The Great Circle of Life

So I’ve been thinking a lot over the weekend and sometimes that 140 characters on Twitter just cannot express how your feeling…Without posting about 20,000 tweets…Which is a little annoying for others…And no chance for editing either!

Over the weekend on the live safari that I watch regularly…(Seriously, check it out). There was a great tragedy that started a huge debate. I thought about what everyone was saying and what I’ve learnt while watching and I just wanted to express how I felt about the situation…That involves more than 140 characters.

The situation involved some of Djuma’s highly endangered Wild Dogs and one of the safari’s more well known Prides the Styx Pride. Usually Wild Dogs are pretty good at getting out of the way of a Lioness/Lion. Wild Dogs have huge ears designed for listening, but unfortunately and by some sad situation, they just didn’t hear the Lioness, and she came out of nowhere to kill one of the younger Wild Dogs. Too lose even one Wild Dog is horrible because they are just so highly endangered. At the same time though I don’t blame or hate the Lioness for killing the Dog, especially with her own cubs being so close by, which if the Dogs are had found, would have torn them apart.  The Lioness also does not know that the Dogs are so critically endangered.

It started a huge debate on what type of animal is “better”. The wildlife is not Disney, even in the Lion King, Mufasa doesn’t say anything about NOT eating the antelope. Just all the “Great circle of Life”… stuff … The best thing I have discovered since watching Safari Live was love for all creatures, the herbivores, the predators, even some of the bugs and insects…Have you ever seen a Dung Beetle, did you know how much they can lift?!

Yes I still have my old and tried favourites, but now I just have so many more!

• I have a huge amount of respect for Buffalo,
• Warthogs make for fierce mothers,
• Egyptian Geese duckling are just the cutest,
• Jackals are the most nervous creatures I have ever seen and
• The hearts of the elephants…Just stunning!

What I’m saying, I hate it when we all fight on the safari live channel, it really unsettles me. People like different animals, and predators having to kill another predator when their own cubs are nearby, it just really is nature. We can’t all like the exact same animals, because, well it just can’t happen…I think we can all agree though, Maggots are just icky.

This post is also a excuse to post this classic video…Enjoy!

Uploaded by: DisneyMusicVEVO

Published on 25 Sep 2014

Walt Disney Records: The Legacy Collection “Lion King” is available now! Get it here: http://smarturl.it/LCLKYT

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Just a friendly reminder

Just a friendly reminder that Safari Live is now LIVE on Nat Geo Wild, only in the United States. If you are like me though and you don’t live in the United States you can still watch it live on the Internet.

Here comes the rain again! = Big Cat Week (18/9-25/9)

For those who are regular readers of my Blog, you will know that I am obsessed with a particular Ustream tv program called “Wildearth Safari” or if you follow Twitter “#SafariLive”. I’ve been watching it for a couple of years or so now. You might have even watched it during Big Cat Week over the last couple of years, as during that week they put the drive live on television.

The last few months have been hard for the animals there, mainly the grass eater/prey type food. There has been a really bad drought and the last month in particular, you can tell how rough it has been getting. A lot of the predators have not even been hunting to much as the prey has been succumbing to the drought.

I am extremely happy to say then that last night and the day before Djuma received some rain!  https://twitter.com/graham_/status/777317528406220800 …

Coming from a country that also suffers a lot from droughts, I think it’s the only time I love hearing that rain is coming. I have been watching the live feeds with the sound turned up as the rain falls. The animals so desperately need it. It’s been so sad to see them getting worse and worse. Although on the other side the predators have been having an amazing time!

On a completely but kind of related topic…Just to let my American comrades know that this week is “Big Cat Week” on Nat Geo Wild and the drives will be showing. You should take complete advantage of this. I wish we had it here down under.

Baby explosion!

So another quick #safarilive update and it is a really happy one…There has been an explosion of baby animals, mainly in the predator area.

We’ll start with the Queen of Djuma herself, Karula.

Introducing to you Princess Charlotte (pic with her mum) and Prince George. Karula is probably one of the best mothers that there are out there. She has successfully raised all her litters, except for one and that was not her fault. The death of that particular cub brought in a new rule that no more than three cars can be in at one sighting of baby animals. If they are really new, there are to be NO cars what-so-ever.

The next to talk about the Nkuhuma lions! They’ve recently had three, roughly a month or two old, but the even cuter find was yesterday on the sunrise drive! Look at the gif below!

Lil yawn #SafariLive pic.twitter.com/ZS7R2X9mfy

— Safari Dean (@SafariDean) July 11, 2016

However the most exciting news is about the Styx Pride…Now we haven’t seen the Styx pride on the Safari Live drives. We have seen videos and pictures of the new little bundles. The Styx pride has probably been hit the hardest of all the prides in the area. They lost all of their cubs born last year, including a sub-adult female. Two lionesses…So it’s so good to hear that not only have the Styx have had cubs…They haven’t had just one or two…They have had…8…8 CUBS! 8 cubs how wonderful is that!

Hail to the new Royal Cubs of #safarilive!

A few weeks ago I posted about #safarilive’s Queen of Djuma Karula!

https://lolsyslibrary.wordpress.com/2016/02/05/queen-karula/?preview_id=3091&preview_nonce=45430b73ce&post_format=standard&preview=true%20

Well over the weekend, after much rumor of her having lost the cub, then finding out she had twins and they were doing well. We finally got a quick glimpse of them over the weekend!

