Hey there, I haven't been blogging as regularly as I would like to, but will try to make more time for it. Now lets continue with what this blog is all about, the stories about what happens in my World.

 Here we go !!!!!

I'll start this blog with Elephants, and yes even though they are huge and eat almost 300Kg a day, sitting with them a bit, you can see behavior which a lot of us only read about.
Lucky for me, I viewed some of these behavior on various occasions, swimming as well sleeping. This time of the year it gets very hot very early in the morning and during one of these mornings I followed a herd of elephants on there way to a waterhole, thinking that they where going to dink water.
At the waters edge, all of them placed there trunks in the water and used water to cool themselves down and drink water. But then one adult walked forward and disappeared under water. Not long after that all of them followed, big ones and the small ones. The swimming/playing or cooling down took a good 45 min before they left the water and moved off into the bush. On a different occasion we sat with a Matriarch which blocked our path. At first I didn't understand what she was going to do, but when another female did the same if became clear to me that the females was keeping us away from the little ones, Why?
It was time for a midday nap. (watch clip with sound) At first one calf went down at moms feet and not long after that more young ones joined the opportunity to sleep while the adults keeps guard.


Before I get to the Predators, lets just point out another Heavy weight Pachyderm (thick skinned), Hippopotamus. One of the new arrivals for the seasons, with mom always close by to keep a close eye on youngster. At this young age the little calf can fall pray to large crocodiles.


    
The Shimungwes (southern female lions) tend to be more on the move the last few months, and tend to move more south towards the south-eastern corner of the Reserve. The cubs are are almost 1 year of age and can keep up with the adults. The cubs will always make time to play, no matter the situation.
But as soon as they see what the body language is of the females, paying interest to a possible pray source, the cubs stop everything and keep out of site until everything is over and the females call them or come and fetch them.   

Wild dogs cover very large areas VERY QUICKLY. So when these dogs are spotted on drive, every one once to see them before they move out of the area again, but this season the Dog decided that it was time to den in the western sector of the reserve. This would mean that the dog would now be seen on a daily basis, which meant it would take pressure off to tray and see them when ever.
At first the den is closed for viewing purposes, to give the animals time to settle in and not to put pressure on the pups.
  

Now the pups, 6 of them, are developing there pattens. The little ones are born black with the tail developing a white tip. Every dog has there own unique pattern.
Another advantage of having assess to a den site is to see the behavior of the adults when coming back to the den site after a hunting excursion.
Dogs are very sufficient hunters and eat very quickly, after which they trot back to the members that stayed behind at the den site, that looked after the pups.
Once back at the den everybody, including the pups make a very high pitched sound at the side of the mouth of those that came back from the hunt, this stimulates them to regurgitate thunks of undigested meat so that everybody can enjoy in the meal provided. This means that the hunting party needs to hunt a lot more frequently than any other predator.            

My time at Sabi Sands I have seen my fare share of leopards, but there is no end to number of new ones coming into the area, Mother Nature seas to it that there is a constant flow of a healthy gene pool.
This young male was seen in the central part of the reserve, smack bang in the middle of Dawone's (Territorial Leopard Male) territory.

Hlaba Nkunzi's girl is getting to the point now where she has to count the day, for mom and Dawone has spend time together and means that Hlaba Nkunzi is going into estrus, this means that mom will tel the little one that its time to move on her own and from this point there will be aggression between them on a permanent basis. Even to the point that they would fight over territory if it comes to it and even death.

Another animal which we don't see that often is the elusive Cheetah.
Well the female from the Eastern sector decided to come and see what the western side looks like and stayed almost 1 week. One overcast morning I responded to go and look at her and her sub-adults, and got a lot more than what I hoped for.
As we got to the area the 3 of them was sitting on top of a termite mound, we sat for about 10 min, when she spotted impalas and immediately stood up and started to creep closer to them.The sub-adults stayed back and off she went and at first it looked like she went to quickly, but she didn't. She brought down a adult impala and after a few minutes she released the grip on the neck and whent to call the sub-adults.

As they were enjoying the meal mom provided, a hyena rocked up in the area after he heard the commotion. The interaction between these 2 species was very interesting as the hyena was out numbered and had to wait for the mom to leave before he could intimidate the sub-adults. At first the sub-adults chased the hyena off, but persistence on behave of the hyena paid off and the cheetahs moved off the kill and left the area.      

WOW !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 

A small bit on Photoshop in this post.

A wile back I did n few postcards for my brothers business, as he was looking for something different to leave for his guests, so I made this postcard. 

All my pics and graphic work contains a mark in its minute form, to authenticate my work, can't be to careful now a days. The most time consuming was the text, with the gradient layer over everything to give it the effect that I was looking for.

 

  After everything was done, after I rasterize the text layer I realized that I spelled malaria wrong. I had to repositioned the text so that the extra l was hidden, after wards it looked grate.

 Well, there you have a few days out of my "life"

Hope you enjoyed it    

CHEERS ......

  "Faith in God includes FAITH in His Timing"

 Habakkuk 2:3