Today was a very good day for game viewing! On our game transect today, we recorded over 150 game! A game transect is where we sit in the back of a pick up truck and are driven along a pre-determined route and count, identify, and track the GPS coordinates of all the animals we see. On a typical day, seeing 150 game might not be a big deal because of the large numbers of impala we see, but today was different.. We saw over 30 elephants! We saw ton of giraffe as well in the area dubbed 'giraffe day care' near the power lines close to camp (or pylons, as everyone else not from the US calls them). In this area there are usually a couple adults and many, many juveniles. A very scary part of the game transect was when we first left camp and got going was that we found a lone bull elephant. When we stopped the vehicle to get our coordinates he became very aggressive by running towards us and started flapping his ears and trumpeting. I have only heard the elephants do it when they are excited about something, like running towards the river (the Olifants River that our camp is next to). I have never heard it as an act of aggression. Believe me, they are completely different sounds. He had come so close that our field guide told us after he had left that she was very close to having us jump up real big and scream, to intimidate him. i'm very glad we didn't have to! Back at camp in the afternoon a herd of elephants showed up on our side of the river and were munching among the reeds.
We had a great view for a while but unfortunately we had to go back to an inverts lecture. I could watch those guys all day! These past few days have been absolutely fantastic!
- Erin
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