I am now able to let you have the videos that further illustrate the earlier post. I trust that you will enjoy them.
Mana Pools National Park
Smells of the wild
A picture of an “engorged” lion cub resting belly-up posted recently on Facebook by my son reminded me of an elephant kill we witnessed together in Mana Pools in October 2013 when that picture was taken.
Apart from being a wonderful wilderness place teeming with wild animals, Mana Pools offers a number of add-ons. Apart from being allowed to walk unaccompanied in a park where the “Big 5” are present, the presence of the mighty Zambezi river adds an unsurpassed touch of beauty to the area.
In addition, camping there is an experience on its own as -like in the good old days- there are no fences or trenches separating you from the wild inhabitants. Camping in these conditions increases solidarity among fellow colleagues and information on the “state of the wild” circulates freely. In Mana Pools it is usual to have- in addition to the harmless buck- hyenas, buffalos and elephants of all sizes walking about at all times.
I vividly remember a nocturnal incident with an elephant. My wife and I shared a tent while our daughter had her own a few metres away. It was late at night and we could hear the breaking of branches around us as the elephants fed. Suddenly we heard loud elephantine intestinal rumblings followed by the unmistakable noise of heavy droppings being dropped! Judging by the direction of the noise we guessed that her tent could have been compromised by the event. Before I could ask her about the situation I heard her “Phew, that was close!” and went on to say, “It just missed my tent but I can smell it very well!” So could we although a few more metres separated us from the “object”.
Under these conditions of proximity with wild animals it is not surprising to have visitors at your camp bearing news such as “There are a few lions near the ablution block at the end, so refrain from using it tonight” or “we have just spotted a leopard walking near the entrance”.
Fellow campers also share their sightings and experiences in a friendly atmosphere.
The elephant incident I described above brings me to the issue of the wild life experience and the importance of the senses in it. Smells -together with the natural shine and subtle sounds of a live animal- are among the details wildlife documentaries are not able to transmit! It is common to drive or walk in the bush and be literally assaulted by different smells, both pleasant and otherwise.
October 2013 saw the whole family camping at Mana Pools and in the evening after our arrival we learnt that lions had killed a young elephant in the Mucheni area. This is apparently not surprising in Mana Pools where lions are skillful at killing elephants. Quite excited, the following morning we drove there as early as we could. The area of the kill was easy to find as, unusually for Mana Pools, there were a few vehicles watching the scene. A young elephant had indeed been killed the day before and it still had food to offer the lion pride that was resting next to it. We counted around 16 animals of all ages.
As it is common in these instances, satiated lions were lying all over the place, trying to take advantage of the little shade available. As the morning heat increased the vying for shade became more intense and, to add a touch of reality, the foul smell also gradually augmented. When a kill is available lions tend to gorge on meat to the point of becoming uncomfortable. It is therefore not difficult to understand that to have such a large number of individuals quite close to us multiplied the final outcome of their digestion and its vapours! I sharply recall our desperate spluttering every time the wind shifted and one of the lions rolled over as well as the family’s diving into the car through its roof hatch in an attempt to escape a particularly fetid eruption…
The situation was rather smelly, so much so that this was one of the few times when watching the scene through a documentary would have been preferred! So, being nice to you I present an odourless picture gallery as well as videos for you to enjoy. I am aware that seeing a kill is never pleasant but these are wild lives!
One Tusker…
While at Mana Pools National Park we met this elephant. At first we dismissed it as a “one tusker” but when we looked at it from a different angle it immediately became clear that we were wrong!
While its right tusk looked healthy and nicely curved, its left tusk had grown in the wrong direction and it was pointing down and towards the back.
I have seen pictures and references in the literature of elephants with weird tusk arrangements so this find is not really an unusual one. It is much more rare to find an elephant with three tusks and I recall a hunter (probably Ionides) who tracked a famous three-tusker. More recently, an animal with this same rare characteristic was spotted in Nxai Pan National Park in Botswana by Stuart Arnold (http://www.exploreafrica.net/whats-happening-now/3-tusk-elephant-nxai-pan/).
In our case, what made this animal interesting was its habit of placing its trunk behind its left tusk, giving it a weird look.
Based on its size and condition, the bent tusk does not appear to have had a negative impact on its life and it is unlikely that it will affect it in the future. We will keep an eye open for it in our upcoming visits to the Park.
Dagga Boy*
We came across this lone male Buffalo (Syncerus caffer) who seemed to be about to light a large cigar!
