The 2025 Botswana Journals, Ch. 35: Elephant Hide Sans Elephants

       I'm reduced to trying to photograph frogs, and I'm not having much success.

    Shelly shows me a beautiful shot of a frog, and I try to emulate it.   I can't even get one in focus because I'm too short to see over the dirt barrier, and the frogs are right in front of us.

My best shot----of many.

    This afternoon we are in a different hide in Mashatu Game Reserve.   This is a daytime-only hide, as it doesn't have overnight accommodations.

    Known generally as the Elephant Hide, its real name is the Matebole Hide.   Rumor has it that this hide is called Elephant Hide because elephants like to come to drink and frolic in the water.

    There are no elephants here today.  There may have been before we arrived, and they might come after we leave, but right now this place is sans-elephants.

    That's why I'm trying to photograph frogs.

    However, to give Mashatu its due, the hides at Mashatu Game Reserve have a well-deserved reputation for producing phenomenal sightings (not just frogs and doves), and that is why Marshel Adventure Tours was excited to book us here.   We just were unlucky that our trip followed two months of rain that left water in numerous places for the animals.

We are staying at Mashatu Lodge, and the hide is east of us.

    And, once again, we are waiting for anything thirsty to show up at the waterhole in front of us.

              

The ever-vigilant Randy.

Marg and Aubrey, the host, walk along and give camera advice while we wait.

You can tell nothing is happening outside the hide when photographers leave their cameras to get coffee and snacks from the table.

    Far in the distance, we see three warthogs s-l-o-o-o-o-w-l-y approaching.   We keep our eyes on them, hoping they will come to the water.   They're taking their own sweet time about it.

    When the warthogs are near, we are ready.

Warthogs weigh from 110 to 330 lbs, with a shoulder height of 25 to 33 inches.

See the calluses on the warthog's front ankles?   They are born with them.   Warthogs, with their long legs and short necks, often kneel to graze on grass.  I often wonder if the calluses are an evolutionary adaptation.

        Suddenly, something spooks them, and away they go like a speeding bullet train.

    They might look like chubby stuffed sausages, but they are amazingly fast and can run up to 35mph.   They run with their tails straight in the air.   Lions can't catch them.   Cheetahs can, but warthogs are too large for a single cheetah to take on.

    Lions and leopards can catch the piglets, though.   I've seen it happen.

    When the three warthogs are out of sight, Marg tells one of her favorite stories.  

    She was once at a sighting of a lioness sneaking up on an unsuspecting warthog.   

    There were also many, many photographers there in other vehicles, many of whom Marg knew and who knew Marg.   They watched with bated breath, hoping for some action shots of the lion chasing the wild pig.

    Suddenly, a woman in Marg's group who was on her first trip to Africa, yelled, "Run Pumba!   Run!"    And the warthog did, much to Marg's embarrassment.    The angry photographers gave the woman the stink eye as Marg pretended she wasn't with the woman.

    Pumba, by the way, is the name of the warthog in The Lion King play and movie.

    We wait some more.

Southern gray-headed swallow.   LIFER

I just like the falling drops of water, and they are more interesting than frogs.

    I think of my own favorite warthog story.   I was staying at Governor's Camp in the Maasai Mara of Kenya, and a family of warthogs lived in the camp.   We often saw piglets chasing each other through the tents and camp facilities.

    Because Governor's Camp is unfenced, security staff would escort us anytime when it was dark.

    One evening, as security gathered us to escort us to dinner, they motioned for the guests to look into a thicket that was almost directly behind my tent.   When they aimed their flashlights into the thicket, two warthogs shot out of it, startling the guests!

    The staff got quite a laugh out of it, and I could tell it was one of their favorite pranks.

Late afternoon sun accentuates the colors of the laughing dove.

Laughing dove.   Such pretty birds.

    To top off the day, a hamerkop appears.   It is my favorite African bird.   Hamerkop is an Afrikaans word for "hammer head" and this bird's posture shows you why.

    I love their prehistoric look.   Once thought to belong to the stork family, they are now considered to be in the genus Scopus and the family Scopidae.    Their nearest relatives are pelicans and showbill storks.

        Time to leave the hide and head back to camp.

Where we are.   The hide is in red on the map.