CIES SAFARI - Day 2
This was the day meant for finding lions! We heard them roaring through out the night and I had a very good idea of which area they were to be found in, or so I thought! Heading directly to this area we found their tracks, one male and a female walking down the road, the tracks were fresh, no signs of insects walking across the tracks, no grass patterns and no loose grains of sand were on top of the imprints! I can still remember saying“They just made their way down the road, chances are very good that we will find them shortly!” or NOT!
An hour later we were still in hot pursuit, getting out of the vehicle every so often to double check the tracks, then, out of the blue, that dreaded call come in over the radio that one of the other rangers have found them, now-where close to where we were, 10 miles in the opposite direction! To this day I am convinced that the lions got to a road and jumped across it without leaving as much as a hair imprint! Extremely embarrassed I turned to the guests and explained the situation to them, we decided, instead of racing to the lions, rather to continue on our own and see what else was about.
Every heard the saying, “Early bird catches the worm?”. This Yellow-billed Hornbill might just have to disagree! He was sitting in the middle of the road, eyeing out a colony of red ants. A while later we watched him as he started picked them up one by one and throwing the ant into the air in order for him to get them down his throat. Was an amazing sighting as he allowed myself and my guest to get out of the vehicle, lay flat down on the ground not more than 5 meters from him and did he pose for photos, never mind the ants in our pants!!!
