Dan's Walkabout 2010: Bush trekking...

So not only did we drive through the bush in search of the animals, we also took a guided bush walk with a couple of local guides early one morning.

At ground level, it is a different experience...

As they put it, we were on the same level as the animals... no, we didn't get attacked, but they do carry the guns in case there is a problem. I asked Eric, the one in the back, if he had ever used his gun. He said yes that he had but, he had never had to kill an animal, he only used it to fire warning shots. I asked what kind of animal had caused him to have to do that and he said that the only times he had to do it was to stop a charging lion... and the warning worked every time. We heard a lion and were in search of it, but it was too far off and we couldn't find it. We did find a large bull elephant and a mother rhino with her baby. We climbed a large rock formation and that's where we saw the rhinos. Also saw pieces of pottery that the natives had used about 150 years ago, and we stopped in a cave that was probably someone's home at the time... see Eric on the "bed" inside the cave...??

It was a very interesting adventure because they explained a lot of the things on the ground that they use to track animals. For instance, dominant bull white rhinos use their poop to mark their territory. They dig kind of a little pit, poop in it, and then kick the poop around in it to break it down. Other white rhinos in the group are not allowed to poop in this pit, but usually go around it. If another white rhino comes along, he knows that that is the mark of the bull in that territory. Sometimes the rhinos territories cross one another during times of food or water shortages. If the other dominant male is crossing the first's territory because of that, he must be submissive and not mark on top of the first rhino's pit unless he wants to challenge for the territory. Although, if a black rhino male comes through, he can mark there if he wants, because there is no rivalry between white and black rhinos, they are different species and it would be like an elephant marking there... they wouldn't fight because they don't rival one another.

Below is evidence of a kill site... there was an impala killed here, probably by a lion or leopard. They know it was an impala because of the 3 minuscule tufts of white hair on the ground. They knew it was a kill site by the small amount of stomach contents remaining and the disturbance in the soil... Based on the remains, they said it was probably only a few days old. Oh yeh, there are no bones because the hyenas eat the bones and all of the other scavengers clean up the rest.