Beauty and eating the beast

Backblip
Today was probably the most memorable day of all. It started at sunrise with photo opportunities of the  Saddle-billed Stork, at 5ft tall it is the tallest stork in the world, and certainly one of the most strikingly beautiful. I was pleased to get some shots of it flying. From here we spent some time watching a troop of baboons misbehaving before picking up lion tracks. We spent quite some time tracking the Splash pride until our tracker got off his seat on the front and joined us in the truck (a sure sign big cats were around). Where are they we enquired. Can you see that big shape in the bushes, it’s an elephant on its side the lions will be there !  Sure enough the elephant had died of old age, probably the day before and probably at least age 65. Her tusks were well broken and well worn. The pride of lions had found her earlier that morning and the reality of the circle of life was laid in front of us. The lions were eating from the rear end through and no number of tv documentaries prepare you for the smell of the intestines which are ripped out first. Many of my photos are just too gruesome but I have added in extra a shot of the scene. It will never be forgotten but the reality is that the elephant will have kept a lot of different animals well fed for a few days. The lions guarded the elephant remains for 2 days not allowing anything else to feed until they had enough. We kept returning to the carcass each day to see different stages. A leopard waited in a nearby tree that night hoping to sneak in without the lions noticing (they only eat fresh meat, so had left the next day) then the following night the hyenas appeared, followed by the vultures.
Interestingly Botswana has largely escaped the crisis of elephant poachers due to their policy of shoot on sight any suspected poacher. The military will collect the tusks when feeding is ended and add them to Botswanas huge protected stockpile.

By comparison the afternoon game drive was less eventful but did include my first photo of a honey badger (extras). We were also surprised by the sight of  a pop up bar in the middle of nowhere that served for all the camp to join back together for sundowners. On the night drive back to camp we spotted a giant eagle owl in the lamp lights and also a springhare that hops like a kangaroo but is a rodent not a hare.