It is mating season in the Kgalagadi and everyone wants some nookie! Everyone wants to do the dirty and of course, not everyone is cut out to be a Dad: “Ï am bigger than you, therefore must be more handsome, and you must rather stick to your computer games little guy, as that lady over there, she’ll definitely want to do the tango two step with me!” Well, ok, I’m sure that there’s a more scientific explanation for who wins what fight to do what to whoever is available.
But, as you can well imagine, this leads to fights that old Brad Pitt would have been envious about! In his fights, only sweat and blood moves in slow motion through the air, in the dirty tango rights fights, it’s snot, dust, horns and grunts and the whole crowd gets excited, and involved, and then they also start slinging about some snot and horns and dust… and a small acorn or two!
So was the case with the lesser breasted, grey shaded Blue Wildebeest. Everything was calm in the valley, the weavers were chirping away, a random springbok found himself lost between the Wildebeests, but he was calm. So the lesser breasted decided to go and relax for the day on one lonesome dusty knoll, not realizing that Lee Harvey had already taken up position on said dusty knoll! They have good noses, but the eyes are mostly for decoration, so one could see where the problem came in.
Lee Harvey already had his scope set on one very ugly young lady (which he could also not see, but whose behind he sniffed thoroughly) and of course “stripped his moer” (which translated to English means he got slightly annoyed) when he saw that the dusty knoll was not only his. Next thing, there’s dust enough to suggest that the Enola Gey just flew over! The whole herd goes into shock and angst (which is German for bloedy scared), and all hell brakes loose on the plains! Ghmpf, the brave wildebeest of the Serengeti who brave crossing the Mara river have nothing to fear compared to this young upstart. He held his own for at least 3 seconds, and then decided that Lee should really get the girl, as he was such a nice guy and deserved to be happy! And calm descended over the plains once more (I can just hear old David Attenborough saying this as the sun sets and the scene fades).
The ground squirrel had a problem of a whole different kettle. Or is it mettle? (Still English is not my first language). He was in the envious position of having found a nice fat root the size of his body and of course, every other body out there also wanted a root, and not any root, but that particular one he had clutched in his very small little claws. And so the chase began! The first attack came from the left field, and the contender had to get a nice little running start, so he began his sprint for the root at least one soccer field away. One could hear the impact when the two bodies made contact, and low and true’s bob, contender number stole the prize. Being familiar with his own Judas moves, he tried to hide with the root in his mouth, in a rather large hole, but only realized on descent that the hole was already filled with contender number two.
Now contender number two was watching attack number one from the safety of said hole, and took his chance when an opportunity presented itself! Et Tu Bruto! And off went contender number two with the root clutched in hand, running on three legs, in order to maintain his grasp on the prize. But the story does not end here, from across the road came a whole band of merry highway men, and this led to a group attack on poor hole crawler, and what ensued was not pretty. Last I saw, contender two was busy making tail for the closest dune, and is most probably already in Gauteng!
And so it went for the day. Arse sniffing, horn clashing, chases ensuing and somebody bound to get hurt, and then the peace settled again. Not one thought of nookie, attempt at nookie, or even a whiff of nookie the whole time. This is basically the warm up to nookie! Even the secretary bird got into the swing of things and was doing all kinds of wing manoeuvres, Top Gun style, with very little effect on the female.
Male doves now have a permanent crick in their necks due to all the neck grovelling they have been doing, and the plains are dotted with small hoof like indentations, due to all the pronking going on with the springboks!
Madness I say! One should introduce the lot to online dating!
I had a close call myself. At the ground squirrel altercation, I was munching away on very addictive peanuts and raisins. You know, you start with one, and just can’t stop. Never mind that your teeth are filled with little bits of leftover peanuts, and that the thirst of a hundred camels in the desert is attacking you, it is just not possible to stop once you’ve started. Next thing, I had a conflict of mind, and could not decide if I should swallow or chew more, and of course, the one little bit went in the wrong pipe, and next thing I was choking. Then I had another indecisive moment, should I swallow the rest or spit it out? The moment passed and the bits ended up lodged halfway down my oesophagus. Mom saw the trouble, and started pounding me on the back, which in turn pounded me into the steering wheel, where the hooter is, so Bullet got in on the action too. Animals far and wide scattered, the Kgalagadi emptied for at least 5 minutes, until Mom managed to dislodge the little stray peanut.
With food in mind, this little oddity presented itself, a ground squirrel, chowing on a fat piece of lion poo! Seriously, nice and dried out already, it looked like a pretzel, about half the size of the squirrel, and he was munching away like it was prepared by a Michelin Chef! Only problem was with the discrepancy in size between said poo pretzel and squirrel hands. So he kept on dropping the pretzel, which in itself would not have been a problem, but he was standing on a nice little cement drain block next to the road. So pretzel would end up in the drain, squirrel would disappear, and come up with prize in hand, with an expression of joy on his face as if he had just won the Nobel prize! Remember, all of this had to be done very surreptitously, as the root fight business was still a very real danger, once you have something to eat in the world of squirrel, you better do it behind some camouflage!
No Lions. Or Cheetah. Or anything noteworthy really, but all in all a fruitful Fight Club day.
Come and join us on the 9 Day Karoo, Kalahari and West Coast tour on the 20th October to experience this for yourself!