The East African Fire Alarm Bird, so named as it imitates a smoke detector at 100db, made its presence known outside our room at 2am. With lungs like that you’d think it was the size of an Ostrich at least – but likely the size of your thumb. Imagine our surprise when we got up to notice next doors hut a smouldering ruin….
Gill doesn’t like early normally, but 5:45 is pushing the boundaries of early anyway, so she staggered to reception like a dalek needing a coffee, and then off we were in the van with Sammie and Daniel. What a fabulous morning – the dust was down after overnight rain and everything smelt fresh and new, elephant dung notwithstanding. Tracks led us to three lion cubs waiting for their mother on a tree limb started the day. They were as interested in the vans as we were in them. I do wish people would be quiet around the animals though – almost everyone is apart from the occaisional yakking van – I won’t say of which nationality as that would be presumptious, y’all.
Male lion went by and we watched him swim across the river to the quiet side – you could hear the groan from the antelope over there. Gill spotted a cheetah at full speed in the distance – after a long search we spotted the cat well away from the road and watched for an hour as the kill was eaten and the cat got its breath back.
Finished the day with a leopard up a tree – looked like he was stuck. As usual with leopards he ignored all the fuss around him and got on with a really good nap. Quite skilled at napping up a tree this one – our moggies at home would have quickly fallen out.