My goldfish pond

[CometKeith]

JW, When an elephants gets older often they will go off on their own and spend a solitary existence until they perish. For adolescent male elephants they leave their group at a certain age to find their own mates and often adolescent males will run together until they find a female. We were also told story about one of the big cats. Not sure if it was lions or leopards but when a new male establishes it's dominance he will kill all the cubs so the females will go into estrus right away.Now since they are no longer nursing they will be ready to mate in 6 weeks instead of two years. Addy, That's a good story. We had the option to stay in a tent at some places we were looking but decided we didn't want to be that close! It was bad enough we couldn't walk at night from our room to the dining hall. One camp had elephants in camp at night a few times a week and the other one had a lion walk through every week or so because it was part of his territory!

 

[haver79]

Very interesting and enjoying the pics. I like to watch documentary's involving nature and animals. I find elephants absolutely fascinating. The way they interact with each other in the family. And the emotion they seem to feel.
Im not sure I would be able to get that close to big cats in the wild. I think I would be a scaredy cat! Ever watch the movie "The edge of darkness"? Movie centers around some man eating lions. Great movie but Creepy

 

[j.w]

Indians in olden times did as the elephants did. Went off to die by themselves as there time came near. Interesting to hear all this about the critters. Not liking how they do some things but it is what it is and that's how they were made for some reason.

 

[CountryEscape]

I still find it very hard to watch a wild animal kill another type of animal. I CANNOT watch a mature animal of any kind kill a baby of another or it's own kind. Just cannot watch that. I always love it when the baby animal gets away, or the predator tires of the chase and the little one lives.
Saw a video of a baby elephant that fell into a hole. It was never going to get out. The other elephants tried to wear down the sides to help it, but it was too big for them to pull out. Men in a truck and with some type of heavy equipment took hours to get in there safely, but they got that baby out. How exciting that would be to be part of the rescue!

 

[CometKeith]

Haver, I will have to check out that movie. I was watching a lot of movies that had something to do with africa and also reading books about Africa before we left to go there. We even watched the Nelson Mandela movie the night before we left.The thing is Africa is so big with so many countries you learn a little but not that much about where you are going. We actually saw large herds of elephants in Botswana. My daughter took a video of two elephants we saw that were play fighting. It was pretty amazing to watch two elephants charging each other. One time a lion was really close to the tracker that sat in front of our vehicle. The big cat jumped and i was sure he was going for the man's throat. My heart jumped at the same time. Our guide explained the animal jumped because he was afraid because he got too close to the man. It's funny that the big cats have very strict rules they follow. if you understand what they will and won't do then there are no problems if you follow the proper procedures.
JW. Yes There are a lot of similarities between man's behaviour and that of animals. The thing you have to respect is they kill for food and not for sport so in that way they may be more civilized!
CE, Yes I know what you mean but when you are watching the big cats they must kill to survive otherwise they will starve. Sometimes they go for days without getting anything. Our guides stressed that they are animals of opportunity. They need to surprise an animal by hiding behind a bush or rock. They can not run in an open field and chase down other animals. Another way is they find babies or weaker animals off by themselves. . Most of the other animals like elephants, giraffes etc have ways of fighting back and if there is a pack of them they can easily fight off a leopard or lion. Another thing it seems like they are all afraid of hyenas. One of the guides told us that if we were left in any of these parks overnight the hyenas would rip us apart if we stayed on the ground. The thing you have to remember is we are talking about carnivores. They do not have any other option but to eat meat. If they don't find kills then they will not survive.Here's a picture of a nice little kitty cat taking a nap. Lions and leopards sleep almost 20 hours a day because they get so tired from eating meat.

 

[CountryEscape]

I think you could write a book, Keith. You write very well, and it's so very interesting to read about your adventures. Plus, when you write it down, you get a place to have it for memories later! Thank you for taking the time, I sure am enjoying it.

 

[j.w]

I'm enjoying it also and learning a bunch. I might even feel safe about going there someday. Not sure about tenting tho

 

[CometKeith]

Thanks CE, yes. It's been fun for me to review all the picture and videos I took. I think I have already looked at all 1400+ pictures I took at least two or three times since i started posting pictures here. Also by writing things down it definitely helps you remember things. I have really just touched the tip of the iceberg here because we learned so much. I have not even discussed any of the birds we saw some of which were sensational. The national bird of Botswana is the most beautiful bird I have ever seen. Seeing the animals in the reserves is not so different than us keeping fish in that you want to see their natural behaviour. When we drove through the first game reserve we saw two adult elephants and a baby. It was so cute. Then a few miles down the road we saw the dead elephant on the side of the road with vultures going in and out of it. The smell was so bad you would not believe it. What we saw was definitely not scripted and I think we saw the natural way of things as much as possible. Also we got to visit different areas and about half of our trip was touring cities in South Africa and Zimbabwe close to Victoria Falls. Since I can't resist posting more pics here is a picture of Lions Head Mountain in Cape Town. I took it from the top of Table Mountain. You can see the form of the lion in the mountain. Cape Town has a population of 4 million to give you an idea of how big it is.

 

[CometKeith]

JW. I found it very safe. As long as you go with a guide and don't do any of the stupid tourist things you see on youtube it is fine. We spent some time with a German couple and Australian couple on the second leg of our safari trip. It was fun discussing some of our cultural differences and how we each reacted to what we saw. According to the Australians their countrymen are always doing crazy and wild stuff, and our guide told us about how Germans are excited by danger and want to get closer to it, and the Americans want to stay away from danger and be safe. Well we were all doing fine with getting up close to the big cats then after dinner one night one of the guides had a few cocktails and started telling us about dangerous spiders. From that point on no one cared about lions.leopards etc being dangerous because we were all watching for the spiders he told us about!

 

[j.w]

Lol, tiny spiders vs man eating lions always get top priority on the dangerous beast list

 

[CometKeith]

Thanks JW, It took about 10 days to recover from the jet lag and get back to our regular schedules. We all miss it and want to go back! Waking up at 5:00 am to go for a morning safari doesn't seem so bad compared to the cold weather , short days, and snow we have been having! Also miss having high tea at 4:00.

 

[addy1]

It is a long flight,when I left it was to take 5 planes, 36 hours from the start to the end to get home.

What a neat trip you had, I have never forgotten mine.

 

[j.w]

And I thought it was a long flight just to Hawaii! That long would be a real killer on the body.

Maybe someday you will go back JB and addy and maybe someday I will go too.

 

[addy1]

And had to go back to work the next day................basically useless.

 

[Dave 54]

Kieth did he say anything about us Brits we'd be right where the action was sadly its our way

Dave