November 9, 2012

1310

On the deck.  Day started out cold with rain, then brightened and then just a few moments of sunlight.  Now its clouding up again and it’s once again quite cool.  Last night was cold enough for two blankets.  Unusual for this time of year.

Good morning so far.  Rushed off to see lions at the buffalo kill, but never had much of a shot.  They do have little cubs – we could hear them – but we never got more than a glimpse of them through the brush.  Headed back to the leopard but finally it moved on.  Took a slow ride back, photographing yellow billed hornbill and black-bellied bustard.  When we hit the turnoff near out camp, we checked on our jackals.  Didn’t see much going on so photographed three ostrich nearby.  Then we noticed that there was a termite emergence happening right there and the adult jackals were going crazy.  A termite emergence is a phenomenon where thousands of flying termites emerge from underground colonies at about the same time.  It usually follows rains, when conditions are somehow right for the termites.  It’s a time of huge excitement for many of the animals.  Termites are good nutrition and they literally emerge in the tens of thousands.  It’s a time of gluttony for birds, frogs, many mammals and other insects.  The jackals were running around like crazy, zigzagging and leaping into the air.  They hardly knew which direction to turn.  We then found one of the pups, who also was chasing down the termites.  Good fun for them and good shooting for us, though I am a little worried about where the other pup was.

Black-backed jackal leaping for termites

Lunch in the company of a dwarf mongoose and I should be taking a nap but instead I spent time editing images and now a brief entry.  We are also rigging up the GoPro to take another stab at catching the Little Bastards.  They didn’t come yesterday, we think because of the heavy rain.  So we think they’ll be hungry and we’ll be ready for them.

Word is that Aislin got her braces off today.  I can’t wait to see her.