A day in the life of a game ranger

Posted on 6 June 2011

Waking up to the sounds of the francolins fidgeting outside one’s window before rudely bursting into a raucous song, followed by the distant whooping of the local hyena clan, is a wonderful way to wake up each morning.  Not that I would know.  I sleep so soundly that I hear bugger all until my Blackberry wakes me up at 5 am.

My first thoughts often involve a few foul words, questioning why on earth I am waking up before the sun – baboons don’t, so why should I? – but then I realise that while I am waking up from one set of dreams, today I am once again going out to live my very own childhood dream.  Oh wow, did I just say that?  That has got to be the most clichéd thing a game ranger can ever say … but it’s absolutely true!

Every day starts out the same.  Roll out of bed after two snoozes at 5:12, morning coffee at 5:30 (which I have always thought was a menial task seeing as I don’t drink coffee), game drive at 6 am.  But it is here where no day is ever the same, and it is this very aspect that makes each new day an exciting prospect; not every drive is easy; in fact, they can be quite challenging when all the animals appear to be conspiring against you to stay hidden.  But then you get days where everything just seems to fall into place.  This doesn’t require that you see National Geographic moments around each corner – those things only happen a handful of times in a guides career – but one just needs to see nature’s beautiful creatures doing beautiful things … nothing more than a case of ‘right place, right time’.

22 March was one of the many days I have in my job where, after the struggle to open my eyes, I become exceptionally grateful that I chose this profession.

As always, it started off like any other, with my Blackberry uttering its annoying alarm call.  I responded and dragged myself to coffee, and sat and watched everyone get their caffeine fix.  I got my fix in another form, when our night watchman told us that lions had been roaring near camp.  Awesome, a challenge: find some lions.  It didn’t take long for me to get the radio call telling me that my colleague had the location of three male lions not far from the lodge, and I proceeded to join him in the sighting.

Lions are usually lazy, we all know that, but the freshness of the morning air, or perhaps the coffee they had drunk, gave them that kick they needed to dispel the laziness myth for my guests,  and we spent some wonderful time watching the three brothers play fighting, chasing one another, scent-marking, drinking, and then disappearing just as quickly as they had appeared.

That sighting made the morning, surely?  Anything else we saw was a bonus – a pod of hippos, large crocodiles, old buffalo bulls, a black mamba, an array of birds, and our ubiquitous impalas all added to what had, up until now, been an a rather enjoyable morning.

I then decided to go and see what was happening with a sleeping leopard after she and her mother had polished off an impala kill.  Unsurprisingly, I guess, she was selfishly sleeping.  Selfish, not for us, for all the other animals that wanted to come and drink at the waterhole where she had chosen to spend the day lying beside a fallen log.  The herd of zebras seemed reluctant to come and drink, although I doubt they were aware of her presence.

I spent some time with her before conceding that she was just not going to be as obliging as the lions were, and left to go have coffee (damn that coffee!).  Literally one minute later, my colleague called me to tell me to come back, a herd of over 100 buffalo was now approaching the waterhole.  Things were going to get interesting.

We then spent another ten or 15 minutes watching as the herd drank within ten metres of the leopard … then seven metres … then five metres.  She just lay there watching, hoping that her camouflage was good enough to avoid detection.  And it possibly would have been had she not suddenly lost her nerve when a large buffalo bull ambled past her.  At no more than one and half metres from her, she realised that she had to make a move, and jumped up and ran straight into the middle of the herd!

At first the buffalo herd scattered, not sure what was going, but if the buffalo next to you runs, you better make sure you run too!  When they eventually realised it was only a leopard, they stopped running away and transformed their ‘flight’ efforts into ‘fight’ efforts.  At about the same time, the young leopard realised that she was running into an area with no cover, no trees, and probably no future, so she swung around and ran off in the opposite direction towards a thicket on the edge of the dam.

Once, twice, three times the buffalo bulls lunged at her and actually made contact, but she kept her feet and scrambled into a nearby tree.  Lesson learned – ‘I will not stalk buffalo herds, I will not stalk buffalo herds’.  That afternoon she was found stalking a buffalo calf right in the middle of the same herd.  How does that saying go again?  Oh yes, “˜curiosity killed the cat’ … or was it stupidity?

Ending off the drive with a herd of elephants having a mud bath 50 m from the lodge, I really feared that I had used up all of my luck for the next week on one drive, so didn’t really relish the notion of going out again … without doubt my next drive was going to be seen as a failure compared to the morning.

The way the first part of the afternoon drive started off, it seemed that I was right and that I would be lucky to see impala.  Luckily fortunes can change very quickly in the bush, and I soon received an invitation to go south and see the southern lion pride that was out with their five two-month old cubs.  I said, ‘Thanks for the invite, but no thanks, I prefer looking at mopane trees’.  Okay, I didn’t say that, and had to try and contain my excitement at going to see these cubs for the first time.

Being a bit of a photography enthusiast, you can imagine the joy I felt when I arrived at the scene – two lionesses and five cubs lying in the open in the last 15 minutes of golden light of the day.  It was the stuff dreams are made of, and my right index finger worked overtime snapping up as many shots as I could of these little bundles of cuteness.  Pretty mushy-whooshy for a game ranger I guess?  Suddenly our previous hour-and-a-half of tree viewing was forgotten about.

As if that wasn’t enough for the day, while having a drink in the quickly fading twilight, a breeding herd of buffalo came grazing past us, then we bumped into a female leopard a bit further along the road, and a little later found those three male lions sleeping just off the road.  With the day I was having, I half expected them to all burst out into a thunderous chorus of roars on cue.  They didn’t.  Lazy buggers!

Sipping on my ice-cold Castle Lite (I have to watch my calorie intake) in the boma with the guests that night, reflecting on the marvellous day we had, I realised what it must feel like to drink coffee and suddenly become awake; the only difference was that my caffeine came in the form of magical animal sightings that keep me eager to wake up before the baboons, day after day, just to keep me living my dream. Of course, I still need the help of my Blackberry!

Chad Cocking’s daily wildlife blog is available at www.motswariblog.blogspot.com






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