It was in fact working its way through a sausage, the fruit of the aptly named Sausage tree (Kigelia africana). This tree provides game with food during the dry season at Mana Pools National Park.
The sausages.
Almost done!
Our first encounter with buffalo while camping at Nyamepi Camp site was worrying: four large male buffalo were between the toilets and us! We held our needs in check for as long as we could but the buffalo would not budge so we braved the trip! We need not have worried as they ignored us completely as we walked past. They were totally focused on devouring the flowers of the Sausage tree that they also relish.
* I tried to be clever here! A “Dagga Boy” is an old Buffalo bull that have been kicked out of the herd and spends all day wallowing in mud. “Dagga” means mud in Zulu. In addition, “Dagga” also means Cannabis, hence the play with words.
To drink or not to drink!
While on the issue of impala and crocodiles, covered in the earlier entry, I jump my post queue to show you what we observed in Mana Pools National Park last week. The Impalas had a serious dilemma! Luckily for them, they could drink from the small channels while the crocodiles could only watch and wish!
On silent feet
To write these lines I needed to sit down and in so doing, I sat on a snake! Luckily any concerns you may have about my derrière are unnecessary as said snake was made of rubber. Yes, I know, I should not be playing with toys at my age but some of us are take longer to mature!
Baboons and vervet monkeys are a menace while camping in Africa, and Mana Pool’s lodges are no exception to the rule. We learnt that rubber snakes are a good deterrent so we alwayscatter a few around our area while on safari. They work well and we have had fun watching monkeys perform panicky gravity-defying summersaults while screaming in terror after spotting them! I will come back to the topic of monkeys and camping in the future, so for now I turn back to Mana Pools.
In my earlier post I mentioned that in Mana Pools you are able to go about freely on foot. Funnily enough, you often come into much closer contact with wild animals while in your lodge or campsite than when walking in the bush. The former (named by the Zimbabwe Parks & Wildlife Management Authority) is a small house with one or two bedrooms, a kitchen and a toilet.
Mubvee, our lodge.
Solar lamps provide lighting and there is a freezer, a gas cooker and a BBQ place. The ubiquitous Tanganyika boiler -firewood operated- provides ample hot water while the vervet monkeys and baboons come free of charge!
The lodges are well positioned, only a few metres from the river bank providing great views of the Zambezi. The sunsets over the river were spectacular as usual.
The Zambezi river seen from the lodge grounds.
At the time of our visit the sundowns were made even more dramatic by the bush fires raging on the mountains opposite us, across the river in Zambia. Most nights the hills were decorated with crisscrossed fire garlands that devoured the dry brush voraciously and added drama to the view.
The sunset and bushfires.
A view of the burning hills (apologies for the bad picture).
Usually we are at the lodge in the morning (before leaving for a walk or game drive), lunchtime (when you are not in the bush) and in the evening (always). It is during these times that you have the closest encounters with wild animals.
In the early mornings we were woken up by loud birdcalls that made going back to sleep rather difficult. The din came from the goings on of a colony of white fronted bee-eaters (Merops bullockoides) that had their burrows in the banks in front of our lodge. With them were also a large number of the much bigger southern carmine bee eaters (Merops nubicoides), adding more colour to the scene while basking under the morning sun in the treetops above our lodge (a magnificent sight).
Southern carmine bee-eaters basking in the sun (please note the smaller white-fronted bee-eaters on the right of the picture).
The white-fronted bee-eaters were very active and most likely involved in courting and nesting. A bit of reading when we returned to Harare revealed that mixed colonies of these two species are common. I also learnt later that these birds are colonial but also cooperative. The latter means that many individuals of both sexes play a role as helpers* and that they may switch from breeder to helper and back to breeder many times over a lifespan.
White fronted bee-eaters at the river bank. Their borrowed nests are below.
Every morning the carmine bee-eaters, after being sufficiently warmed by the sun, flew off for the day on unknown errands, and returned in the afternoon. Unfortunately I could not tell if these birds were also nesting in the banks but I suspect so.
The proximity of our lodge to the water’s edge provided us with a continuous parade of animals without having to move too much. These included some really huge crocodiles as well as buffaloes, hippos and elephants: they were on both sides of the channel that ran in front of the lodge. It was wonderful to see elephants wading to reach the opposite shore only to return once they ate their fill of their favorite vegetation.
Elephants crossing the channel (note the two termite nests in the background).
