Once the little creatures had scuttled underground for the night the larger creatures moved in. Appearing like ghost over the dunes to make their way across the plains,
although some did decide that the valley was a safe haven from other animals with big teeth.
Soon their was a merry mix - after all said and done - the more eyes the better when you need some shut eye and you are lower down the food chain than roaring cats.
Finally the sun had totally disappeared - but the moon, even though it was not full moon yet, lit up the area as bright as day. Jax and I both believe that just before a full moon and during a full moon the animals are scarce and few sounds are heard from predators. Once gain this theory appeared to be fact. No sounds during the night except for some distant jackals breaking the silence with their haunting call. A distant owl echoed through the night sky - but very little else disturbed the silence of night except for the leaves rustling in the wind.
Time for us both to clean up and get to bed. After all the stress and drama both of us slept like the dead and I doubt anything other than an exploding bomb under our stretches would have disturbed us.
As expected it was not very warm and in the morning it was no exception. Time for some chores before heading out to see what we could see.
Sightings were few and far between, but the KTP is one place one can never say "we saw nothing" - although we did hear it more than once - as many people believe unless you see a big cat you have seen nothing!
There were plenty of general game and the kori bustard are always a pleasure to see - something like impala in Kruger. The fist day its "Oh wow" and then after that it is - "oh just a kori bustard" . Jackal were almost as common as the kori bustard. Love the little critters so it was no hardship to stop and watch them with their ding ding bouncing motion as they go about their daily business. As usual there were plenty of "lion grass", 'pangolin trees" and 'leopard rocks" never mind some other amazing imaginative leaves and caves!
One jackal we noticed was behaving strangely. There was definitely something that had attracted his attention. We watched for a tad, but couldn't see anything out of the ordinary in the long grass nor hidden behind the broken down tree.
I am not sure how long we sat there watching him. He was darting around, running off in the opposite direction, only to return and tip-toe through the grass. Then I let out a yell. Sometimes we are so busy looking into the near or far distance we forget to look down next to the car.
Fortunately my shriek of excitement only scared the living daylights out of Jax, but in no way disturbed the eyes that were staring at us through the grass.
