March 2009 : Grumeti Reserves, Tanzania

Another Superb Month

The game has not only been increasing in numbers and sheer volume over the years and months but is now better distributed and and more relaxed around the vehicles. Hours of tireless anti-poaching foot patrols and some strategic burning programs have ensured that the wildlife trend is continuing upwards on a very steep curve. These long rains usually meant some quieter game viewing, March is a great time of year to be here!

The highlight for me was the 3 days of hectic action around a dead elephant cow. It appeared that the cow had died of natural causes and the presence of a well developed foetus has led us to believe that possibly complications in birth could have been at the root of the problem. The cow, no smaller than 3/4 tons, was consumed incredibly quickly, and in 3 days went from a fully intact fat elephant to a stark skeleton.

The very first morning the carcass was investigated by the Butamtam pride of lions. Ironically they did not even take a single bite out of it and instead bypassed it and continued their daytime hunt nearby, but more of that later. Only a young nomadic male lion fed off it for 2 days. This entire carcass was devoured almost entirely by hyenas and vultures. During the height of the feeding we saw no fewer than 40 hyenas and over 150 vultures at the carcass!

The second last picture shows what the carcass looked like after 3 days (72 hours). The last picture is all that remained just 5 days after the elephant died – quite incredible! This is remarkably fast, I can remember many years ago a sub-adult elephant bull died at Singita Ebony & Boulders and we were still watching the Castleton pride feeding on the carcass 2 weeks later!

 

Daytime Antics of Lions & Hippos

As I mentioned earlier, we were astounded by the entire Butamtam pride of lions, 10 in all, simply by-passing an absolute bonanza of free meat on the first day at the elephant carcass. Perhaps the fact that the 3 cubs are still young (about 5 months old) led the experienced lionesses to rather head away to safer grounds. They might have known that their nemesis out here, the hyenas, would be coming in from far and wide and lots of hyenas can really be a headache for a pride with young cubs. Up to 40 hungry hyenas all going berserk around a carcass is no place for a little lion cub! Mere minutes after strolling past the carcass the lead lioness and the 4 bigger cubs (about 18 months old now) stalked and killed a Thomson’s gazelle ram. What a sight! All those lions growling and fighting over a tiny morsel of hors de oeuvres when an abundantly huge main course lay just 500m away!

Five minutes later, with not a morsel of the Thommie remaining, the resident hippo bull decided he was going to have some fun. He emerged from the dam and began to chase the lions - something I have never seen before!

A few random chases and the pride scattered and the hippo resumed feeding. Then, a couple of intimidating yawns in the lions direction just to make sure his dominance was well & truly felt.

As we were preparing to leave, the bull, feeling on top of his game and brimming with confidence, had one more ace up his sleeve…without warning, he bolted towards the Land Rover and a sharp clap of the hands and a panicked shout had this 2 ton hefalump grind to a halt! With much excited and relieved laughter we moved off, in search of friendlier game!

 

Miniature Wildlife

The guide training continued this month and once again we focused on the smaller, often overlooked animals. Amongst the smallest seen was this Dew-drop spider - a tiny arachnids resembling a drop of dew. About 5 or 6 of them could easily fit onto your little fingernail. They belong to a group of animals called Kleptoparasites. As the name suggests, these are parasites that rely on stealing in order to survive. Most Golden-orb Web spider webs have many Dew-drop spiders on them. The little Kleptoparasites catch tiny prey items that land in the web and also feed off larger prey items caught by the host spider. They have even been recorded preying on their hosts, or their hosts offspring, and eating the web itself.

I keeping with the spider theme we saw numerous nesting Brown-button spiders this month. These small non-aggressive spiders are from the genus Latrodectus and have neurotoxic venom. Although bites are rare and death only results from less than 1% of bites worldwide, you could be in some discomfort for about 4 – 5 days. Their very distinct egg sacs are about the size of a pea and are covered in small spikes. The pattern on the back of the spider’s abdomen, which do vary, has lead to the species name Geometricus.

One of my favourite small animals is the Banded mongoose and this troop, we came across them early one morning, were quite happy to continue foraging while we watched from the Land Rover.

Abundant during the rainy season are the ferocious Matabele, or Hissing, ants. They belong to the Ponerine family of ants (the most primitive in Africa) and there is not much that separates them in style and structure from the very successful and warlike Matabele tribe of Southern Africa. Like the Matabele tribe, these ants are well known for their hissing “war cry”, painful sting and very aggressive ways.

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The ants feed exclusively on termites and conduct well-organised, military precision raids to nearby termite colonies. They are ruthless and attack and sting the termites, relying on the state of confusion to obtain as many victims as possible. After a few hectic minutes, termite carcases litter the ground and the retreat signal is given, the Hissing ants then cram as many dead termites into their jaws as possible and march back to their nest in a column.

In Tanzania, the Sukuma people, believe that if you are on your way to a meeting or interview and you come across a column of Hissing ants in your path and they are returning from a raid with jaws full, that it is a sure sign of good luck. Should the column you come across be on their way to a raid, then best you turn around and try again tomorrow, for good luck shall not be on your side!

The Birds

We had some special sightings of birds not often seen around here this month which was very exciting.

The first records of a Eurasian nightjar, Reed cormorant and African snipe were obtained and sightings of Karamoja apalis, Sooty chat, Steel-blue whydah and Rock-loving cisticola. The Bateleur eagle picture was taken over the elephant carcass, where he was one of at least five Bateleurs enjoying the feast. The second picture is of a little female Chinspot batis.

The Eurasian nightjar is silent in Africa and we were lucky to see this large nightjar during the day. After being flushed they generally perch in trees, sitting lengthways on braches. A true master of camouflage, you can hardly tell the difference between the bird and branch.

Unfortunately I have run out of space and I cannot tell you about the numerous lion and cheetah sightings this month. I wish we could have had some pictures of a male leopard and his prey (a zebra foal) up a tree and I wish we could have included the story of the injured male lion we darted to treat his old snare wounds. Let alone the abundant herds of zebra and topi out on the newly burnt grasslands, not to mention the big breeding herds of elephants on the Grumeti River.

This entry & all photographs were submitted by Lee Fuller All photographs were taken on location 31 March 2009 Singita Grumeti Reserves