It was during the first lunch hour -a bit too hot to go looking for animals- that, after a light salad lunch, I prepared myself for my usual short siesta. I placed myself under the shade of an acacia tree that provided ample shade (and pods!) and prepared myself for sleep while reading my book. It was warm but there was a soft breeze, which resulted in the perfect cool spot. These were ideal conditions and I was even prepared for a monkey-attack, just in case…
The bushsnob prepared for a “monkey-proof” siesta!
It all started with my wife becoming very agitated at the exact moment that I had duly dropped my book (on my face) and entered the “drifting off” stage of my nap! Her alert call brought me back to life. Before I could proffer my -I am sure expected- complaint, I heard a soft “Don’t move and look” I knew then that I should do as I was told! My eyes were filled with an elephant!
Thankfully, its attention was solely on the Apple ring Acacia pods.
I froze -purely out of fear rather than bushsnob wisdom- as the elephant was three metres away from me and still approaching! I immediately noticed that, although very close, it was after the pods on the floor and oblivious to its surroundings including me! With a super human effort, given my panic-driven semi paralytic state, I lifted my feet off the ground as it could have otherwise, unintentionally stepped on my bare feet (ouch…). The sight mesmerized me! Finally, it came to about a couple of metres and looked at me “Now I am history” I thought. However, it simply raised its head as if saluting me and continued with its feeding, slowly ambling past with the only heralds of its presence the crunching of pods, the rattle of those discarded and the occasional soft huffs of its trunk as it searched for more.
It was coming in my direction on silent feet…
The amazing thing about elephants is that despite their size, you will not hear them unless they want you to. While walking on tarmac elephant footpads make a whisper-like ‘chuff’, similar to the sound produced when one brushes a hand over the fabric of a pillow; on dusty earth they are virtually silent. At night, they silently walk through your campsite while browsing without disturbing anything. Finally, although I often trip over the tent ropes, I have never had an elephant doing so day or night!
As my knees had suddenly turned into jelly, I did not move, even after it passed and not even when my wife’s “order” was issued: “That was close! Get up quick and take a picture of it before it goes away” When I managed to collect all my wits and do a mental inventory of the condition of my various body parts, it was too late and I could only see its backside moving off. Although we have had these kind of encounters before this was a very close one and it is quite an experience to be literally “face to trunk” with a fully-grown male elephant! The siesta was abandoned, this time for a good reason!
This was not the only occasion that this happened during our stay at Mana Pools but I describe it to you so that you have an idea of our interactions with wildlife at the park. More than one tusker visited us everyday and a few family groups walked around the lodge during the day and night. They were even rude enough to try to spoil our BBQs!
The bushsnob just discovered the bomb dropped by a “terrorist” elephant and he is horrified thinking on cleaning the mess (the faeces were almost pure Apple ring Acacia seeds!).
In addition to the pachyderms, a lone hippo kept us company everyday as it fed on the pods. It would arrive after sunset and we would hear it chomping while it walked about. Although it occasionally entered the circle of light provided by our lamps, it preferred to stay in the dark. This meant that every now and then, we would have to locate it as it was an additional hazard while walking around our lodge (particularly when going to the BBQ area or the water boiler) to avoid the danger of bumping into it!
My wife keeping an eye on our hippo visitor during a rarer day visit.
A least one spotted hyena also did its food-run every evening. We did not think that hyenas were around as we did not hear them but they were afoot operating silently in the darkness! The lions were, quite to the contrary, rather close and very loud. They were heard, as my wife put it, “all night long” and a lioness and two cubs passed by while the occupant of our next-door lodge was having his morning coffee!
* Birds (normally juveniles and sexually mature young birds of both sexes) that remain in association with their parents and help them raise subsequent broods.
The unseen painted dog
We arrived at Mana Pools National Park (Mana Pools) at about 15:00 hours after a six hour drive from Harare. Just before the turn off to get into the final stretch of rough dirt road, we stopped at the edge of the escarpment to take in the hazy view of the Zambezi valley below, always a beautiful sight, and one that is full of anticipated adventure. The view was even hazier than usual, as this is the season of bush fires that add a blue tint to the horizon.
The view of the Zambezi valley from the main road.
