Week 272 (7th Nov - 13th Nov 2008)
Adults, boys and babies
7th November 2008: When we arrived at the centre in the morning, all three brothers were lying in the crush cage. Hulooo was lying by the door – eating whilst JenB and Coco were lying behind him playing quietly. Occasionally JenB would drape himself over Hulooo and give him a hug before continuing his game. Hulooo put up with this with good humour for some time; then having had enough of all the hugging he ran out of the cage dragging the carcase with him. He dragged it to the ramp in front of the breeding centre and lay down to eat in piece. After he could no longer see us just by rolling his eyes and craning his neck over his shoulder he was forced to leave his food and instead of bringing it with him he left it behind and it was swiftly annexed by JenB. Coco had followed Hulooo around to the other side of the building and all the way back again and joined in when Hulooo gave JenB a friendly pat. Coco and Hulooo then sat all over JenB and his food amongst much growling from the siteee. The sitters then left to pursue their game on the pole shelter leaving JenB to eat in peace.
9th November 2008: Madonna and her cubs were feeding near the water trough, when she moved towards the trough for a drink, King Henry followed her. He craned his neck at me over the trough then walked up to the fence and found a mound of earth to his liking. Here he lay down and surveyed the world and the people in it. Madonna walked off back to the carcase leaving the King to his gazing. During this period Topaz (Madonna’s female cub) also came sidling up towards her brother but once she had progressed half-way and was on the verge of leaving the grass; she thought better of the idea and slinked back to the undergrowth. King Henry also then retreated to his mother’s side and investigated what she was eating. This soon worked on her nerves and she moved off to other leftovers with Henry and Topaz in tow. Hulooo brought the head that he had been gnawing on over to the water trough and plunked it into the water. Finding that only mildly amusing he sloshed it around and then licked an ear dry. He sloshed it around some more and eventually pulled it out and continued eating.
10th November 2008: Hulooo and his gang were cleaner this morning than the previous day having had the whole night to bathe. Hulooo was again playing with a skull - this time it was football - kicking it around the breeding centre whilst JenB and Coco looked on, yawning. After having scored a goal under the bed he was walking up and down rubbing himself on the mesh, chuffing with delight at having company. Taking a break from his humans he picked on Coco; pinning him on his back and biting his neck, Hulooo tried the same on JenB but had no success so he returned to chatting with his humans. Madonna had been pacing the 9ha fence but as soon as she spied 327 walking towards her she and the cubs hurried to meet him at the 3ha fence. He was chuffing and talking in turn and could not take his eyes off the babies, they were equally fascinated by his presence and every time he stopped to spray they stopped to watch. Often he walked too fast for them and they had to run to keep up chuffing at him to wait. Madonna just kept on walking grabbing a little respite whilst she could. They all continued to pace for the duration of our visit with 327 throwing in a roar or two for good measure.
11th November 2008: King Henry at least made our visit worthwhile. At first he was sitting at the base of a near-by tree staring up into the branches- he decided to give it a go and jumped up catching hold about fifty centimetres up the stem, he managed to claw his way up another twenty but found that he could no longer maintain his grip and slid down to the ground. He pounced on a poll of grass after that and rolled around on it stopping in the middle of a roll to s… t… r… e… t… c… h his neck and sniff at a blade of grass. Having had his roll he attacked a shrub gnawing on the only branches he could reach before galloping back to the tree and tried again to reach the branch he had had his eye on - with the same outcome. In the mood for something else he scrabbled onto his mother’s back and after having slid off he found the poll of grass to his liking and lay there until Madonna had to answer the call of nature. He found it fascinating and walked closer for a better look.
12th November 2008: TigerWoods was stalking us from behind a bush and was totally unaware of the fact that he was being watched by 327 who was pacing. Once TigerWoods realised that we had spotted him he walked towards the fence and 327 dropped into a crouch and entered stalk mode. TigerWoods walked up to him and they both chuffed at each other like they hadn’t seen one another in ages and together they paced. During an interlude in their to-ing and fro-ing TigerWoods managed to greet us before he too disappeared in the trees along the river.
13th November 2008: We continued on down to the forty hectare and watched TigerWoods and 327 parading, they too were chuffing at each other. For a while 327 stood chatting to us and spent some time posing for photographs a good ten metres from the communal fence, whilst TigerWoods walked down to the river. Upon his return, TigerWoods chuffed and 327 ran over to him and together they marched. We then left to return to the centre and were startled by footsteps thudding behind us; looking back we saw 327 running towards us at full throttle and only once he was level with where we were standing did he stop. We told him what a good boy he was and satisfied with the praise and adulation he left. We heard him roaring some time later.