Dam dogs

Yesterday I had one of the best sightings ever! I was out with Declan, one of the other guides and we went in search of the wild dogs we'd heard had taken down a waterbuck on the western side of one of the dams.

Wild dogs rip their prey apart in seconds, killing them swiftly. Many say that this brutal way of doing away with their prey is mean, but I think I'd prefer it to the slower suffocating death that the big cats would offer you. Also feeding is a quick business and on approach we could see that most of their kill had been promptly gulped down and what now remained was literally skin and bones. The only ones still interested in the scraps were the youngsters, last year's pups.

Some of the dogs showed a keen interest in the two waterbucks that wearily watched them from the middle of the dam. One of them was brave enough to try to make it into the bush but the dogs were there in a heartbeat, so the buck lived up to her name and ran for safety into the water again... and this time, she stayed put.

After a while one of the older dogs made it off with a big bone and only two of the younger members of the pack could be bothered with the skin.

But this is when a brown hyena seased the opportunity and came sneaking into the sighting. Brown hyenas are usually very shy and I've never seen one in broad daylight before!

On it's third attempt, the hyena had now figured out to rather come storming towards the desired treasure, rather than trying to use stealth.

The explosion of activity was amazing and it was absolutely fascinating to watch the pack defend their price, even though barely anything remained.  

 ...and I guess this was the reason they finally did give up and let the scavenger head off.

We sat there for about one and a half hours as no other vehicles were approaching that we had to give way for and as for the animals... couldn't care less about us. The dogs stayed by the dam the whole day and we even had a great second visit there in the late evening, as the sun was setting.

This is definitely the best brown hyena sighting ever and probably also my best wild dog sighting, and put together: magic! So happy we were at the right place at the right time... and so were the two guests.

/A