Elephants at the Lodge - I mean IN the Lodge
South Luangwa National Park, Zambia
November 11, 2011
Mfuwe is located in the South Luangwa National Park which is over 9,000 square kilometres. It is located near the NE border of Zambia in the Luangwa Valley. It was a Game Reserve until it became a park in 1971. The largest tribe that lives in this area is the Kunda tribe, who have resided here for over 400 years.
We woke up as the sun was rising (around 5:15) & freshened up. We were able to see elephants while we were showering, this seems like it is becoming a pattern for us…
After having some toast, fruit & tea we headed out on our morning drive.
One of the most exciting parts of our morning was seeing a solitary lioness drinking water
. She was calmly lying down & drinking while we watched. She is so beautiful. The fact that she is alone is quite unusual & Misheck said that she has been alone for some time now.
Along the way we stopped to examine lots of animal remains. Misheck explained to us that the one skull was from a male giraffe. You can tell it is a male's skull because of the large bump between the eyes & nose. This large bump is used when fighting other giraffes. We also saw a female buffalo skull. The female skull is much flatter across the top & the male skull has two large bumps because they have larger horns. Misheck also showed us a tortoise shell. This one was female because the bottom was flat. The bottom of a male tortoise's shell is convex. Can anyone guess why? Think about the shape of the top of a female tortoise shell…
We are starting to see baby impalas, they are so adorable! They have long, spindling, wobbly legs that they are trying to navigate with
. They are not at all graceful like their elderly siblings & parents. They hobble along & try to keep up with Mom. All of the babies are less than 4 days old!
I learned some more fun baby animals facts today. A baby elephant begins growing tusks at one year of age. Some elephants do not grow tusks. I also found out that baby warthogs are called wartlets. Cute eh?!
Hammerkop nests are very fascinating & very large. They are made up of 2 or 3 compartment, one of which is used for landing. Some birds land outside their nests, the hammerkops land inside their nests. The nests are made up of many materials - grass, wood, tires, metal, basically anything that they find lying around. The Egyptian geese will take advantage of such a large, sturdy nest & will take up residence above them, the penthouse suite!
We saw a zebra with some youngsters who were around 6-8 months old
. They are so adorable. Did you know that zebras & kudu have unique stripes? They are like finger prints & are used to help others to identify them, especially their babies.
We stopped to watch three elephants that were surrounded by egrets. We stayed for a while partly because they are so fascinating & partly because they were blocking our path. The egrets hang with the elephants because the bugs fly up when they elephants walk & in return the egrets warn elephants when there is danger. Nature works so well together, too bad all humans don't take lessons from them.
Back at the lodge we had a bit of excitement while I was around the pool & Bill was napping in the library. Five elephants strolled up, had a snack of some fresh grass, then sauntered through the lobby of the lodge like they owned the joint! Bill was trapped in the library until they cleared out
.
Our night drive was a bit more spacious as Peter & Ryanke are now in Lusaka this evening. So, it is just Clare, Bill, Barb, Bill & I with Misheck & Philip our spotter.
Did you know that there is a list for the Ugly Five, like the Big Five list? The Ugly Five are as follows: vulture, wildebeest, warthogs (I don't think so!), marabou stork & hyaena, some people also include the crocodile.
We saw lots of giraffe this evening. I think it is because Bill is wearing his giraffe boxers tonight…
Here is a giraffe not so fun fact: Misheck told us that people used to kill giraffes with the sole purpose of selling their tails as fly swatters. Can you imagine killing such a beautiful creature for something as silly as a fly swatter?
Now a few giraffe fun facts: If a giraffe has tufts of fur on it's horns, then it is a female giraffe
. In the valley there is only one type of giraffe, the Thornicroft giraffe. Their legs are approx. 2 meters long, their necks are approx. 2 1/2 meters long & their body is 2-3 meters long. We saw lots of giraffes this morning & at one spot we saw seven together. The birds that are on the giraffes are yellow-billed oxpeckers, on the kudu there were red-billed oxpeckers. Different strokes for different folks I guess!?
More fun facts coming your way: when frightened, monkeys escape to the trees, while baboons stay on the ground.
Misheck told us that there are a certain pride of lions in Botswana that can hunt elephants. They attack the back of their ears because there are a lot of arteries there, so the elephants bleed to death. Apparently the pride is a large one and an elephant makes a much better meal for everyone than a couple of impalas every day.
We saw a new critter, the hooded vulture. They are not pretty beasts, but I am sure that their mothers think they are beautiful.
When we stopped for our sundowner we were able to see hippos yawning (I still do not have a photo of this, Grrr!), crocs standing up & going into the water, swooping, diving & landing carmine bee-eaters, white-breasted bee-eaters & of course, the sunset. An interesting note about the bee-eaters, they are brightly coloured so that they are able to attract bees because the bees think that they are flowers!
After dark and out came the 800W spotlight that the spotter used to catch the glint of eyes in the grass or trees - using this method we saw two owls, the eagle owl (giant) & the fish eagle owl. They are amazing creatures. The fish eagle owl has such incredible eyesight that they can fish in the dark.
We saw 2 more genets this evening too. We also observed a bushbuck & a baby, a nightjar & a water thick-knee (dikkop).
We took a drive by the baobab (sounds like bow-bub) tree. It looked really neat with the clouds behind it. In the tree there are many nests that belong to the oxpecker or the buffalo weaver.
We finished off the evening with a lovely dinner. Amy joined us this evening & she was a pleasure to have as part of our group. After dinner we had some nightcaps, then went to bed.