Last week the Wife and I had to pick up someone in Gqeberha (Port Elizabeth), 130 kilometres from our hometown Makhanda, (Grahamstown). We worked out that if we left home just before six a.m. we could spend four hours driving around in the Addo Elephant Park (AEP) and still make it to the airport on time.
It sounds like a decent enough idea as we have done similar quick visits in the past and usually had good sightings. The only reason for hesitation was the weather - it was one of the coldest weeks on record. The forecasts predicted more cold and an icy drizzle, not good game-viewing weather.
Nevertheless, as die-hard Addo Addicts we left home well before daybreak.
An hour later, we were the first visitors to enter the gate at 7:00 a.m. The temperature was below five degrees and the howling wind made opening the window feel like a peculiar form of masochism. Of course you can close the windows of your car and keep warm, but when you want to take photos, it’s time to wind down and shiver.
We drove and strained our necks looking out for something moving, anything. We drove and drove, looking left, looking right, down the fire-breaks and . . . nothing.
We knew there were elephants around because splotches of their dung decorated the roads at irregular intervals. We expect to see elephants on every visit, even if we are only driving through. There are, after all, more than 600 elephants in the main section of the park and there aren’t any thick jungles where elephants can hide.
There weren’t any other vehicles on the roads. No visitors, nor park employees. No animals and no cars, just the nagging wind and intermittent drizzle. It was more than a little peculiar.
Eventually, I spotted two zebras in the distance, standing alone in a wide open plain on Vukani Loop where they were uncomfortably exposed to the weather. As we approached it became clear what held them to that desolate patch of ground. A zebra foal lay dead on the ground not half a dozen metres from the dirt road. It’s hard to say how old it was, but definitely not a new-born.
The foal’s mother and another zebra, perhaps a relative, remained in the vicinity of the carcass. They chewed on the dry grass through force of habit. Once in a while they would raise their heads and look around. Occasionally the mother would chase off one of the two black-backed jackals that appeared on the scene.
The jackals took turns harassing the mother but she managed to keep them at bay for at least the half an hour we stayed to take photos. They circled around her trying to get to the free meal that tantalized them, but she would not have it. She galloped after them, again and again.
There was no obvious indication of how the foal had died. If it had been hunted by lions or hyenas it is unlikely they would have left their kill without eating a large part of its flesh.
When we first came across the foal only a few chunks had been torn out from its bum area. Probably a jackal had briefly been successful in zipping past its mother to nip a soft piece off the foal’s rear end. The remainder of the carcass looked largely intact.
We speculated that it might have died from the over-night freeze. It had been very cold and any living thing on the plains would have been cruelly exposed. A wildlife expert we spoke to said that it was possible that another zebra, probably a male, had kicked the young zebra’s head. Apparently they do that sometimes.
Driving on into the misty chill
After a while, we moved on in search of new sightings, but planning to return before we left the park to see if there had been any new predators on the carcass.
We drove further into the misty chill. There were a few more zebras, some red hartebeest and a handful of ostriches. Nothing very exciting really.
I have always found it a difficult to take a good picture of a hartebeest (antelope related to tsessebe and topi) even though they often allow you to drive up quite close to them. In the AEP, they usually tolerate vehicles until they are about three or four metres away before they slowly move off.
In different parks and reserves the buffer distance between animals and cars can vary considerably depending on whether hunting is permitted or not.
After pondering the problem for some time, I reached the conclusion that it is difficult to take a decent picture of a hartebeest because its eyes are not where you expect them to be.
For photography, the single most important part of the anatomy of any living creature are the eyes. If you have a good shot of at least one eye, a little twinkle, a reflection, or a shocked wide-eye, you have the beginnings of a good picture. This is not at all easy with a hartebeest. Their eyes are too high up their skulls and they seem to be devoid of any expression.
We drove on until we arrived at Hapoor Dam – usually the best place in the whole AEP to see game. This time, there was nothing, so we pulled out our sandwiches and enjoyed a late breakfast beside the biggest body of water in the main section.
When there are no animals about, it is easy to get frustrated. But that’s when you pay more attention to the rich bird-life in the park. Of course, an ostrich will get your attention any time, but there are many others worth observing.
To name a few: fiscal shrike (one of my favourites), glossy starling, pale chanting goshawk and various types of buzzard. Strangely enough, vultures are only rarely seen in the AEP, perhaps because there aren’t many trees big enough for their nests.
Soon it was time to go back to see if any large predators had arrived on the zebra carcass.
Back to Vukani Loop
Shortly after we turned onto Vukani Loop we spotted two zebras walking toward the main road. They looked like the mother zebra and her companion. We could not be sure, but it seemed as though the mother had abandoned her dead foal.
A few hundred metres on and our suspicions were confirmed. The remains of the dead zebra had been forsaken by its mother.
In the two-and-a-half hours between our visits, almost half the zebra had been eaten. It was quite shocking to see just how much of the poor animal had disappeared. The mother had clearly lost the battle to protect the body of her young one and had been forced to move on.
At first we did not see any predator in the area so we guessed that a hyena, or perhaps a couple of hyenas had gorged themselves and left to find cover from the persistent wind. While we were considering the various possibilities a jackal appeared and trotted straight to the carcass.
Normally jackals are wary of vehicles and humans, but this one did not hesitate. He did not seem to be very hungry as his belly was quite round. He bit into the foal and tugged a few pieces of meat away. After about ten minutes or so, he decided it wasn’t worth putting up with the wind and the rain, so he left.
We never found out what had consumed such a large part of the zebra in a relatively short time. I am convinced it was a pair of hyenas. Not even half a dozen jackals could have eaten so much meat so quickly. At the other end of the scale, I think a lion would have simply picked up the body and taken it to a more sheltered place to eat.
The sad body of the zebra foal was one aspect of that particular Addo visit that was remarkable. A second astonishing fact was that we never saw a single elephant nor even one warthog during the entire excursion.
The AEP is the third largest game reserve in South Africa, but surely it is not so large that you can hide 600 elephants? It is bewildering that one can drive around a park dedicated to protecting one of the most concentrated herds of elephants in the world and not see a single one.
However, people who have visited the park will find it even more perplexing to learn that we never saw a single warthog. This is almost unbelievable because under normal conditions, warthogs are so plentiful that cars don’t even slow down to look at them. They are usually all over the place.
And that was our remarkable, even if very brief visit to the Addo Elephant Park.
In next week’s edition of Real Safari, I will discuss some of the antelopes you can see not only at Addo but at other parks in the country.