Week 290 ( 13th Mar to 19th Mar 2009 )
Cathay and TigerWoods have some fun and Hulooo and Co. get serious
At feeding time in the afternoon Cathay couldn’t wait for me to open the annex gate and barged through as soon as I had done so, I extended an invitation to TigerWoods and waited for his response. Cathay was watching him closely and as soon as he started walking towards the gate she crouched, pounce at the ready. TigerWoods was half-way over the threshold when she charged and in one swift movement he turned around and bounded back into the small camp. After much deliberation he decided to try again, this time Cathay let him in and turned her attention to me instead, stalking me from behind the water trough.
For a long time I sat around waiting for the tigers to arrive at the main 40ha gate, which they did eventually, climbing over the offloading ramp. They in due course left and walked “cross-country” to the opposite gate in the direction of the buck. I took a quick drive and arrived in time to witness their actions. Hulooo approached the blesbuck more cautiously than usual, but still in plain sight, JenB and Coco were at that stage still some distance away. Suddenly Hulooo noticed that one of the antelope was standing alone, and immediately changed direction towards it and slowed his pace giving JenB and Coco time to catch up. They realised that something was afoot and JenB ducked behind the only bush there was in the vicinity. They all became terribly excited and together charged at the animal, cornering it for just a moment. It escaped, managed to take three steps and within minutes it was all over, Coco has succeeded in suffocating it. Thereafter he dragged it some distance into the shade to return to later. Whilst Coco had a strangle-hold on the antelope, Hulooo and JenB were prancing around in great excitement clawing at the prey and chuffing at each other.