Thursday 21/01/2010

Lions singing happy birthday to me!!

Location : Entabeni Game Reserve/Waterberg

What a birthday day I had on Tuesday!!!

We went on an afternoon game drive and we found a pride of lions resting close to a water hole. Awesome sighting, but the light unfortunately was too bad for pictures as it was getting too dark! This pride consists of 1 male (the father of the one we saw on Monday), 2 females and 2 cubs of 1 year and half. This is Madala’s pride!! And his son is Makulu.

We were busy watching them waking up and all of a sudden Madala started roaring…..! Followed by his females….We had a roar concert 10 metres away from the car!!! We were actually so close that I could feel it vibrating along my spine! It was my first time to hear lions roaring so close to me and it was amazingly beautiful! What a sound! Once they were done (it lasted maybe 1 mn) I thank Mother Nature in my head for this incredible present. Not even 5 mn later they started roaring again…..Second round!! I actually had goose skin and then I thank Mother Nature once again! Not everyone gets lions roars as a birthday present!

On the way back to the camp we spotted a chameleon in a tree…..”Something” uncommon and not easy to spot. Birthday present number 2!
Back at the camp, Chief Piete (our cook) had made me a birthday cake...This touched me incredibly as he doesn’t even know me yet and he had no obligation to make it! Kindness….pure kindness! And when he gave me the cake he told me something I will never forget : “Happy birthday and may you have many more of them in Africa”….In Africa….Yes…in Africa…Present number 3!

Yesterday was St Sebastien and the day had a different flow!

First of all it was raining all morning and then I got stung by a bee right in the neck during my morning lecture. Fortunately I am not allergic to bees so all went well! A bit soar but nothing serious! Very interesting lecture in the morning…Nicole our lecturer at the moment has 22 years experience in wildlife film making and she’s simply amazingly passionate and knowledgeable! 5 hours lecture with her feels like 10 mn!! She’s incredible! She’s teaching us about scripting wildlife films for TV and she gives us some good tricks for our topic. Unfortunately she leaves tomorrow as we’re done now with scripts and it’s time to move on to camera and sound equipment. But we already learnt so much on her side. And the funny part is that she’s also from Hout Bay! She leaves down the road from me!

Anyway, we went for a 30 mn game drive yesterday afternoon and we got pondered by rain!! We were actually in the middle of one the most scary thunderstorm I have ever seen!! Lightnings cutting the sky in half and thunders so loud I felt turned a,part from the inside! I saved my camera on the way back but I got to the camp completely soaked!
So, lions singing happy birthday to me for my 28 and stung by a bee the next day! Not bad at all I would say!
Today was a full day in the classroom. Doing different kind of exercises like writing scripts, developing creativity, watching documentaries with a critic eye, etc..
Tonight we sat by the fire for a couple of hours and we heard again a lion roaring, probably Makulu. He was pretty close to the camp! Lovely….
I will try my best to post this tomorrow morning on my blog. Either before or after the morning game drive with some pictures.

List of birds seen on the 19/01/10
- Coqui Francolin
- White faced duck
- Reed Cormoran
- Brown Snake eagle
- Steppe buzzard
- European bee eater
- Speckled Mousebird
- African black duck
- Mountain wagtail

List of mammals seen on 19/01/10
- Rhinoceros
- Impalas
- Giraffe
- Klipspringer
- Blue Wildebeest
- Zebras
- Cape Eland
- Warthogs
- Waterbuck
- Lions (roaring – 1 male, 3 females and 2 cubs)
- Jackals

List of reptiles seen on 19/01/10
- Chameleon