Day 3 Predawn Game Drive and Night game drive

Yawn....stretch.....
I was awake most of the night attending to the rooting sounds of some unknown critters near our tent site. Ephata, our fearless guide wanted to take us on a predawn game drive followed by a picnic breakfast in the bush so it was easy to get up at 5:00 am! We're learning that Ephata is passionate about finding and watching the animals...all of them!




The ostriches were the most fascinating birds to watch and, yes, they are HUGE! The fancy one on the right sporting pink neck and legs with a black torso is the male. The plain Jane is the female. He is desperately trying to get her to accept his proposal for mating; she's having none of it until she's good and ready. Meanwhile he follows her around like a puppy on a leash. When she does lay eggs (whether as the result of mating with him or another handsome ostrich) she will share her nest with several other female ostriches. She will nest sit during the day and the male will nest sit at night. Great arrangement and one of the most egalitarian in nature!


We spotted this cheetah lounging on a termite mound about 20 feet from the dirt road. Bingo! We found our very first cat. We must have watched this guy for 20 minutes and he put on quite a show.

A word about the termite mounds.... The termites eat the dry grass and are able to make huge dirt looking mounds that become the habitat for snakes and mongoose. Interestingly, snakes and
mongoose are both prey and predators to one another; just
depends on whose lucky that day.





















We watched these elephants for quite a while wondering how long it would take them to discover "Waldo" ah um the well camouflaged female lions in the grass watching them. They say that the lions are the only animals who really sleep soundly in the wild, but these elephants reconnoitered and found the sneaky carnivores watching. The elephants made a straight line in front of the lions to mark their territory and they put their young babies in the middle of the ring for protection. I couldn't help but root for the elephants!




After dinner back at the camp site, we went on a night game drive under a full moon that looked like a magnificent topaz stone that had been dropped into a black velvet sea. Our guide found these two male lions about 20 feet from our open jeep. He assured us that if they were hungry they would go for the zebras before they would come for us! These two young males are around 3 years old, are brothers and best friends who hunt together as they become of age to challenge the leader of a pride.