An afternoon at the Okaukuejo water hole

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We spent a great couple of hours at the Okaukuejo water hole one afternoon, elephants everywhere.  The water hole is placed on the edge of the NWR camp and gets plenty of visitors, human and animal during the day.  We had a particularly enjoyable afternoon there before we returned to the Eagle Tented Lodge for the evening.

It started with a single elephant and hundreds of impala and smaller animals at the waterhole just taking it easy and enjoying a relaxing drink or bath at the waterhole.  The old bull who was there was pretty relaxed as you can see by the photo on the left, he has his trunk casually draped over his tusk surveying the land around him.  Then along comes a young interloper, the good news is that all he was interested in was a quick bath and drink, not intent on causing any trouble.  The big fella saw him coming and spent some time sniffing the air and went out to meet him, the smaller guy did the right thing and stepped aside, no sense in having a dust up when all you want is a drink and a cooling bath.

Their peace didn't last long as about 15  minutes later a whole herd of elephants, from calves to large matriarchs came down and stirred things up a little.  The two males showed some interest as males normally do but the herd coming in was intent only on getting to the water and enjoying themselves.  The babies in particular had a ball as the following shots show.  

 

The dust that you can see isn't crap photography, that's the dust that they were making and also some dust kicked up by the departing animals.  They saw this herd of elephants heading in and decided that they would make some room for the new guys.  

 

Just as well too as they really did take over the place, water baths, playing submarines and plenty of dust baths, all the while looking after the calves they had in the herd.

One of the younger bulls played submarine while the others around him were hosing themselves and others in the waterhole.  He ended up laying right down and just snorkelling away having a great time.
 

The highlight though was the antics of the young calves that formed part of the herd, they were just having a blast.  The little fella on the left had spent some time getting dusted off and was having some problems getting back to his feet.

Mum sorted things out and gave them both a good dust bath as you can see in the shot to the right.

You can see that after a quick cooling, dip a dust bath was high on the agenda for many of the elephants.

The youngsters continued to have fun, charging out of the water chasing down the smaller animals.

Boundless energy and a mischievous streak in the younger elephants, chasing the smaller mammals away from the water, just for the fun of it.

And that's how we spent an extremely pleasant couple of hours, photographing the elephants at the Okaukuejo water hole.  What started with some nice shots of an old bull just hanging around the waterhole ended up being a great afternoon, photographing the whole herd just having fun.
(My apologies to my wife, in transferring shots from her camera to the laptop, I deleted around 100 files, much to my embarrassment and her annoyance)

 

Cheers

DADFAP

Rhino poaching court case

I've posted a few times on the Rhino poaching epidemic that is plaguing South Africa but finally, I can tell you about some of the scum bags that have been caught and charged.

These are not poor subsistence farmers who are doing this to eke out a living, no, these are educated, professional people who have been systematically purchasing and slaughtering Rhino simply to make some extra cash.





These are people who own game farms, who have purchased Rhino from KRUGER PARK in a sophisticated scheme, run by the game park owners in conjunction with vets and slaughtered them for their horn.

Scumbag Dawie Groenwald

If this bastard of an act was being perpetrated by some poor farmers to make ends meet, you could almost rationalise the act as a means for survival.  Not in the case of the scum of the earth below, they were in it simply for the money, greedy, pathetic people who should be shunned and treated as the pariahs they are.

The bastards involved:



Scumbag Tielman Erasmus



Dawie Groenewald:  he has also been fined for illegal hunting methods (canned hunting) by a US court

http://www.huntingreport.com/worldupdate.cfm?articleid=520

http://www.eyewitnessnews.co.za/articleprog.aspx?id=50264

This utterly despicable individual has reportedly been caught with 21 Rhino carcasses on the property.



Scumbag Sariette Grownwald



These people are beyond redemption and should have their farm confiscated and their pictures plastered on every possible website so that they are hounded wherever they go.

 

Please pass this on to people you know so that the plight of the Rhino, the positive actions of the South African authorities and the identity of the scum bags involved is known far and wide.  The HAWKS (an elite branch of the South African Police) and South Africa National Parks (SANPARKS) have become extremely active in trying to curb the poaching of Rhino and successes such as these need to be broadcast far and wide.

 

Cheers

 

DADFAP

 

 

 

Still in Etosha

We drove from Onguma Lodge to Eagle Tented at Epacha through the Etosha Park.  It's an easy drive, well signposted and the roads well travelled so there's no concern about getting lost.  One thing about being there in the winter or dry season, is that the amount of traffic on the roads generates a hell of a lot of dust and the vegetation gets absolutely coated in it.  You can really imagine the bush just hanging in there, parched and covered in dust waiting on the summer rains to wash them clean and give them a chance to breath.

The road side vegetation looks at times as if it is covered in a light dusting of snow,although when you stop to take a look, the coating of dust really is quite thick.

 

The animals always find something to graze or browse on.  This small impala really looks as if it's grazing on nothing but is probably eating the soil for it's mineral content.  This is behaviour that you see all over the Etosha pan, the animals utilise the minerals in the soil.  The birds have favourite areas on small banks and the elephants can be seen scraping away at the soil surface to get to the minerals that they want.

All sorts of animal behaviour is in display when you are watching animals, not all of it immediately apparent or obvious.  You'll as no doubt, why I have included a picture of an Oryx (also known as Gemsbock) peeing.  Simple really when you understand a little about these animals.  They go extended periods without drinking any water when they have to.  They are incredibly well adapted to the desert environment in which they live.  The classic pictures that you see of the Oryx standing proudly atop a dune is behaviour designed to allow them to catch even the slightest hint of a breeze to cool themselves.  They also "fool" the body into thinking it is cool by deliberately cooling the blood flow to the brain more than the blood flow to the rest of their bodies.  If there ever was an animal that has adapted to life in the harsh deseet environment, it's the Oryx.  So when you think of it, to see an Oryx peeing is quite unusual.

Although we have normally been to Namibia in July, the so called wet season, we've never had any shortage of animal sightings, the dry season does concentrate the animals at water holes, so you end up doing less travelling for more sightings.  We spent some time at a water hole near Okaukuejo watching the animals at play in and around the water hole.  Try and count the number of zebra in the photo to the left, you can understand looking at this shot how predators can be fooled by their markings and not really know where to launch their attack.

When you spend enough time at the waterholes, you really do start to anticipate what the animals are likely to do in most circumstances, you'll see zebra rolling in the dirt taking their dust bath or mothers nursing their young but all the while there will be one of the herd, probably the dominant stallion keeping a look out on what's going on around the water hole. 
It's pretty hard not to get engaged by the animals when you are photographing them.  But, I think that makes for a better photograph, if you're just mechanically snapping at everything that just happens by then you may as well send a robot, the animals all have personalities ( don't worry, I am not anthropomorphising ) and there are times when you can see from the actions of the animals that there's the possibility of an interesting shot coming up.
The Zebra have incredibly sight and hearing and with the numbers that are around the waterholes, they end up doing sentry duty for the other animals.  When a Zebra decides to scarper, you'll see every other animal in and around the waterhole take flight too.




Cheers

DADFAP

Action on Rhino poaching in South Africa

There finally seems to be some real action taking place on one of the worst problems on the African veldt, that of the barbaric, senseless slaughter of Rhino to satisfy the "traditional medicine" market in South East Asia.

NATGEO Article

Cheers

DADFAP

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