The stop to contemplate the view had to be brief as we still had about two hours of driving to get to the park. As soon as we started the escarpment’s steep descent we came across a queue of lorries parked on both sides of the road. The normal sightings involve slow moving lorries either struggling uphill or burning brakes downhill, so this kind of mass convergence was not normal. We drove through the narrow “lorry tunnel” very slowly, passing around 60 lorries before we came to the reason for the queue. An unfortunate driver had lost control of his truck while going downhill and crashed at full speed against a rocky bend. The accident was recent as the rescue of the occupants’ was taking place as we passed by. This was a stark reminder of the dangers associated with driving.
The turn off into the rough road leading to Mana Pools came as a relief after witnessing such a mishap. We drove on and, after 80 km of dirt road; we arrived at Mana Pools, a UNESCO World Heritage site of similar standing to the Great Barrier Reef, the Tower of London or Yellowstone National Park. The recent book “Mana Pools” by Gregg Robinson presents excellent pictures and describes the park in great detail. What more can I say not being a poet but rather a humble veterinarian!
The road to Mana Pools.
Mana Pools is a place of unique natural beauty. The Zambezi River, with its hilly background, forms its northern border and the area to the South is a flat wooded expanse where earlier river meanderings have left a number of separate pools that give the park its name. This is where game abounds and, because of the nature of their habitat they can be spotted at a distance, similar to the East African parks.
The Mana Pools woodlands in the afternoon.
In addition to its magnificent and ancient trees and its abundant wildlife, Mana Pools is -I believe- the only national park in Africa where you can leave your car and walk on your own despite there being dangerous animals at large. We know of two prides of lions and a pack of painted dogs that live in the area, not to mention numerous hyenas, several buffalo herds, many elephants, the occasional leopard, crocodiles and hippos, among others.
Hippos and elephants sharing the grazing area in the banks of the Zambezi River.
You may be surprised at this unusual and seemingly dangerous freedom but it works well due to a combination of animal tolerance and human caution. So, you are able to leave your metal cage and walk around freely! However, we must never forget that the animals we see around us are wild and as such, require the utmost respect and caution from us. Walking away from the protection of your car demands extreme prudence at all times, along with being aware of your surroundings, the direction of the wind, where you place your feet along with being able to read other important signs and, most importantly: to remember where you parked your vehicle!
The beauty of leaving your car.
We found lions on our first day, ten minutes after leaving our lodge! There were two: a young male and an adult female. They were just visible in the bush, near Chisasiko pool. We stopped the car and joined other people already there having their morning coffee while watching the lions, a rather unique experience! The opinions were divided on whether they had or would hunt. To us they looked alert as if looking for prey but it was difficult to guesstimate!
Lion paw marks on the dusty road before they entered the bush.
While the lion conversation was going on, a new vehicle arrived. It was a group of tourists with a professional guide in his late fifties, known to some of the people present. As usual, the excited crowd informed him of the lions’ location. What followed next was as unexpected as it was shocking! He, followed by his unknowing clients and another staff member with a gun, walked straight towards the lions, doing exactly what you must not do! What happened next was as predictable as it was unnecessary: the lions moved off! The group then turned back and left!
The Chisasiko pool, where the lions were.
“He is after a fat tip from his clients” was my angry and rather loud comment and then I heard my wife’s lapidary “poor man, it is sad that at his age he has to do this to get some extra money!” The latter was followed by another remark from a lady in the group “he left it a bit late!” Anyway, seeing that the situation had been modified by human folly beyond immediate recovery, we pushed on with the idea of coming back later as we knew that, despite the interference, the lions would remain in the area.
However, finding lions only ten minutes into your safari changes the situation as you become somehow “dependent” on what they will do next! Afterwards, while driving you wonder if they are hunting, moving or whether other lions have joined them (which means you could miss something unique!). We also made a mental note of their proximity to our lodge!
During our stay we were rewarded by nice sightings of buffalo, eland, greater kudu, waterbuck and zebra among others. We also saw a trio of fish eagles engaged in a loud territorial dispute and a proud saddle bill stork mother with her two grown offspring, although no male was around.
The two young saddle bill storks (left) and their mother. A hamerkop and a baboon complete the picture.
We did see the lions a few more times in the general area of the Chisasiko pool, but they did not hunt and on the final day they moved off towards the mouth of the Mana river, probably stalking a buffalo herd that resides in that area. We also spotted a pair of Selous mongooses and two side striped jackals (Canis adustus). Our general impression was that the park has a good animal population.
