On safari-- wildlife and nature photos

Awed by jaws of death

(as published, The Advertiser, May 3, 1997)

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Unexpectedly, we witnessed a day in the life of Prudence the cheetah. We gave her the name because she lay for hours with her kill in the shelter of tall, yellow tussocks, staying alert whether eating or resting.

There were vultures circling high above the floodplain; lions lazed at the edge of a palm island just a few hundred metres distant; maybe there were hyenas in the area, too.

None detected Prudence despite our safari truck being so obvious, close to her hiding place. She ate at leisure, not having to give up her reedbuck meal to more powerful predators. No doubt, piracy of the carcass would have thrilled us. But we were delighted by what we saw-- and it was only day one in the Okavango Delta, Botswana.

My six fellow tourists were Americans. Our game guide, Andy, and his assistant, Chloe, were Australians.

Our first camp was on a wooded peninsula jutting into a dry floodplain dotted with palm islands. The view was like a flag-- the blue of the sky and yellow of the grass separated by the deep green of the treeline. The weather was gentle, like an Adelaide autumn.

In the early morning, we boarded our four-wheel drive. We had already seen elephants close to camp; then a small pride of lions, heading to a resting place after a night's hunting. They seemed indifferent as we kept pace a few metres away, but we had to stay seated in the open back in case standing enabled them to mentally separate meat from container.

Then, Andy picked up a clue to the rest of our day. Soon after we'd left the lions to their daytime lazing, noisy alarm among vervet monkeys in the trees and tense restlessness among impalas indicated a leopard may be nearby, so we began a driving search of the bush. A woman on the camp staff was walking not far from the tents. As we zipped past in a cloud of dust, Andy called out to her to take care.

But it wasn't a leopard.

Just out from the trees, we found Prudence. The cheetah could have been out for a stroll; she was loose-limbed, flowing through the grass without haste, glancing to the side now and then. We followed barely above idling speed; Andy wanted to keep her in reasonable camera range without harassing her.

She used a fallen tree trunk, then a termite mound, as vantage points. She was generous to us, posing for long periods... looking good enough for a coat of arms. But we barely existed for her. She looked through us; this was her hunting time, when her enemies were at rest and less likely to rob her.

We lost her in thick grass once but found her again just before she flushed out a reedbuck. The chase lasted only a few seconds, to my surprise. The reedbuck was able to dodge only once or twice; even so, the pair nearly circled our vehicle before it was all over. The only sounds were the brushing of their bodies through the grass, our quiet exclamations as we followed the action and the noise of our cameras.

The antelope was down; a brief struggle as the cheetah clamped her jaws on her prey's windpipe to strangle it; then, sure it wouldn't move again, she dragged it into cover. When she'd recovered her breath, she began eating. Her jowls soon became tinged with pink. As Andy explained the cheetah's strategy-- to save her kill for herself as long as she could-- we followed the vultures which had not seen the drama below.

The lions remained oblivious, too. We went to check on them, and found them lolling around in and near the shade of palm trees.

An adolescent male, looking as cute as only a cub can, stared at us with yellow-eyed curiosity. A lioness sprawled on her back, legs in the air, paws drooping.

I remarked, only half tongue-in-cheek, that they looked peaceful enough for us to pat them. Our guide's silence was withering.

We returned to Prudence several times, finding her alternately resting and eating. By dusk, her stomach was distended so much she could have been about to have a litter. There didn't seem to be much of the reedbuck left. Andy told us she would probably soon leave the carcass to the hyenas. For, dare I say it, an underdog among the big cats, she'd had an eminently successful day. JOHN MILBANK