May 22-23: Kruger Highlights!

NOTE, I am going to try something different with the videos today, in part because they are long ones (you will see why). I understand that downloading them on your device is taking a long time, at least for some of you, and this is probably due to my website host, Hostinger. SO, based on Nathan’s suggestion, I am going to try providing you a Youtube link to each video instead of embedding them in this blog. That means you will leave the blog and go to Youtube to see the video, but then you will have to return to the blog to continue – it won’t happen automatically. Try not to get distracted on Youtube as there will be many other videos on the channel and you could easily lose the continuity of the blog post. Let me know how this works.

First, before getting to the exciting highlights section, let me describe my journey north from my last campsite at Setara to my new campsite at Letaba (which I won’t say anything about because it was just another Kruger campground, small city just like Satara). As I mentioned last time, as I moved north through Kruger the environment changes a bit and the landscape becomes increasingly dominated by mopane woolands, which is dominated by the mopane tree that I discussed last time. Here are a few shots of the mopane woodland, noting that in most places the mopane trees are sort of stunted in growth so they appear more scrub-like than full trees, but in some places they take on greater stature, and they will get larger as I continue north:

Not too exciting I know, but hey, that’s mopane woodland – at least the stunted version. I also encountered a couple of large river valleys with flowing water – they must be something to see during the rainy season when they are at flood stage:

There are also quite a few of these rocky hills (or “koppies” as they are called) that stick up out of the plains in isolation that provide some really nice relief to the landscape – and they look like they should have all kinds of cool animals on them:

OK, now I want to share a few Kruger highlight experiences. There’s lots more to share in terms of animals sites and sounds, but they will have to wait.

#1. African savannah (a.k.a. “bush”) elephant. My first highlight is none other than the magnificant African elephant. But before getting to the video, let’s talk a little about why elephants are so important and why they are probably my favorite animal here to observe in the wild. The African savannah elephants is what we call a “keystone” species; that is, a species that has a greatly disproportionate influence on the ecosystem given its abundance or biomass. In this case, although elephants are big, well actually they are huge, they don’t amount to that much biomass relative to many other organisms that make up for their diminutive size by their shear numbers. However, elephants have a massive impact on the ecosytem in terms of structure and function, and through their activities they affect the habitat of numerous other organisms. Indeed, many organisms practically owe their existence to elephants.

Let me give just a couple examples to illustrate what I am talking about (but there are many more examples that we could draw from).

Example 1. Elephants physically alter the environment in many ways. For example, elephants dig holes in the ground with their feet – sometimes aided by their tusks. They do this for a variety of reasons, one of which is to get at minerals to include in their diet. By creating these holes, water will collect in them and the elephants will return to drink and take mud baths – which they do to protect their skin from the sun. Their repeated visits will gradually enlarge the holes and they can become seasonal or even permenant water holes, which then provide water and habitat for a whole host of other organisms. In some parts of Africa, the actions of elephants to create water holes is the only means of creating this critical habitat. In these areas, without elephants, in the long run, many water hole/wetland dependent organisms would disappear. Here is a series of photos I took today to show the idea of the progression in the development of a water hole by elephants:

Example #2. Elephants eat a lot! By a lot, I mean that an average adult can eat 300-400 pounds of plant material every day. That’s a lot of organic matter going in, but what comes out? Well, they only digest roughly 50 percent of what goes in, so do the math. A lot comes out the back end every day. This dung is the perfect compost to support the growth of the very plants they just ate. Also, the dung is filled with undigested plant seeds that are now deposited in the perfect setting to grow, and some plants even need to pass through the elephant digestive system to germinate. In addition, there is an entire community of insects that live in elephant dung. Some, like the dung beetle simply gather up a bit of the dung and roll it away to a private location where it can lay its eggs so that their larvae have a feast waiting for them. All sorts of critters feed on the insects attracted to the dung. Do you remember Zazu from the Lion King. Well, he was a Hornbill, and I watched many hornbills (southern yellow-billed and red-billed hornbills) pecking insects out of elephant dung balls today on my drive. Here is an elphant dung ball; now multiply this by a very large number and that is what each elephant is leaving behind each day:

There is so much we could talk about, but it would take a book to discuss all the cool things about elephants and tell the complete story of their diminishing numbers and range throughout Africa. Suffice it to say that historically they were everywhere throughout sub-Saharan Africa and truly a dominant presence in most ecosytems. Today they are almost entirely restricted to the scattered Parks and Reserves, which represent a small fraction of their historic range and represent disconnected “island” populations to boot.

