Hi folks,
We recently had an incredible sighting of the wild dogs in the Bedford Pack. Misheck and I went out to find the dogs in order to download the GPS collar on the pack. It was a stifflingly hot day, and given the strength and direction of the collar signals we guessed we’d find the dogs under a large baobab tree we could see ahead of us. Getting close enough however meant going in on foot…
Fortunately the wind was in our favour and the ground was bare, which allowed us to creep up on them undetected. They were all sound asleep and didn’t notice us even when we were right up next to them! We approached from behind the baobab and I was less than a meter from the closest dog when I took these photos.
How’s this for a carpet of wild dogs?!
The pups were closest to the tree and were all in an interlinking pile of tails, paws, ears and fur….
What a privilege to see this.
Rosemary
Donations made here are
Feb 9th Pirjo I USD 46.00
5 Comments
They look dead
Oh my word Rosemary how many dogs are in this pack? If I would have come up to these many dogs in the position they were in I would have thought someone poisioned them and they were dead – what a site and thank heavens they are okay. Wonderful photos!
Were you able to download the GPS?
Hi Dana,
There are 42 dogs in the pack: 8 adults, 16 yearlings, 11 big pups and 7 little pups!! The dogs often lie in a heap under the shade of a tree, so I wasn’t worried about them – it’s just unusual to see so many together!
Yes, we downloaded the GPS collar fine, thanks. We did that from about 70m away, before leaving the equipment on the ground and creeping up closer to the dogs.
It was a wonderful experience,
Rosemary
Rosemary! in all my years of watching and being close to our African Wild Dogs-I have never come across such a wonderful sight-WELL DONE on getting so close without disturbing the sleeping dogs-and indeed it seems as if a fantastically intricate, living persian carpet is laid out beneath the old baobab tree-what a treasure !
Hi Rosemary! I’ve been away travelling in Kenya and now that I got back home I couldn’t wait to read your blog entries. Fantastic pictures and stories! I’ve also never seen anything like this before. The animals look so relaxed and it just unbelievable that you got so close to them.