Sep 25th – Beware of the Leopard
(No, this isn’t the leopard to beware of, but he’s the only one I could get a picture of.)
Snare sweep, morning session — found a fishing line (made out of some wire), and startled a warthog. Luckily, warthog ran in the other direction, thus saving me the need to shriek at the top of my lungs and/or be horribly gored.
Afternoon session: Found a snare! So far, for snare sweeps, I’m running a 3/4 success rate. Awesome. Am also happy that in the entire day, I’m the only one who found anything. Perhaps I’m not half bad at this after all? More likely, am just incredibly lucky. My observation skills have never been my strong trait.
Evening: After dinner, we did a night drive through the annex. The basic concept is… drive around at night with a spotlight, and keep an eye out for eyes. It was going pretty slow at first, and to be honest, pretty dull — we saw a bush baby (which, quite frankly, I didn’t even know such a thing existed, but I’ll go with it) then a spring hare… and then, we saw a leopard. A leopard! Awesome! I’ve been requesting a leopard for 3 weeks, and had the sneaking suspicion that the only one I’d see would be the stuffed one above the bar at Ivory Lodge. It was just hanging out in the bushes, not far from the water hole. Possibly thinking about going after that spring hare we’d just seen….
He sat and watched us for just as long as we sat and watched him. Seriously cool looking animal. Of course, it was night time, so no pictures — you’ll have to satisfy yourself with the stuffed leopard I saw instead…
Have succeeded on Big 5, can now go home happy.
Could still use a cheetah, though. And a serval.
Bloody long day — starting with a spoor transect at 6am this morning, I’m exhausted and it’s only 10pm…