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.