They are so tiny! We only got a quick glimpse of them as they run away into thicker bush when Queen Mama Karula came to scoop them up. Our guide, Brent could hear them playing about, but could not go in any further.

   We cannot tell at the moment if, other than we know they are twins, if we two princes, princesses or one of both.

Queen Karula!

We have had a little miracle happen at the Wild Earth family. The Queen of Djuma, Karula the Leopardess has given birth to a tiny little cub (possibly cubs!)

The Queen of Djuma! … Karula!

Karula is an awesome Mama, she is about 11-12 years old and until 2015 New Year she had no lost a single cub! For those who don’t follow the #safarilive team, Karula has a cub about a year ago and it was all very exciting. Unfortunately about 10 others safari cars wanted to see the little cub as well. With so much noise with all the cars and the people (who SHOULD have been silent, mainly children screaming … What the hell parents?!) the little cub was naturally curious, came out and was killed by Hyena.

It was devastating, you could tell Karula was in shock herself, she had never lost a cub before! Any-ways because of the situation there were strict rules placed upon the car and the guides. There are not allowed to be more than three cars at any sighting. With the birth of these new precious cubs and the disaster that happened last year, NO ONE is allowed near Karula or the cubs for at least the next two weeks and I think that is fantastic!

My sweet Oasis: The Daily Post

https://dailypost.wordpress.com/prompts/oasis/

A sanctuary is a place you can escape to, to catch your breath and remember who you are. Write about the place you go to when everything is a bit too much.

This would definitely have to be my bedroom, my place of sanctuary and safety. Especially now with my new t.v. and awesome partner getting me a chromecast, I just need a little fridge in there and I could hide there for days (although staying in a caravan I know that can be just as dangerous!). I love the nights were I just take my computer, put my television on in the background and just read my book, while I have DJuma Cam – Ustream on in the background. It is such bliss! It’s amazing how much creativity happens on those nights too! lol

Share Your World … Week 52

http://ceenphotography.com/2015/12/28/share-your-world-2015-week-52/

Wow! So the last of “Share Your World” … What a ride! Who knows what I’ll be doing next year! SO let’s finish this one with a BANG! =D

Tell how you are feeling today in the form of a weather report. (For example, partly cloudy, sunny with a chance for showers, etc.) 

I actually writing this on the Tuesday 29th, but it wont be posted until Thursday the 31st (Happy New Year). However, the whole week is supposed to be really the same (somewhere around mid 30 Celsius … High 80 – early 90 Fahrenheit). So it should actually be nicely warm all this week.

What is most memorable about your high school years?

I would have to say that it was the final year of High School for me (and not because it was the last year either). I wasn’t “popular”, but I wasn’t “geeky” either. My little group could pretty much sit where ever we wanted because were kind of cool with everyone. Down Under our Wendys (Australia) sells Hot Dogs and not burgers and every Friday lunch time my girlfriends and I would always get a “Cheesy Dog” (pretty much a Hot Dog with cheese, instead of just sauce). Every now and then I still get them,lol.

Have you ever owned a rock, pet rock, or gem that is not jewerly?

Knowing me, I probably did, but I can’t honestly remember if I did or not.

Complete this sentence:  I like watching…

Ustream Djuma (live stream) in the morning, I usually have that on in the morning, it’s extremely soothing and very meditative, just some sounds of very early African sounds. Also, whenever I can, I like to watch Ustream Wild Earth Safari’s, they are only twice a day for three hours each, but it’s amazing!

Baby Animals

As you many of you probably know I am pretty obsessed with UStream TV channel of “Wildearth – Safari (Ustream)” I watch it as often as I can. At the moment it seems in the Djuma Game Reserve and Arathusa Safari Lodge in the Sabi Sand Wildtuin are just bursting with baby animals!

Now there have been a lot of Impala and Wilderbeest and all sorts of herbivore babies being born, but as you can probably guess, there has also been a lot of hunting and eating by the predators. So below are photos of just the first few cutie being born. No baby lions/cubs … Yet!

Live Safari Update!

As you all know I am a MASSIVE fan of the Safari Live hosted by Nat Geo, Wild Earth and Ustream. I realised though I haven’t posted for a long time about the drives. One of the major reasons this is because there has been great upheaval in the land of Djuma, Arthusa Safari Lodge and the Sabi Sands Wildtuin!

Mainly with the new collation of young male adults called the Birmingham Boys, or as there new nickname is “The Bad Boys”. There are five of them, there were 6, but one was killed but other male Lions. They’ve gotten there nickname as they’ve killed two cubs, leaving one alive, because Mama Lioness was only able to save the one. They’ve killed about five lionesses (I’ll double check that, it’s 4 or 5). So far there are has been little interaction between these boys and the Matimba males, other than calling and vocalising.

(The Birmingham Boys aka “The Bad Boys” or “The BBoys”)

(The Matimba Males: Hairy Belly and Ginger)

The whole situation is really depressing and really interesting at the same time. I’ve only ever heard of new males killing cubs, which I can understand completely. The whole BBoys killing the Lionesses is something completely new to me and even some of our guides seem perplexed by the situation, because they are just killing so many of them.  There is one thought that maybe the Lionesses are resisting the BBoy’s and because they are young and full of testosterone. They came in aggressive, so it’s gets all aggressive type thing.

Just for another interesting twist in the story as well, two other Male lions, who are unidentified, have now also appeared on the scene. Possibly the other two Matimba males from further up North?