Dogs …

Just kidding about the wildflowers. Although my camera was easily distracted my focus was on carnivora.

God tossed a meteor at the dinosaurs about 64 million years ago clearing the way for the mammals. The carnivora emerged in the next 10 million years or so and soon diverged into two main groups, the feliformia and the caniformia. A few more mutations later and we had the house cat and a state on the west coast of America.

Actually we can be a bit more precise than that. A recurring question on the expedition was which group belongs where. I have appended a diagram showing the broad outline of relationships to the bottom of this post. Hopefully whoever holds the copyright won’t notice.

Meanwhile, dogs.

Lycaon pictus from the Greek meaning Wolf-like and Latin painted. Some conservation minded groups prefer the name Painted Dog to the traditional Wild Dog. Gives it a better spin. The local people often nominate it as their favorite animal. It’s social, shares food, hunts cooperatively and very successfully relying on stamina and persistence rather than speed and power. So a lot of characteristics that we admire in people.

Now, as promised, an overview of the carnivora.

Relationship of carnivores based on DNA hybridization data (Wayne et al. 1989). Family and suborder groupings are indicated. Time scale in millions of year before present (MYBP) is based on comparisons of DNA sequence divergence to first appearance times in the fossil record. 

Water …

Our Pete Oxford Expedition rolled on like a well-oiled machine. We were eight guests, six unusually pleasant Americans, two unusually sober Aussies, shepherded by the inimitable Pete and Renee. Although Pete occasionally compared the task to herding octopus it all worked well. Journeys between camps were by Cessna Caravan. Very civilised.

Which brought us to our second camp – Little Vumbura. This is a water camp. Water is life. Life is precious. Never more so than when you’re in a small boat in the company of Africa’s deadliest vegetarians. Not to mention the crocodiles.

One afternoon we traded a game drive for a boat ride. On other occasions it was difficult to tell the difference. And once off the island there was still plenty of savanna to explore. The best of both worlds.

Boat
Not a boat

The camp had charm and the environs were scenically splendid.

Common Waxbill
White-fronted Bee-eater
Wattled Crane
Saddle-billed Stork
Black Crake
Letchwe

I took a tripod. It was heavy and awkward to pack. It had to go in the checked luggage, of course. Gayle’s checked luggage.

Stay tuned for the next exciting episode – wildflowers …

Panthera leo …

Would Lions find the elephant? We would not know the answer because we would move to our next camp before they showed up but there was no shortage of lions.

We had the opportunity to see them at work and at rest, adults and young, hunting, feeding, copulating, suckling, grooming. We were not present at a kill but witnessed close escapes by Impala and Warthog and a standoff with a herd of Buffalo.

How much do they hunt and how much do they scavenge? The world wide web suggests that they might scavenge somewhere between 10 and 50 per cent of their food varying with pride size, season, territory and gender. Male Lions are said to be lazier than the females as well as bigger. If they have a lioness to do the work they just eat, if not then they take the easy option and scavenge when they can, hunt when they can’t.

For every kilogram of carnivore there needs to be about 10kg of herbivore. For every 10kg of herbivore there needs to be about 100kg of herbs. And providing all the energy for the herbs is the sun.

Corollary. For every photograph of a carnivore there should be ten photographs of herbivores. That’s not the way it works though, the carnivores get the lion’s share even in a figure of speech. There will be more …

The Vultures …

… had arrived by the next day.

A chaotic horde of them clambering and quarreling over the remains of the elephant. By now the belly was open, the lower jaw bone was visible. But there were still plenty more calories to be had.

Hyenas and jackals were still around but seemed to have had their fill for the time being. There wasn’t much interaction away from the carcass but there were hundreds of vultures in the trees and on the ground. A few Marabou Storks were also waiting about.

There seemed less of a smell than the day before. Perhaps because the surface was nibbled away as fast as it was uncovered.

The vast majority of the vultures were White-backed. There were a few Hooded and just a couple of Lappet-faced. Each has its own specialisation. The White-backed Vultures were clearly the primary demolition experts. Hooded Vultures are smaller, have proportionally longer, finer, sharper looking bills. Good for cleaning up the hard to get at left overs. Lappet-faced are more powerful looking outfits that I imagine could deal with the tougher materials.

Birds have a third eyelid, the nictitating membrane, that runs fore and aft protecting and lubricating the eye. It can be seen clearly in the next photo. A powerful hooked bill is useful for tearing flesh. A naked face is easy to keep clean and a pompom-like collar helps keep blood from running down and soiling the wing feathers.

