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Fields of Fast Food

UPON leaving the two lions (now they were asleep again) we continued in another direction heading back towards the gate. We went around the next rolling hill to a large flock of ostriches foraging the short grass in two small groups. Upon seeing us some of them started to run. They were surprisingly large graceful animals foraging the grass minding their own business. They are now the largest species of ratite since the elephant bird of Madagascar became extinct fairly recently, closely related to the kiwi, though very different. The ratites are the birds most closely related to the dinosaurs.

There was one large male ostrich with its bright colours standing out clearly against the others in the group. The others were all female, looking drab and grey. The male ostrich had its torso covered in striking black feathers accentuated by a plume of white feathers out near the tips of its wings. He had a narrow collar of white at the base of its huge long neck which was almost completely bald with its bright pink skin showing through the sparse down feathers covering it.

The somewhat crooked neck towered to a tiny head at the top covered mostly by a blunt beak and large eyes on either side of its head. The beak had huge nostrils to get the air down its long neck down into its huge lungs. These animals can run at fifty five kilometres per hour, so they need a huge lung capacity.

The ostrich had very long legs. Like the neck they were very sparsely covered in thin down showing the bright pink of the skin right from the bottom of the torso to the stunted hoof like feet. The skinny legs looked very powerful, but they also looked rather obscene against its feathered torso.

The females on the other hand were a brownish grey colour. Their feathers had a nice texture covering their torsos, and unlike the males their legs and necks were of the same colour, sporting more hair than the males. The females had less obvious plumage on their tails than the males. I’m not sure whether their tails were actually longer, or whether the plumage that covered the male’s torsos was just a lot more substantial hiding the tail.

The nearest female was pecking at the ground in amongst the rather overgrazed grass. Obviously many animals have been through here of late grazing the grass almost to the ground.

They were not running at speed as you would see in a documentary filmed from a helicopter. We weren’t going to scare them off today, but they were obviously fast runners should the need ever arise.

We continued following the ostriches for a few more minutes before Joseph suddenly turned around. He had heard another announcement on the CB radio. There was a cheetah nearby.

We followed another road until we reached a section where there were about fifteen vehicles parked. We volleyed for a position. Then I saw it. The cheetah was sitting in one of the shallow ruts of a vehicle track crossing our track. It stayed there for a few minutes while a few other vehicles arrived. The cheetah had spots but not as obvious as those of the leopard. The cheetah’s body was less built than the leopard, but it appeared far more alert and agile. They had to be. This was the only creature on earth to easily clock over a hundred kilometres per hour whilst hunting down gazelles. The end of its long tail flicked up and down in anticipation as it eyed everyone in each of the surrounding vans.

Another van arrived and parked in front of us blocking our view. Joseph muttered something about that tour guide being very unprofessional before driving forward a bit further to give me the view again.

Maybe the cheetah got sick of us, or maybe it had seen something and needed to take a closer look. It stood up on all fours and started slowly pacing towards a gap in between the vans. Its legs seemed disproportionately long and its hips and shoulders all seemed to be positioned too high on its body. Its slender back drooped almost limp towards the ground. On an herbivore this would have been a concern, but carnivores flex their backs when running to give them more power. The cheetah was the ultimate flexibility machine.

The cheetah paced for a few steps before sitting on the ground with its hind legs. Its ears were folded back alert perhaps to something going on behind it. It turned its head almost a full one hundred and eighty degrees to work out the source of the noise, but there was nothing. Perhaps it had been a lion moving in the distance.

Anyway it gave up and dropped to the ground to wash itself for a few moments. Its mannerisms were just like a domestic cat. Perhaps it had fleas. It then got up and continued to pace towards the gap between all the vans. It passed through and continued walking into the long grass. I assumed it will not be long before it will disappear forever perhaps in search of a meal.

The cheetah didn’t go very far at all though. I could see a small mound of dirt, probably an old ant hill, about eight metres on the other side of the track. The cheetah climbed on top of it and rested there. From the top of the small mound it could see across the grass.

Cats have very keen eyesight, certainly a lot better than the eyesight of humans. It was obviously looking at some animals in the distance, but I could not see them. It would occasionally turn around to look at the flotilla of vans of tourists watching it, but didn’t really take a lot of notice. No doubt it was used to this occurring fairly regularly. Although Joseph told me that cheetah sightings are not very common here. He hadn’t seen any for quite some time.

We drove around a bit further around the other side of the rock to get another view. While we drove around the other vans, the cheetah went down the other side of the hill to lie down. It no longer had any interest in whatever it was watching earlier and just needed some sleep. We stayed there for a bit longer, then left when we realised the cheetah wasn’t going to be going anywhere for a long time.

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