Beating around the Bush

Mrs. Richards: When I pay for a view, I expect to see something more interesting than that.
Basil Fawlty: That is Torquay, madam.
Mrs. Richards: Well, that's not good enough.
Basil Fawlty: Well, might I ask what you expected to see out of a Torquay hotel bedroom window? Sydney Opera House, perhaps? The hanging gardens of Babylon? Herds of wildebeest sweeping majestically...
From Fawlty Towers - Communication Problems

In some ways it is quite funny to go on these game drives. You can usually tell how many drives a person has done by their reaction to the animals. The first time you go out you take pictures of elephants from a kilometer away, and exclaim excitedly over each herd of zebras or impala. As you do more drives you become more blasè about the animals, and more selective about your photography. The really well seasoned tourists don't even bother to take pictures of the herds of buck, as they have seen more buck than you can shake a stick at.

Check out my pictures below. You can click on a picture to see a larger version.

A wildebeest (literally translates in English as a wild animal or into Yiddish as a wilde chaye):

Sexual harassment or love at first sight? You be the judge: we came across this wildebeest at a salt lick. The white bird standing next to it is a cattle egret, that eats insects off the buck. This egret obviously saw something tasty on the wildebeest so he crept up on the wildebeest, who got annoyed and moved a few meters aside. Then the hapless bird would come creeping up again, forcing the wildebeest to retreat further from the annoyance.


A male kudu:



A female kudu:




Look at those huge ears! Nobody can hear a predator creeping up on you like a kudu.

A springbok:


A nyala youngster, still suckling from its mother:


A steenbok:


A waterbok:

Did you know there were so many species of buck? :-)

Impala:



Note the three black lines on the impala's rump. Most animals have a marking that is very distinctive and visible from behind. It's called a "follow me" marking. Animals are hard-coded (as it were) to follow this distinctive marking. It helps herds stick together by ensuring that they run in a particular direction when attacked by a predator. It also ensures that the youngsters will follow their mother.
In the case of the impala the marking forms a sort of "M" character. The joke is that since the impala are so tasty the M stands for MacDonalds (and if you turn the impala on it's back it becomes the "W" of Wimpy's), and the locals refer to the impala as "fast food". I didn't check this theory by tasting impala, but I can tell you that wildebeest boerewors tastes quite good :-)

Wait just a minute, I hear you cry. You can't fool us, those are springbok not impala.
Well, no, actually they're not. Take a look at this side view of an impala:

Note the colours on the belly of the impala, and compare it to the springbok. The white area on the sprinbok's belly starts much higher up than on the impala.

Interesting to note, you very often find different herds of animals together. That is because they complement each other when it comes to detecting predators. Kudu can hear well, impala have keen eyesight and wildebeest can smell (and boy oh boy do they smell!)


Warthogs:

Note how the warthogs kneel down to eat the grass. They do this only during the dry months, when there is not so much vegetation, and they want to get closer to the grass. In the wet months, when the vegetation is higher they don't have to kneel down.

Vervet monkeys:



Baboons:

You can tell the man who boozes....

Monkeys and baboons are something of a pest in South Africa. In some places you cannot leave a window even slightly open, and they recommend that you don't leave any food or fruit or anything in plain sight. This is because the monkeys can get into just about anywhere, and they can be quite destructive. The tourists find it amusing and romantic, and don't understand why the locals hate the monkeys and continually chase them away. But if you come back to your room to find your clothes destroyed stuff missing and monkey poo all over the bed it isn't so amusing.

It's no joke, I'm totally serious. One year my aunt and uncle were visiting Sun City with my parents, and my uncle went to have an afternoon sleep and didn't close the window. A troop of monkeys came into the room, started checking out all their clothing and toiletries, and one monkey even lay down on the bed next to my sleeping uncle. According to my aunt, when she came in the monkey was spooning my uncle, while the others were trying on her makeup and perfume. So she clapped her hands to frighten the monkeys, and my uncle woke up rolled over and opened his eyes. My aunt says that when he and the monkey looked at each other they both yelled "Aaaaaaaaah!" Then the monkey jumped off the bed and through the open window.
(Actually it didn't happen like that, but it was fairly close. And my version is much funnier).

Next: The Scenic Route