We also attempted to visit a new water hole, recommended by a friend as a good place for a “sundowner”. Equipped with the right ingredients for such occasions, we drove following a path that was clearly a firebreak with the anticipation of reaching a quiet place where animals would come to drink. Unfortunately, after driving about 10 km we came to a wide sand river with very broken and steep banks. There were very recent and deep wheel marks in the sand showing that someone else had tried to find the waterhole and got severely trapped in the deep sand. The story was reinforced by the warm ashes of the campfire they had lit while spending the night by the car! We decided not to risk the crossing!
The river was a lovely place to have a drink anyway. We also enjoyed a nice walk on the dry riverbed framed by rather high cliffs made of red soil, where trumpeter hornbills feeding on wild figs could be seen. We will come back next time for another attempt at crossing the river.
Walking by the red cliffs in the sandy river
Elephants were numerous throughout the park. Young animals were in abundance. We also saw a number of adult tuskers. The latter do not carry heavy tusks of the type we saw in Kruger and described in my earlier post.
A small group with a young one. Note the Apple ring acacia pods on the ground.
Although I will focus on the Mana trees in one of the next accounts, one tree is a major protagonist in Mana: the Apple-ring Acacia (Faidherbia albida). It is the main tree of the Mana riverine plain forest and it produces a spiral shaped pod eaten by most herbivores in the park and it constitutes a valuable source of food in the dry season.
The elephants are very fond of these pods and at this time of the year they can be seen feeding on them all the time, wherever the trees are. To watch this activity is rather engrossing so we stopped often to watch them as they pick them up from the floor using their trunks as vacuum cleaners! However, as usual, the best are difficult to get! The tastier pods are those still high up in the trees!
Pod collecting at full stretch.
Aware of this, elephants will go to great efforts to reach them and, with patience; you may be able to watch them doing it. This was, fortunately, our case as we came across several pod-eaters that stopped at nothing to get these treats!
During the second day of our stay we found a particular tusker that “agreed” to put on a show for us. He was dealing with a rather tall tree, so he stretched to the highest possible extent in order to reach the place in a wild circus-like act, and brought down branches full of pods. After finishing them and unable to get any more, he changed tactics by leaning his head against the tree trunk and proceeding to head-butt it vigorously, which provoked a “pod rain” that it subsequently picked up from the floor.
Shaking the tree.
As the tusker moved off in search of other tasty trees we also moved off, still looking for elephants. As we were driving slowly, we were overtaken by another vehicle that, we found parked by the road after a while. We stopped and asked its sole occupant if he had seen the lions. “Not today” he replied, “I have been here for three days and only saw them the first day” he added. We volunteered what we knew about the current lions’ location and asked “Any painted dogs*?” as we knew that these carnivores are often seen in Mana.
We could not believe his reply: “Do you mean other dogs apart from the one that we just saw crossing the road in front of your car?” “Are you serious?, we did not see anything!” my wife’s response came immediately. The reply came: “OK then, apart from the one I saw and you didn’t?” he said, clearly enjoying the moment and with a nice touch of humour. “We did not see it!” we confessed rather sheepishly, as it seemed unbelievable to us that this could have happened. He then added “I see them often as I am part of a painted dog conservation project that works here!”. Our embarrassment was somehow lessened as he had a “trained eye” for dogs!
Talking to him we learnt that the dogs are present in Mana around the “Mucheni” area and that the one he saw (and we didn’t!) was probably a male of a new pair that had just come from the Rukomechi area. We also learnt that the alpha male of the local Mana pack was missing and, although there could be several reasons for his absence, it is possible that it has died. We thanked him for the information but, despite it, we failed to see them during our safari. Our only consolation was that, although we did not see one, it was in the same place at the same time as us!!!
As a last attempt to save face, I tell you that we had seen painted dogs on a previous occasion in Mana Pools. We were on a game drive with my daughter/Editor when we spotted a pack on the road. There were about 16 dogs and they were moving rather fast. Taking advantage of the freedom of Mana Pools we parked the car in a hurry and followed them on foot, together with a group of tourists. It was very exciting as they caught an impala just before we got to them and they were feeding on it. Regrettably, the scene was interrupted by my loud talking -being a bushsnob- and the weird noise my camera made every time I switch it on! The picture below was taken at that time.
Wild dogs seen during an earlier visit.
* Lycaon pictus is commonly referred to as African wild, cape or hunting dog and African painted dog, among other names. I use "Painted dogs" as this is the name used by the project in Zimbabwe.
A Bushsnob out of Africa 