Spotting some vultures circling in the distance, we jumped on the opportunity to find what they had seen. The vultures were heading towards the Miombo up near our airstrip, after fiifteen minutes we reached the them. Our resident pride had mangaded to bring down a female Eland ( the largest antelope). The kill was a few hours old, the two males had already had their fill and it was the turn of one of the females. It gave a chance to get some up close photos of the scene.

Interestingly in the second photo you can clearly see the hairs (papillae) on the Lionesses tongue, these hairs are used for grooming and eating,  and possibly to help the lions drink. It has been said that a lion can lick the skin off a human.

 Every once in a while an extremely exciting and unusual sighting comes about. On one of our morning boat trips up to Stieglers Gorge, our guests Mark and Amanda spotted a rather strange animal that looks like a pine cone. It was in fact a Ground Pangolin the Holy Grail of animal sightings, these creatures are as hard to find as water is in the Atacama Dessert.

They walk on two legs using their tail to balance and wander round in search of termites or ants, which they dig for. The Pangolin is covered in extremely hard scales, when it feels threatened in curls up into a ball to protect its vulnerable belly. What made this sighting even more unusual and special was that the Pangolin was swimming!!!!!!!
 

When the Pangolin finally reached the shore of the Rufiji river it walked up through the rocks and into the leaf litter, eventually putting its head into the ground and rolling into a ball. Many thanks to Mark O'Sullivan who kindly let us use his fantastic photos for our Blog.

This small nocturnal carnivore is common, but difficult to see, especially during the day, coming back from the Kiba airstrip one evening, I noticed this civet fast asleep out in the open, after a while he turned to look at me, yawned then went back to sleep!

The African Civet is an omnivorous  generalist, taking small vertebrates, invertebrates, eggs, carrion, and vegetable matter. It is capable of taking on poisonous invertebrates (such as the millipedes most other species avoid) and snakes. Prey is primarily detected by smell and sound rather than by sight.

One of the most exciting mammals to view in the bush, the Wild Dogs are difficult to keep up with when they are on the move. The young dogs start to hunt when they are about 12 months old, but only become expert hunters when they are 18 months old. A single dog can kill up to an Impala, but for larger prey they (e.g. Wildebeest, Zebra and Giraffe) they need to hunt co-operatively. Wild Dogs can Chase at speeds of up 60km per hour.

After watching for a while we decided to head back to the camp for lunch, what an exciting morning!

The female must have been caught wandering or hunting in this prides territory, the prides which are controlled by a matriarch often fight each other over territorial boundaries. In the afternoon there was no sign of any of the lions, we believe she eventually escaped her attackers.

It's the time of year when fires can be seen all over Tanzania, the Selous is no exception, controlled burns are used as a land management tool. With lots of smoke in the air we get beautiful sunrises and sunsets, the smoke can act as a filter enabling one to look directly into the sun without damaging your eyes.

This photo I took recently early one morning clearly shows some Sunspots. The two close together at the bottom of the image are called 1263, the one in the middle is called 1261 and the one at the top is 1260. Sunspots are a temporary phenomenon on the photosphere of the Sun, they are caused by intense magnetic activity and can be 800,000km in length!

The total African population of the Skimmer is estimated to be 10,000. The adults can tolerate very high ambient temperatures without seeking shade. Their eggs are laid in a depression on the sand banks, as you can see from the photo above the eggs and chicks are very well camouflaged, their chicks are what we call precocial, which means that when they hatch they already have feathers, very soon they will be able to see, walk and feed themselves, if your born on the ground you need a head start in life!

The Lions in the Selous have small manes in comparison to the rest of Tanzania's Lions. This could be due to a couple of reasons. The first is inbreeding and the second is due to the climate in the Selous, we are only 70m above sea level and 100km from the coast, so it can get quite warm here!

A big mane would hinder the lions when the temperatures rise later in the year. The Lions mane aids in making it seem bigger, useful in confrontations with other males or Hyenas!