So far all the illustrations have been of White-backed Vultures. Time to have a look at all the cast …

White-backed
Hooded
Hooded
Hooded
Lappet-faced
Marabou Stork

Lions had still not turned up. It was not because there were none around.

Meat Mine …

We came across a happy Hyena, caked in blood and carrying food. A couple of Black-backed Jackals were keen to share. The Hyena was not. It was a sign. So was an aroma carried on the wind. It wasn’t long before we found the mother lode, a dead Elephant.

Cause of death was unclear, probably old age. It was about the size one would expect of an adult female so likely represented three to four thousand kilograms (7,000 lbs) of meat.

As a young child I remember hearing an old music hall song on the radio. My mother was horrified – which may be why it was so memorable. The version I heard started like this …

It was popular in its time . There are many verses and many versions. Be that as it may, Elephant skin is very tough. Access to the resource within is a problem. The hole in the elephant’s bottom was the solution and had been enlarged considerably by the time we found it. Not an enviable job that.

From time to time I remind my readers to click on the galleries to get the full picture (especially when the thumbnails are missing body parts).

Jackals and Hyenas were disappearing inside the carcass for a feast but were always vigilant. To be trapped inside by a larger predator would have dire consequences. At this stage some of the actors are missing from the stage. No vultures, no Lions.

Aardwolf …

Early breakfast, game drive, late lunch, three hours down time compressed into one and a half by the late lunch, high tea, game drive, late dinner, drop exhausted into bed. That sentence may seem longer than you get for murder but there was an awful lot in it and Pete Oxford made sure there was an awful lot in every single day.

Early morning is magical. It’s cool enough to send a shiver through you, the world seems huge and so much more special than you. The light is gentle. This is the time that you get your best photographs, initially in cool colours becoming warmer as the sun rises. In the tropics at this time of year blue hour plus golden hour combined last about 45 minutes. Treasure the moment.

One morning, just as the sun was breaking the horizon we encountered an Aardwolf, a creature I had never seen before. The Earth Wolf from Dutch via Afrikaans. Or if you prefer a cocktail of pseudo-classical languages Proteles cristatus the first word from Greek, the second from Latin. A Hyenid, but unlike it’s cousins not a killer or scavenger of other mammals. Its diet is almost exclusively termites, as many as a quarter of a million in a night. Unlike the Aardvark (Earth Pig) it does not break into termite mounds it laps them up off the ground. They depend on termites of the family Hodotermitidae which themselves depend on dead grasses thus tying the Aardwolf to savanna country.

Aardwolves are territorial, mark their domain frequently with their anal glands (see the first photo), feed almost exclusively at night and late afternoon and spend their days in a burrow. We were truly fortunate to get stunning views as the sun rose …

Botswana …

We left a few footprints, we took more than a few photos.

Six guests were in the very capable hands of Pete Oxford Expeditions. Pete and his wife Renee are energetic, knowledgeable and passionate. Pete is charismatic, a biologist and renowned photographer (it’s worth visiting their web page just for the stunning headline images). Renee is the organisation and in her spare time godmother to the baboons of Bettys Bay on the south coast of South Africa, and they are probably more easily managed than Pete.

Botswana is one of Africa’s success stories. It has a population of 2.63 million, the capital is Gaborone. You’ve probably not seen the president in the news – for all the right reasons. His name is Mokgweetsi Masisi. Most people speak Tswana but English is the official language and is spoken very well indeed.

The country is landlocked, surrounded by Namibia, Zimbabwe and South Africa. It touches Zambia at a single point on the Zambezi River and is separated from Angola by the narrow Caprivi strip of Namibia. It is largely an arid land. The exception is the Okavango Delta which receives its waters from the Angolan highlands.

The expedition started at Maun and visited three lodges, Qorokwe, Little Vumbura and Chitabe Ladiba. Little Vumbura is situated on an island accessed by small boats. The other two are savanna camps. All were comfortable, the service was impossible to fault. I have a fondness for timber and thatch. The latter two were the epitome of rustic charm.

So much for a few details. Stand by for some highlights.

This is how our days started …

Homeward …

Zimbabwe at the beginning of the journey and Broome at the end, not the route most traveled. In fact it’s a journey of connections that don’t quite connect. As a consequence Gayle and I will be over-nighting in Johannesburg tonight and then again in Perth. There’s a time change of 6 hours to contend with as well.

There’s one problem we won’t be having at home …