I have seen the Big Four today. Somewhat unusually it was the Buffalo that denied me the full set. They are normally in abundant supply. However, I am not complaining, it was a very special day that started at 04.30. Up with the lark (which Tony Johnstone later identified as the Monotonous Lark and how well named it is, after its repetitive call), I was ready and waiting at the appointed hour of 05.10 to meet the aforementioned Bushman and self-appointed ranger/wildlife expert for our sortie into the Kruger National Park. Tony, brought up in Rhodesia, used to be a professional golfer on the European Tour. If still playing golf he would have been docked at least a two shot penalty and possibly disqualified for his tardy timekeeping. It mattered not, after a short(ish) brush with bureaucracy we had all the necessary documentation, fees paid and boot searched for weapons to step back in time as we started our fantastic dawn commune with nature.
We had only been driving for five minutes when we saw a cluster of parked cars; always a sign of something interesting. This was better than interesting. It was a male and female lion lying down only feet from the road. Bushman Tony, or BT, (who incidentally really is a very impressive expert, especially on birds, his favourite subject) quickly realised that this was a mating pair. “Let’s just wait here and watch” he said. “They will be mating for a solid four days, with the male climbing aboard every twenty minutes throughout the day and night until he is totally exhausted”. Sure enough, after about ten minutes the female got up and started walking slowly away. Rather less slowly the shaggy topped male padded after her and before you could say “Leo”, he had mounted the dame, let out a spine-tingling roar and been cuffed by his mate for the privilege. BT explained that the male has a barbed penis rather like a bee sting and it hurts the female when he pulls out, hence the slap. What an exciting way to start the day, both for Leo and us. We moved on.
There were plenty of zebra, giraffe, warthogs, and elephants to be admired and photographed, but after our early big cat sighting I really wanted a leopard, the rarest of the Big Five. It was not too much longer before an opposing vehicle slowed to divulge the golden intelligence that he had just been watching the spotted predator up a tree half a mile back. BT engaged an illegal third gear and raced towards our target. Amazingly there was only one other car parked below a tree no more than fifteen metres from the road, where quietly snoring on an extended limb lay the most beautiful of lonely leopards. We admired the gorgeous lady, camera clicking like mad, for ten minutes before a sixth sense told her there were Impala in the area. Impala are a rather lovely small, light-tan coloured buck that are the most prolific of all Kruger’s beasts. They are nicknamed “MacDonalds” as they have black markings on their rumps that look remarkably like Ronald’s ubiquitous Golden Arches. It’s a most appropriate sobriquet as they are chased and eaten by every predator in the park. You see them everywhere and they have the permanent, nervous look of a pickpocket expecting to have his collar felt by the constabulary at any moment. Our (we rapidly came to think of this rare sighting as “ours”) leopard suddenly went from hibernation to full alert in a flash. She shifted and stirred continuously with totally unblinking big, round, yellowish eyes assessing her chances of brunch. We watched and waited for half an hour before those irritating open sided “safari” vehicles arrived with their chattering, excitable loads of generous tipping tourists. With no further action imminent, we retreated to a camp for a coffee and other essential things. (Unlike walking Callie the Whippet on the Sussex Downs, leaping out of the vehicle for relief behind a tree is strictly verboten in the Kruger. BT explained that a male lion can reach 60 mph in about three seconds from a standing start, with ten metre bounds. I was happy to retreat to Stalagluft 15 for the required ablutions.)
BT had been very reluctant to leave the Leopard, so I suggested we should return and see if she was still there. Approaching the lofty lair there wasn’t a car in sight so we feared she had probably moved on…….but wait! She had moved, but only to another branch. Unhindered by other voyeurs we clicked and clicked as the fancy Nikon recorded this extraordinary moment for posterity. From a slothful slumping, with two front and two rear legs hanging down either side of the branch, she shuffled around, slowly licking and washing herself, showing an impressive set of gnashers with enormously wide-mouthed yawns, while keeping a wary eye on any prospective fodder. Then she stood up, stretched, sat in an imperious fashion gazing out over her Kingdom and then, very slowly made her elegant way down the tree, to pad off into the Bush. She paused, cat-like, to sharpen her claws on a nearby tree before slinking off out of our view; the hunt had started.
Lion, Elephant and Leopard already ticked off and I was confident we might notch up the great rarity of spotting the Big Five in one visit to this most hauntingly beautiful of places. Of course, along the way we had spotted all sorts of beautiful raptors and other unidentified flying objects that BT the Ornithologist took great delight in putting names to and even getting quite excited as we spotted a few rather rare examples. I’d love to be able to tell you what they were, but it was such a fusillade of improbable and impossible names that my mind has gone blank.
It wasn’t long before we could add the Rhino to our list. They were all the now more common White rhino, which is so called, not because of its colour but because, unlike the more pointy mouthed Black version, it has a very square (or “wide”) jaw. Presumably “wide” became “white” at some point, though that doesn’t explain where “Black’ came from. I must remember to ask BT.
Ultimately, our day in the hills had come to an end at last, (with no sign of Julie Andrews) and we made our way jubilantly home to beautiful Buhala Lodge, without spotting a single bolshy Buffalo, but content in the knowledge we had seen all a man/woman/transgender/it could hope for on one visit.
Perhaps we should call BT, ET. It really was an extra-terrestrial experience and one to be treasured. Thank you Tony.
ADayInTheStrifeOf 