongooses. They had obviously moved out of their burrow and had relocated to a safer, less bustling area. The morning had proved to be the hottest yet on this frustrating trip. I was getting ready to lie down to take a brief catnap, when I spotted a yellow flash hurtling past my abode. At least one mongoose had reappeared.

I approached the mongoose burrow very stealthily and very cautiously. I inched forwards, seated on my behind, my face hidden in the deep shadow of a wide-brimmed bush-hat. Still at some distance from me, the male yellow mongoose was dragging a skinny Kalahari Sand Snake towards the burrow entrance. I inched forward very gradually; every time the mongoose dropped the snake to look at me, I froze. My cautious actions must have convinced the snake-dragging mongoose-father that my intentions were honourable, that I meant him and his mongoose-family no harm.

He had approached the burrow to within three metres of its entrance. He dropped the still-writhing snake on the bare ground and sounded out a soft, gentle, high-pitched snarl. Immediately, the heads of the two pups peered out of the burrow at their father. One pup immediately raced across the hot ground to investigate what her or his father had brought. This adventurous pup spent the next ten minutes or so approaching the snake carefully, to sniff at its body, tail and even its crushed head. The more timid pup only followed a while later. Soon the mom-mongoose joined the small family. She herself had been out hunting and returned with a fat Cape Skink.

What a splendid Kgalagadi-gift I had received most unexpectedly. I had been allowed to witness the family-life of a pair of yellow mongooses and their two very young pups. They had accepted my careful approaches for what they were – simply the wish to experience and to capture a tiny fraction of their story.

ABOUT THIS IMAGE... ‘Kudu Cannibal’

 
Marakele National Park (in the Limpopo Province of South Africa) straddles the foothills of the Waterberg Plateau. The western part of the park is rather flat and covered by the typical lowland bushveld found in this part of the country; the eastern part incorporates the first hills and lower mountains of the Waterberg itself. I was visiting this gem of a park in August (midwinter in the southern hemisphere) and the time when the bushveld is compressed to a palette of yellows, browns and greys.

In July and August of the year before my visit, several people had reported sightings of aardvark in the early and late hours of the day. Members of my extended family had even returned with cell phone videos of an aardvark traipsing through grassland in splendid morning light. I had not been able to visit Mokala at that time, but I reckoned that a visit the following year might afford me an opportunity to photograph these nocturnal beasts too. No luck! No one, not even the staff, had seen any aardvark during the day again since the previous year.
 
I never rely solely on one photographic objective. I have never understood the mania of people desperately needing to spot particular species in any wilderness environment. The African bush and landscape form an integral whole of sights, sounds, perfumes, textures and tastes (if, like me, you will stuff wild fruit, grass stems and leaves into your mouth). (Please do not simply taste any vegetable or animal matter. Inform yourself beforehand whether it is safe to do so.) To me, the entirety of the bushveld makes up the experience, not just isolated sightings of a few species. So, in the absence of aardvark, I enjoyed the challenge of capturing the bushveld in its magnificent winter dress.

Wildlife photography is very hard work. The spectacular images presented by photographers make up only a miniscule fraction of time, a few seconds at most, of a year's worth of searching. For several reasons my own trip this time around was proving to be quite a challenge – nothing seemed to work out, nothing seemed to ping into place.
 
One afternoon, as I was leaving the campsite to spend the late afternoon hours hunting shots, I spotted a lone kudu cow in a dense thicket. She was truly stuck in the thick of it and the light was still quite harsh. Therefore, I trundled past at slow speed so that I would not spook her. I had already moved passed this kudu cow and cast a last glance at her. Something was up; she was chewing on something very large, definitely not a bunch of leaves. I drove on for another 25 metres and turned around for another look. As I approached very slowly, the kudu cow moved into an even denser part of the thicket.

Through the branches and leaves, I could see that the kudu was chewing on a knee-joint of some long-dead animal*. She kept on tossing her head back in order to change the grip of her teeth on this unusual fare. She had started frothing from the corners of the mouth, so intense were her efforts at chewing the sinews and bone of her extraordinary meal.

The light was not ideal and leaves, twigs and branches blocked the view; and yet I kept on taking photographs. The actions of the kudu cow, chewing on a piece of another kudu, as it turned out, kept me engrossed. (Later, I located the remainder of the timeworn carcass some 20 metres down the road and confirmed my inklings about the species that had provided this extraordinary meal.) Somehow, the harsh lighting and the chaos of branches augmented my uncanny experience of this incredible sighting of a ‘Kudu Cannibal’.

 

*   I have written previously about osteophagy (the eating of bone by animals) and the possible reasons why this behaviour is relatively common among wild herbivores.

ABOUT THIS IMAGE... ‘My Brother and I’

 
I have written previously about my younger sister, Bärbel, and how she acts as an animal magnet when she accompanies Jacqui and me on photographic trips. At the height of summer a few years ago, we had set off together to spend a week at Balule Camp in the central section of the Kruger National Park in South Africa.

