Saturday 17 November 2012

The Painted Dogs

Up again at 445 to another baby elephant stuck in the mud. BOO URNS! Can't they just get the hint, we pretty much watched the small guy walk in to get some water and not get back out.
And, to anyone. . . it was heartbreaking watching the mother try to hard to get her calf out with her trunk. After about a 1/2 hour of trying, she started stressing bad. . . *tear*
There was a dead elephant on the ground that she would stomp on and kneel down to spear it with her tusks.
Ya, I think any mom would be insane if she couldn't get her baby out.

SO ! Team Canada to the RESCUE !

We managed to save the calf!!!. . .  but this time the mom was a little more crazy than normal! Jason got a stellar iPhone video of the mom charging us. *sorry my head is in the way some of the time lol*

Click here for the YouTube link (and share!)


After our dynamic rescue, we set out around camp and came across 3 painted dogs (formally called Wild Dogs)! Very rare to see I guess and we were all pretty excited to see them. Made me miss Zoey lol !

So we followed them for a while until they found a nice place to sleep lol, we thought they might have been in "hunt" mode, but they soon found some shade and didn't budge :P





Found a unicorn antelope LOL
 These pictures made my DAY! I have never been one to photograph birds, but this guys was just so perfect from the moment he left the tree (sorry, I cannot remember what he is specifically)





Julian - Most Epic guide ever
Went north again on our game drive, but then went for a hourlong walk around the rocks. Found a bull elephant to follow for a little while (hehehe) it is funny cause for a HUGE creature, we made 100x more noise than he did.

Saw lizards, impala, some other smaller antelope... 

Thankfully, while we were on foot, we didn't see any cats :P


**I would like to say we are chilling, but it is like 40 degrees!
We went up top of these rocks to be sneaky and search for wildlife

We were down wind, so we were able to sneak behind him for a while :P
*the elephant, not our guide lol*
We called him the "flying banana"
We came back to watch TWO elephants get stuck. 
Gay. The water to the death trap has been shut off until they can redo the watering hole. . . meaning the elephants will still come, but will leave just as quickly when they find out that there is not water.
MEANING no more stuck elephants (or zebras)

But! The larger one was able to finally get out... And after much debate, the camp crew went out and pulled out the little guy. Jason, Gavin and I stayed back and watched from our rooms.

The calf wasn't on his side but legs fully into the mud, so it took a lot longer to get a chain around his leg and get him out. Which mom wasn't too happy with lol
She almost called their bluff when they blocked her with the vehicle and from where we were sitting (our cabin) it looked like she nudged the front bumper with her trunk !! 
Thankfully, no one was hurt and the Land Cruiser is still intact :P
But yeaa! The little calf was pulled out and mom trumpeted her thank you lol (similar to the video from this morning)


Momma making herself look huge and wanting to get near her baby

Mama calling their bluff

nudge nudge. . .  eeeep!
After a quick nap, we headed out on our evening game drive. . . Two beer and a bottle of wine later (heheheeeee), we saw some elephants, birds, roan antelope, and a Ganet (small cat)






Lol Washington wanted to catch a cicada for me, but Jason ended up grabbing one and came screaming out of the trees hahahaha. . .  pussy :P




Dinner was stellar (again) but I was so tired.

Julian gave us 45 more minutes to sleep in lol yippeeeeeeee *sigh*

At 3am we had elephants walk by our cabin *jason was freaking out cause he thought we were going to get eaten or something. . . I just looked up and said "SSSHHHHH stop shining the light and get back into bed!*

Julian says (lol) if it is totally quiet and you can't hear the crickets anymore. . .  then you should start to get worried!

And then we heard the lions :D and hyenas. 
Hyenas are REALLY neat to hear from 50 yards away hehehe

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