Game Drive 1 & 2
- Jim Galiardi
- Dec 8, 2023
- 2 min read
Updated: Dec 9, 2023
Game Drive 1 started literally 45 minutes after I arrived at 4pm that afternoon.
First encounter was this journey of giraffes. One male (the big guy) and three female.
These Impala are everywhere. The common joke when two rangers meet in the bush: "Have you seen any Impala? We've been looking all day!" It is fun to watch the babies though. This is Impala & Wildebeest birthing season. In the next month or so all the babies are born. Mother nature practicing safety in numbers. The baby Impala are running within hours after birth. Even still their survival rate is about 50%. The Leopards and Lions call them appetizers.
Meanwhile these guys are the main course.
Speaking of Lions, these Lionesses look to be sleeping off a heavy lunch.
These 5 sisters are about 4 years old and broke off from another pack. They don't have an established territory yet, so they dance between the territories of other prides. And sleep.
Later that evening we were very lucky to come across this Cheetah as there are only about 100 believed to be in existence across this whole area of Northwestern Africa and Mozambique.
We got to follow him along for a bit as he marked his territory.
He left us with one last regal picture before we headed back to the Camp for the evening.
Drive 2 started at sunrise - 5:30am this morning.
Ran across a small cackle of Hyena first thing.
We spent most of the rest of that morning chasing a pack of wild dogs that were leading for or 5 of the ranger's land rovers on a game of hide and seek in and out of the bush. I really want to get some good looks at wild dogs but they are very migratory and a rare catch. We were lucky enough to see these two ever so briefly before we gave up on chasing them in circles and went off to find something else.
Soon after we ran across this female Leopard who was being irritated by an hyena.
Then this older Elephant Male
Then a little later in the morning this younger guy.
Then it was off to breakfast and a nap!
These pics and videos are incredible! What’s it like to go eye to eye with a giraffe? 😀