We had left Johannesburg very early in the morning, knowing that we faced a nine-hour drive to get to Olifants Camp where we had to book in for our stay at Balule. (Balule is a satellite camp and does not have its own reception – although several kilometres away from Balule, Olifants Camp administers this function.) At Olifants, we were informed that the low-water bridge along the short route between the two camps was still closed to traffic. That bridge had sustained damage during flooding of the Olifants River the year previously. My mood rocketed – I had already spent nine hours behind the steering wheel and was facing another two-and-a-half to three-hour trip before setting up tents and starting to relax. I was not charmed to say the least.

We started chugging along the tar road to get to Balule. By now, the early afternoon heat had climbed into the high 30-degree (°C) range. We all were drowsy from the heat and the long distance we had already covered. We were rewarded briefly for our travails when a small group of Southern Ground-Hornbill (mother, father and youngster) entertained us for a few minutes before they traipsed off through the dense bush.

Several kilometres beyond the high-level bridge across the Olifants River, a small car stood parked right on the verge of the tar road in the ‘oncoming lane’. As we drew near, I could see that the driver was kneeling on the driver’s seat, and that his body, draped uncomfortably over the backrest, was stretching backwards towards the closed back window on the passenger’s side of the car. The driver was taking ample pictures with his cellphone of some hidden animal through the back window.

I slowed to a stop some 20 metres from the vehicle. (I always wait for a signal from a parked vehicle before approaching finally. If no signal is forthcoming, I will move in very slowly. I do this in order not to spoil the sighting for others. I have missed many opportunities because of this polite behaviour. Nevertheless, I persist because I believe very strongly that all visitors to game reserves should follow this courteous behaviour. Sadly, my caution and my care for others is almost never reciprocated.)

On this occasion, the driver did signal that we should come closer to have a look. Contorted as he was, he kept alternating between snapping pictures and signalling to us frantically. We pulled onto the verge just in front of his vehicle. We scanned the bushveld meticulously. All we could spot was a rather small leopard tortoise ambling through the bushveld some 30 metres from the road. I looked at the position of the driver's head to gauge at what exactly he was aiming his cellphone. Whatever it was, it was really close, no more than five metres or so from the verge of the road. The area he was focussing his attention on was completely bare of shrubs or herbs; what grasses were left had been scythed off at ground level by the herbivores. The area was empty; I would have been able to spot a ground beetle, never mind some animal that would be photographed so keenly.

We studied the bush for another five minutes. Then I let my vehicle roll backwards slowly down the gentle slope of the tar road. I started the engine. Nothing moved. I started driving very slowly to pull up right next to the open driver's window of the parked car.

“Leopard,” the driver hissed at me.
“Where?” was my stupefied reaction.
“Right next to the road,” he replied with a broad grin.

I inched my car forward cautiously, just far enough to allow all of us to peer past the rear end of the parked vehicle. We sat studying the roadside and the short grasses nearby. Still nothing. I had reached a point of weariness and exasperation at which a pesky thought popped into my consciousness: ‘He's pulling your leg; he is bored of seeing no game, so he has decided to get a chuckle out of tricking you’.

The faintest of movements attracted my attention. Two stems of grass next to the verge of the road were wiggling. The grasses were only 20 centimetres high in this area. As I scanned this patch of grasses, I stared suddenly into the bright eye of the leopard, leering at me from between the grass stems. Impossible! The leopard was lying in a ‘ditch’ that was no more than 35 centimetres deep. It had not moved at all during the quarter of an hour we had spent studying this precise spot exhaustively.

The parked car roared to life, the driver gave us a wide grin and the leopard bolted. This leopard was still young and playful. As it jogged away, it performed a few jinks and skips. At a point, it swiped at an object with its right front paw – then it gave a few more little jumps, slowed to a walk and laid down behind a dense shrub. The object the leopard had swiped at was the small leopard tortoise that had been minding its own business.

We now had a beautiful young leopard lying concealed behind a dense bush and a quite small tortoise resuming its slow amble across the veld. So far, I had not taken a shot at anything, and this particular combination of events simply did not impress me. We sat in the heat and waited.

The tortoise was driven by some inner urge – it remained on its chosen course, heading straight towards the hiding young leopard. When the tortoise came close, the young leopard started to inch forward towards the unsuspecting traveller. Boldly the leopard made its final approach, so that half of its body was now visible to us. It looked at us as if to impress on us that the tortoise was its property and not ours.

Finally, the leopard laid a gentle paw on top of the tortoise that by now had retracted its legs and head into its protective shell. The two ‘leopards’ formed an exceptional image:

‘My Brother and I.’

This was our second magnificent sighting, before we had even reached our camp. Bärbel’s charm remained with us for the remainder of the trip. Our stay at Balule came to be a most enchanted week in the bushveld of Kruger.