March 11, 2016 Sunrise Drive

My Drive photo album

Good morning from Jamie Paterson with "Dazzling" Dave on camera to start our fabulous sunrise drive.

• (2016/03/11 05:34) Lesser Bushbaby but he keeps hopping tree to tree and I personally only saw it once for half a second.

Good morning from James Hendry with Jeandré Gerding. (2016/03/11 05:36)

• (2016/03/11 05:45) James finds elephants it's still dark but the screenshots are great. 

 

• (2016/03/11 05:47) A tiny elephant calf plays with a stick with his uncoordinated trunk.  (VIDEO)

Jamie,

     (2016/03/11 05:54) Jamie finds three Spotted Hyena males, out and about.  The first hyena we see is one of the February twins, born in February 2015. This one is called "Feb twin #1" and is a male.  We see him walking around. Jamie tells us before she went live he was hunting flying termites alcates. The next hyena we see comes walking into the camera view in the road as "Feb twin #1" is walking away down the road. This one is a known young clan male; he has been seen often visiting the den. He follows "Feb twin #1" down the road. (Some viewers call this hyena "Ribbon" however the presenters have not used this name) A third is lying down and eventually gets up and follows the others, I believe the last one to be an older and dominant clan male sometimes called "clan male #16", but this name is also not used by the presenters.

 

 

James,

• (2016/03/11 06:00) A vulture and a leopard orchid in a tree.

Jamie,

• (2016/03/11 06:06) Finds a termite mound that something has been digging in. Most likely an aardvark.

• (2016/03/11 06:16) Jamie arrives at the spotted hyena den, off Aubrey's road. First we see two hyena playing, first one is "June" (cub of "Scarback" born in June 2015) the second is a young clan male we see often that some viewers call "Nkombo", I have heard James use this name once in reference to this hyena male.  Jamie puts the vehicle in a better position for viewing them. Then we see "Pretty" (mother to November cub, she is a high ranking female) with a full, fat, belly of food, walking away.  We go to James' vehicle for a minute.

 

James

• (2016/03/11 06:18) Burchell's startling at top of tree.

Jamie,

• (2016/03/11 06:19) Back to Jamie at the hyena den.  The twins, born to "Madam" the matriarch of the clan, in the first week of January 2016, are playing on the side of the termite mound that is their home. Their names as all of the cubs are simply the month they were born and a number. They are still too young for separate names so the presenters just call them the January cubs or Madam's cubs.  We spend some time just watching the two January cubs play for a cuteness overload!! Then we go to James, so Jamie can get the rain gear on all of the equipment.

 

James,

• (2016/03/11 06:25) James shows us a view of the misty rain coming in with three Hadada ibis flying past.

• (2016/03/11 06:30) He hears on the game drive radio that there is a lion kill just off our boundary and puts us in standby (tells them we want to see) but for now the sighting is full of vehicles.

Jamie,

• (2016/03/11 06:34) Still at den, Jamie thinks all the hyenas have gone to cover from the rain but "June" surprises her and we also see "Madam" hidden deep in a bush. 

•  (2016/03/11 06:36) Few more shots of "June" chewing a small shoulder blade bone.

Drizzling rain quite a bit now.

• (2016/03/11 06:43) Jamie answers a viewers question and tells a good story of hyenas surviving amazing injuries.

• (2016/03/11 06:44) Some views of "Madam" tucked under a bush.

James,

• (2016/03/11 06:45) Giant land snail (video James sings)
• (2016/03/11 06:53) Kudu females
• (2016/03/11 06:56) Buffelshoek dam with lots of terrapins swimming in it

Jamie,

• (2016/03/11 06:58) Jamie has found an unknown exotic snail, a species not seen here often.  Jamie saw one on a bushwalk before and no one could identify it, so she is keeping this one to help them identify it. 

 

• (2016/03/11 07:08) Impala 

     (2016/03/11 07:09) Due to rain the drive has to be cut short. Jamie says goodbyes for now. Great that it is raining so much lately but sadly that means drives get cut off short sometimes. It continued to rain thankfully and therefore Drive was unable to come back live, but they will be there for Sunset Drive this afternoon early evening.