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The Last Day: Even More Wild Dogs

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Somehow four days had flown past and already it was our last day.  I couldn't believe how fast the time had flown. Mana seems to offer something new every day and this morning it was a very large bull elephant, flat out asleep behind the cook tents.  We watched from a distance, reluctant to disturb him and speculating if he was ok - it's very unusual behaviour.  We were pleased to see him wandering around like normal when we drove out of camp. Very unusual pose for an elephant Cooking facilities are interesting when there isn't any power - the termite mound pizza oven!  Delivered great pizzas and the termites are still happily living in the top part. Everyone was very quiet on the morning drive.  It seemed to be all about birds, with virtually no game.  "Squirrel!" Slender mongoose who posed nicely for us and didn't just disappear instantly Soaring juvenile bateleur eagle Bateleur boogie - a fu...
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Day 4 - Wild Dogs

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The drive was fairly slow to start, a few eagles in distant treetops but not much else.  A short walk was tried in the hopes of finding lion tracks but no bueno.  We did see a giant eagle owl fly past extremely briefly. Of course even if there isn't anything "exciting" there is always something beautiful - like waterbuck Driving on - "lions!"  The same four lionesses that had walked through camp last night.  Lounging on a little rise, very relaxed in the morning sun.  We spent a long time watching them, with a photographer from National Geographic.  He is doing a lot of filming of the lionesses and was hoping that they'd bring out a cub. Lounging lioness Once the lionesses had moved off over the hill we moved on as well, stopping at Long Pool. Photographers getting ready . . . . . . for this. After that we drove through the open plains for a while - quite different from the bush and forest we'd been in up un...
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Day 3 in Mana Pools - so many elephants!

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Everyone was very eager to get going so we were loaded in the Landdrover and driving out of camp at 6am.  We headed up river in the hopes of seeing wild dogs but the scientists tracking them said they were 2km into the bush. The African Wild Dog tracking team Reversing direction we headed back to the lion tracks we'd seen earlier.  Alex found where they'd left the road but the tracks looked to be from last night. White Fronted Bee-eater On we went, to find the remarkable Boswell at Mucheni Camp.  Boswell is a large bull elephant who is famous for being able to stand on his hind legs and reach branches that the other elephants can't.  There are only a few elephants at Mana Pools who do this so it's another marvellous part of visiting this park. Boswell was very obliging and stood on his hind legs not long after we'd got out of the Landy.  What wasn't quite so obliging was the somewhat distracting surroundings of vehicles and tents. ...
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