Week 327 ( 27th November - 3rd December 2009 )
Practise makes perfect, a pair are reunited and Hulooo bullies his brother
Princess and King Henry were nowhere to be seen. Counting the animals in Tiger’s Roar I found only 10 blesbuck with one fawn and one springbuck with one fawn. Two female blesbuck with two fawns were missing. I scanned the area with my binoculars but could neither find the blesbuck nor the tigers. The following day King Henry and Princess showed themselves and King Henry’s stomach was as round as a ball. They have definitely killed and fed on the missing blesbuck. A very good sign. Towards the end of the week, during my tour of Tigers’ Roars I came upon the carcass of the baby springbuck which would appear to have died of natural causes under the bush where it was sleeping. Counting the rest of the animals I couldn’t find the adult springbuck anywhere. A couple of days later and there are still eleven Blesbuck in the camp and the Springbuck ewe is still unaccounted for. There has been no hunting and one wanders if the reason is that they are still too full from their previous kills and have had no inclination to hunt or if they have been trying and have been unsuccessful in all their attempts - at any rate, they haven’t been at the fence begging for food.
The time has come, even for just a little while to reunite Madonna and TigerWoods without the cubs being around to get in the way of “adult stuff”. After a preliminary check on personality compatibility we did just that. The gate was only open far enough for them to touch noses and it became apparent that the precautions were unnecessary as the chuffing began and grew in volume and frequency becoming constant and deafening. I opened the gate and whilst it was still moving Madonna scuttled into the annex; TW did an about-turn and followed her. With their bodies pressed together they walked in circles sniffing under one another’s tails. TigerWoods crossed into Catkins camp and sprayed all the bushes that were to hand, Madonna followed him and together they walked off into the proverbial sunset.
At the end of the week the boys met me at the fence and after we had greeted one another with a cornucopia of chuffs JenB flopped down on his side and Hulooo promptly lay down on top of him and licked his ears. Whilst JenB lay quietly Hulooo was content to clean his face but the moment JenB squirmed, Hulooo chewed on his ears. The whole time JenB kept up a barrage of whines and yowls to which Hulooo paid no heed. Coco ambled close drawing Hulooo’s attention and JenB was free to stand up.