As it was, like Robert Frost, I was much in two minds about which road I was going to take. And indeed, I chose the one less traveled (at least by me) and was richly awarded. A couple of minutes down it a solitary car was parked; it was a huge fucker of a SUV, so he blocked most of the view, but I could still clearly see the lions walking to and fro a giraffe kill.
I started taking videos and snapshots with my phone, with some live commentary thrown in for good measure. There was little point in using the 600mm as the lions were rarely all that visible in the tall grass. After a little while, I noticed several hyenas appearing. They were careful in approaching the lions and kept making sounds (including the famous hyena "laugh"); I got the distinct notion both from their body language and the noises they made that they were very, very frustrated. Probably, they'd killed the giraffe in the night and the lions had muscled in later.
One of the handful of photos I got in with the 600mm.
For the next two hours I sat more or less in that same spot, except for backing up now and then to allow other vehicles a view as well (because that's the kind of guy I am). I shot videos and uploaded them immediately as I discovered I was still within range of a cell tower. Finally, I had some use for the 20 gig I bought at the airport!
Hyenas are well camouflaged.
Video.
More video.
Yet more.
I also speculated idly whether this could be the same little family of hyenas I had discovered last year; we weren't far from their den. Indeed, I wondered whether one of the young 'uns I was filming could be the whittle cutie pie I had photographed in action and who now adorned my computer as my selected background image.
I started cheering when they tried to sneak up to the kill and booed when they were chased away by the lions. Our cars did not bother them in the slightest, in fact the hyenas used my car to sneak closer and even twice to rest their little backs on. At one point I could have reached my hand out and patted one of them on her head (if I weren’t overly attached to said limb, that is).
Sneaking up from behind.
Ah lubs be some hyenas.
Making herself comfortable against my car door. This happened twice.
Could this be my little cuite pie from last year?
It was a hot day, so some decided to just chill.
Frustrated hyena.
Venting her frustration.
After two hours my bladder was close to bursting, so I headed back to Pretoriuskop camp for a little rest. While there, I spotted a family of vervet monkeys who were playing around on the lawn between the parking lot and the shop. Very cute and very cheeky little rascals.
Thieving little bastards, the lot of them. But very cute.
Cute.
Out of camp again, I didn't even go two minutes till I found myself in the middle of a herd of ellies. They were walking towards me, both on the road and off-road and I would like to stress (as I indeed did on the video I shot) that I was not approaching them; I had stopped and turned off the engine as soon as I saw them.
The herd had a couple of wewy cute babies and youngsters plus of course some old mommas who just walked around the cars without a care in the world; big, calm and safe ellie cows who'd seen and done it all a thousand times before and would do it a thousand times to come.
Ellie baby & teen.
More ellie baby.
I drove a bit more along the loop roads before I finally found myself back at the kill site, several hours later. The lions had disappeared and the hyenas were mopping up the remains, in fact all that could be seen at the spot where the giraffe had been, was discolored grass; the meat and the bones had been dragged into the bushes. In addition, the vultures had moved in and were doing a complicated dance to snag a morsel here and there before the hyenas could get to them. Satisfied I had seen enough drama for one day, I drove back to my hotel and yet another steak with pepper sauce.
My crew had moved in.
The vultures were watching.
And swooping in from time to time.
Sun going down over Rissington hotel.
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