Kgalagadi part 2: Kalahari wildlife

The animals of the Kalahari truly are amazing.  There is very little water and what water there is, is saltier than sea water.  All along the dry river beds of the Nossob and Auob rivers there are boreholes which fill drinking troughs for the animals.  Tam’s mom says that most of the Kalahari animals don’t actually need the borehole water to survive, as their metabolic systems produce water during the digestion of food.  That said, we still saw most of the game in the river bed near to the waterholes. 

We spent long hours watching and photographing the game at the waterholes, and it was fascinating watching the behavior and interaction between the different species.  The wildebeest were the funniest by far.  I think its fair to say that they must be some of the most bloody minded creatures on earth.  One of them would get into the water trough and then instead of drinking, spent considerable effort preventing any of his mates from drinking.  The gemsbok, although being larger and having bigger and considerably sharper horns, was not permitted to drink once in the three hours that we sat watching the waterhole.  It really was painful to watch them trying to get a drink, but being denied and chased by the wildebeest again and again.  Even the large males seemed reluctant to challenge the wildebeest.

While the wildebeest were continuing to harass the gemsbok, a large kudu came walking towards the waterhole from far off.  Tam’s dad joked that here was finally an antelope with the courage and pride to chase the silly wildebeest from the waterhole.  As it turns out, he completely ignored all the other game and simply marched right up to, and into the waterhole, without so much as a snort or a wave of those impressive horns.  Both the wildebeest and the gemsbok simply parted, and were left watching as he gorged himself for 15 min.  He really was amazing.

Nearly every waterhole had a resident jackal or two.  We had watched as they unsuccessfully stalked and lunged at the hundreds of doves that drink at sunrise and sunset.  One afternoon we arrived back at camp just in time for gate closure and popped into the camps hide to see what was drinking.  The jackals were once again trying to catch doves for dinner.  We watched a few unsuccessful attempts and as the light was getting really low I was about to put the camera away when I got this sequence.  I could not believe that the jackal was fast enough to catch a dove.  I guess persistence pays off in the end, both for the jackal, and for me :)

When I first became interested in wildlife photography my mother bought me numerous educational books on the subject.  One of the best ones was by Andy Rouse.  I have been following his blog for a while now, and inspired by some of his amazing back-lit images, I tried a few of my own.  Initially I was not that successful, but one morning everything came together just right, and I managed to get what I consider to be some of my favorite photos to date.  I really love the two shots below.  I also realised that a great photo requires no small amount of luck.  In these photos, the sun was perfect, the camera was setup just right and we were in the perfect position for the shot, but had it not been for the boisterous mood of the silly wildebeest, there would have been no dust and not nearly the atmosphere captured in these shots.

Yes, I know that I am posting the photo below again, but I just love it that much.