 Birds eat giraffe alive: Video
from Wildcast - African bush adventures live-blogged to a screen near you
August 19, 2008
After 2 days of cold overcast weather the sun at least came out today. It didn’t have much strength but it was at least somewhat warmer. My dawn patrol checking for the wild dogs didn’t get me any closer to finding them, although there were tracks at Manyuchi. So at least they’re still in the area. The hyaena den was quiet and then I found the pack on the road playing with the remains of a zebra carcass. Well they were just playing with a piece of skin and a few bones. Judging from the size of the zebra it could easily have been the one the vultures were on yesterday. The games soon began when the owner of the zebra skin had it stolen by a youngster. They were all after him with much squealing and giggling, most of it coming from the youngster with the skin. This is always so comic to witness and the sound is just awesome. But so difficult to film as they’re running all over and the bush is thick so you just don’t see anything. But the sound sure is worth it. It was back to Hwata pan at midday, as I expected to find the elephant there. Several bulls were just leaving and then a breeding herd came by, drank and moved on. The herds weren’t hanging around as they were a few days and only because it was still pretty chilly today. No doubt they’ll soon be back spending hours at Hwata when the temperatures warm up again at the end of the week. On Banyini I encountered this really old giraffe bull. So old his head was grey. He was covered in red-billed oxpeckers and one lonely yellow-billed. The birds generally do a great job in cleaning the animals of external parasites, which they were doing, but they had also got hold of an old injury of his and were now eating their way slowly but surely into his body. Already they’ve made 3 neat holes about an inch deep. I wonder how long this will go on and how will the bull stop it if he hasn’t already? In the evening I again drove up my track up the mountain still hoping that just maybe the wild dog pups would be there. But I wasn’t that lucky. I climbed to the highest peak and for the last half hour of the day scanned the area with binoculars just hoping……………….. adventure, africa, african, african birds, animal, animal kingdom, animals, bird, birding, birding african birds, birds, blog, blogumentary, bush, bush knowledge, conservation, cubs, documentary, dog, ecotraining, education, elephant, elephants, endangered species, experience, film, filmmaker, flickr, giraffe, GLTP, gonarezhou, Great Limpopo Transfrontier Park, hyaenas, hyena, kill, malilangwe, mashable, narrowcasting, nature, Open Content Alliance, ornithology, oxpecker, pamushana, pan, peace parks, photo, photos, podcasting, predators, teach, video, wild dogs, wildcast, wildcasting, wilderness, wildlife, wildlife documentary, youtube, zebra, zimbabwe
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