Dave Taylor's African Safari: Dave Taylor's Safari Diary - The Masai-Mara: Kichwa Tembo Camp, Day 19

Dave Taylor's Safari Diary
The Masai-Mara: Kichwa Tembo Camp, Day 19
Page 18

We got out early today. Our plan was to explore the area to the west of the Mara River. In the past, Jim and I had spent part of one day in this area. That day, we were lucky enough to catch a herd of 500 or 600 wildebeest crossing the river. Today, however, there was not a wildebeest to be seen. Indeed, for the first two hours there was next to nothing to be seen.

We finally found a small pride of lions with young cubs that were hidden under a small acacia bush. After watching them for a while, we drove down to the Mara where we encountered a herd of elephants that had just crossed. There were several calves in the herd and they stayed close to their mothers.

By 1:30 we were back at the lodge. It had been a quiet day really. Some days are like that. Most of our group went to their rooms to read, rest and relax. I decided to prowl the grounds of the camp until our late afternoon game drive.

I was glad I did. On the lawns I found some warthog dung. Now your average tourist would overlook this, but the dung attracted an animal that I was very interested in photographing. This animal was once held sacred by the ancient Egyptians. They watched it cart off and bury dung. The animal also buried itself at the same time. What caught the Egyptian’s fancy was that the animal re-emerged after burial. Always fascinated with death, they felt this animal had conquered death and they held it in high regard. The animal in question is the dung beetle.

Now, I had never seen a dung beetle before because they do not emerge in the dry season. All my previous trips had been in much drier weather so the rains that delayed the wildebeest brought out the dung beetle.

I don’t know what the other guests thought of the mad photographer that crawled around taking pictures of dung (they couldn’t see the beetles). I’m certain they thought I was nuts! I didn’t ask their opinion.

I did talk to a few by the pool as I crawled around photographing the dung makers. Two adult warthogs were grazing by the swimming pool and several families asked me why I was taking pictures of these ugly beasts. "I’m a writer", I explained. That seemed to answer their question.

One of the askari (guards) asked me if I wanted to photograph monkeys. Sure. He led me through the bush in pursuit of two species of monkeys; the blue monkey and the red-tailed monkey. Then we hiked up by a small creek and he showed me two huge black and white casqued hornbills.

What was supposed to be down time turned out to be the highlight of the day. Certainly it was more productive than our final game drive of the trip. That produced a few elephants and little else.

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