A mother's devotion

Here we go: my first photographic story after my return to blogging!

In January of 2018, we headed to one of our favourite safari destinations: The Kgalagadi Transfrontier Park. This is where a great deal of our time in the bush is spent, and we have been making a tradition of returning every summer for the past few years.

This specific sighting unfolded in the perennial Auob riverbed, not too far south of the Mata-Mata campsite. After spending the better part of the morning with a large pride of lions who had occupied the Craig Lockhart waterhole, we came across this sight:

A springbok ewe had given birth, one of the first fawns dropping in this year's summer! Still frail and weak, the fawn was not able to get up yet. The mother was grazing close by, and eventually moved in closer to give some encouragement to get up. My little daughter of nearly 7 years old, who was in the vehicle with us, was very excited by seeing this for the very first time.

The little fawn did not even seem to want to try to get up. There were a couple of black-backed jackals milling about, and they are very opportunistic, eager to grab any easy meal. The next few minutes would determine whether this little springbok had a chance to live.

Mom would meander away and graze to divert attention away from the fawn when she saw the jackals watching from a distance. Every so often she would return to try and nudge it into action.

It did not take long for the jackals to notice that the little fawn was not making much effort to get up and start walking...and so the game of cat and mouse began...

The first jackal approached from behind the mother, and she turned to face him!

She was not going to let these scoundrels take her baby without a valiant fight...

The jackals were very sneaky, though, and it was apparent that they had a strategy to "outfox" (excuse the pun) the mother of the little one. While she was fending off once jackal, another would come from behind and grab the fawn.

But mom was doing her best to fight for her little fawn. She charged in again, and forced this jackal to also drop his bounty and scoot away...

The drama kept unfolding. With mom's attention now on the newest attacker, another subversive scavenger could sneak in from a different angle and try its luck...

Mom noticed, and gave a valiant chase...but alas, this was the end of the line. Just as she was catching up on the newest thief, the jackal dove into a thorny shrub to start consuming his prize. We surmised the fawn had succumbed at the bite of the first jackal already.

Needless to say the vehicle was silent for a while, and then my daughter burst into tears. She is not a fan of black-backed jackals to this day!

Let me know what you think. Not the nicest story, but part of the drama of being on safari for sure.

Morkel Erasmus

All in the eyes

The eyes have it, they say.
A picture is worth a thousand words, they say.
Whoever they are, they said it.

On our recent short visit to Singita in the Sabi Sand Game Reserve in South Africa, we were fortunate to spend some quality time with an old male leopard called the "Camp Pan Male". He is estimated to be around 16 years old, which is very old for a male leopard (especially considering the amount of other males he's had to run into over the years).

Have a look at this photo.
What does it "speak" to you??
Think about it for a few seconds before reading on.

Nikon D3s  |  Nikkor 500mm f4 VR-II  |  f5.0  |  1/500 SS  |  ISO-1100

There's a very compelling story to this image - it was taken at the end of a very emotional sighting of him trying his best to feed on a kill he'd stolen from another leopard. His legs were wobbly, his hips looked cripple, and his teeth were worn down. He couldn't get into the very small tree that the kill was hoisted in. I will make the entire story the subject of a different post, because there's some good video footage that my wife caught of the event that would give you an idea of what went down.

Anyway, here he was lying in the grass after exerting all his energy to grab a bite or two...and as he longingly looked up at the kill he was unable to wrest free from the branch it was snuggled into, he looked forlorn...defeated. I was looking into the eyes of a dying leopard. He knew it. I knew it. 

As of today he is still alive (it's merely a week after we were there), but his condition was pretty poor, and we were probably some of the last people to see this leopard alive...and that makes this image special to me.

Morkel Erasmus