Hunting Painted Dogs. Part Two

Day 2 - Selous Game Reserve, Tanzania

Sunrise

As the sun rose, we set off on our hunt for wild dogs. 
Why, you ask, this obsession? Because they are rare and difficult to find. Because they are beautiful. But most of all because of their social interaction, their hierarchy, their working together is nearly unmatched in nature. 
Plus they are like cute little doggies. 

What we could see instead were bucket-loads of giraffe. Working on the assumption the buckets can come in very large sizes.
Road block:

This was to be our first full days game drive, thirteen hours searching for the Elusive Painted Dogs. We knew it would be difficult, thus use of the word ‘elusive’. In the meantime, we would treat this as a normal safari, spotting anything available, like lions, elephants, bushes...
Hunting wildlife involves looking everywhere at the same time. Not just for the animals themselves, but also for their spoor. This isn’t half as disgusting as it sounds.
We were looking for tracks. There’s a lot of sand around here, which makes an ideal environment for spotting them. 
The most common dog-like track we found belonged to this chap

Hyenas, capable of eating almost as much as our dog Sky. But not quite. Hyenas can eat every part of an animal, including their bones. Sky can also eat their underwear.
This was to be a somewhat typical of a day’s safari for us, driving around beautiful scenery,

attempting not to get eaten.
Then we saw something else attempting to avoid ingestion:

You don’t often see geese up in trees, we suspected predator.
Then we heard this guy calling out whilst waggling his willy around.

Ian, our guide, said that he was calling out "Leopard!" Apparently "African Painted Dogs!" would have sounded different. Plus he would have waggled his willy in a different way.
There was a cat in the undergrowth, but, despite the guides alert eyes and my total inability to see the bush in front of me without help, we saw nothing. Except the bushes. They get everywhere.

Back to hunting dogs:

You may notice the total lack of dogs in this photo. 
This is one of several ‘sand rivers’, a riverbed dry in the dry season (and  presumably wet in the wet season), an ideal place for looking for tracks.
Of which there were many: Elephant tracks everywhere (despite not having seen an actual elephant anywhere), hyenas, giraffe, antelope, bushes...
No dogs.

We would stop here regularly as this is not far from where the dogs den was thought to be. They often came here to drink. Apparently sand is one of their favourite drinks.
In the absence of dogs, I had to photograph something else (it’s another obsession of mine). These bee-eaters were nesting in the riverbank just next to our breakfast table. They were eating butterflies for breakfast. I guess ‘butterfly-eaters’ would make them less appealing.

With renewed vigour we set off again for another few hours energetically sitting in a jeep.

Buffalo are not normally too keen on portrait photography.

But this one was clearly more vain than the average buffalo.

We then saw this Kudu doing a little dance. Ian translated this as "There’s a lion coming this way!"

and there she was.

 She was a lone, aging lioness.

It seems she had been shunned by the rest of her pride because of her bad breath.

Hmmm. I had to get a closer look.

She seemed a little upset. This is the first time I’ve been photo-bombed by a lion...

The hunger in the lion's eyes reminded us of our need for succour.
Erecting our table and chairs next to Lake Tagalala (still love that name) we tucked in whilst admiring the (crocodile infested) view.

Passing elegant giraffes passed elegantly by,

Whilst sneakily glancing at our food, in an elegant fashion.

The usual pods of hippos wallowed happily in mud, in just the way that only hippos can,

occasionally popping out to graze grass, the only thing they eat other than humans.

Bird photos are obligatory, this one amused me. (An African Wattled Lapwing)

The temptation to shout out "He’s behind you!" was, well, tempting. A Yellow-billed Stork plus friend.

This provoked a little laughter.

We passed the afternoon searching the distant horizon. The scenery here is quite charming, lots of hills and varied habitats. These magnificent Baobab trees are common here. This one looks about two thousand years old. I think it was mentioned in the bible.

Baboons are everywhere. Wherever you look, there are baboons. Wherever they look is sometimes inappropriate...

Another animal with oro-dental problems. This could become a theme.

The drive came to an end without dogs or signs of their tracks. But we were happy, it had been a good day and we looked forward to a hot shower and a great meal.

The shower was cold.

The meal was great. 

But.

The starter was gaspacho. Nothing unusual, albeit that we had tried it but once before, without mishap.

This time was to be different. 

There were rather more raw onions in it than Annick’s internal workings could cope with. During the night, the spasms started. My trusty companion’s untrustworthy alimentary canal was attempting to escape. This resulted in an ‘uncomfortable’ night. 

With worse to come.

To be continued in the next blog, entertainingly entitled Part Three.

Day’s End

Daily Bonus: Annick’s favourite iPhone images from Day 2:

Baobabs were everywhere.
Lurking behind bushes.

Interesting fact about maribou storks: they are ugly.

Part one of this amazing story, 'Getting There' can be found here.

The Next Part van be found here.