Instead, let’s talk about some very exciting encounters with elephants I had over the past few day in Kruger. In the composite video below I selected just a few of my favorite highlights. Note the following as you watch the video: 1) when you are driving around on these Park roads you have to keep at least one eye on the road ahead because you never know who is going to be waiting for you when you round the bend blocking the road, and by the way, what do you do when you have two elephant butts sticking out of the bushes into the road? 2) watch how the young elephant uses its foot and trunk to scrap the road surface to gather up some needed minerals for its diet; 3) watch for the ears flared and head shake that indicates that they are a little disturbed at your presence, and just letting you know who is the boss! 4) watch how the matriarchal herd (i.e., the matriarch and her young of various ages and their offspring, along with probably her sisters and their young) watches out for the young ones and keeps them protected at all times, and just how fun-loving and playful the young ones are; 5) watch how they go to town on the bark of this tree they had pushed over before I got there – see how they use their tusks and trunk together to tear off the bark and eat it (by thye way, what is this big bull elephant, the one that is really intent on eating the bark, doing with this herd, as they are usually off by themselves or hanging out with other bulls away from the matriarchal units); and finally, 6) how cool is it to watch the young elephant nursing 10 feet in front of me – which is a really good sign that they were not too bothered by me, especially since they approached me and not the reverse. Enjoy!

Elephant composite video (11 minutes)

#2. Southern Giraffe. My second highlight is also one of my favorite animals to watch because of their unique and awkward physical appearance, which can make for some interesting maneuvers – as you shall see. This species is the epitomy of evolution by natural selection. What a crazy body form! Only evolution could create such a creature, who is perfectly adapted to browse on all the yummy vegetation that is out of reach to all those other “lowly” herbivores. As such, with its outstretch neck, the giraffe has access to an essentially untapped food resource. Of course, it comes at the expense of some pretty big tradeoffs. It makes it a bit awkward to run at high speeds, so the best they can do is lollop along. And they do so with the very unique gate of the front and rear legs both moving at the same time, alternating with the two legs on the other side – unlike most 4-legged creatures in which the front right and rear left come forward together followed by the front left and rear right. So they look really wierd when running

Now, we an all agree that the neck of the giraffe is exceptionally long. So how many cervical (neck) vertebrate do you think they have? Hint: we humans have 7. So, it must be like 20 or 30, right? Actually, no, they also have only 7 cervical vertebrate – they are just super elongated ones. This means they can’t articulate their neck as much as you think they might like to. And with regards to the neck, one of the fun things you will see in the video is these 2 young bulls “necking” – no that doesn’t mean they are having sexual relations – it is how they battle. These two young bulls are just trying out their combat skills, sort of practicing if you will, before they have to really use their necking skills to compete for the pleasure of mating with receptive females.

Another tradeoff of being so tall is that it makes it very difficult to get your head down to the water hole to get a drink. So, they have to splay their frong legs apart so as to lower their body just enough to get their head down to the water. This makes for a very awkward posture, and one they are not keen to make often as they are vulnerable to lion predation at this time. In the video, note the tentativeness at getting low for the drink. But alas, it has to be done!

Lastly, while the southern giraffe once enjoyed a nearly ubiquitous distribution throughout sud-Saharan Africa, they too have had their distribution drastically reduced by humans. Fortunately, this species of giraffe still has pretty substantial numbers in southern Africa, albeit restricted mostly to the Parks and Reserves. OK, enjoy this video of a few of my favorit giraffe moments in Kruger:

Giraffe composite video (4 minutes)

#3. Wild dogs. Let’s finish with one of my best experiences in Kruger. On my second to last day in the Park I came across this pack of wild dogs in the road. I had this drive entirely to myself as I hadn’t seen another vehicle all morning – hoorah! I won’t say too much here because I had the good sense of doing a little narration in the video itself and I covered some of the key points of interest. Suffice it to say that this observational experience was exceptional on many levels. First, because it was with wild dogs, which are one of Africa’s coolest predators, and second, because I spent perhaps 1 hour with these dogs all by myself, something that is rare in the Parks when sighting a predator species like this. In case you were wondering, this is why I am in Africa!

Wild dog composite video (8 minutes)

I hope you enjoyed some of these Kruger highlights. There’s lots more to share with you on some other pretty cool species and observations, including some more mystery sounts, but I think I will leave those for later as this post is already rediculously long. So long Kruger – Cheers!