It dawned, as predicted, much cooler so we were thankful that we had opted for a later start and a morning with the meerkats. We missed them getting up and sunbathing as we heard of a caracal in the area - we found the cape fox it had killed but couldn't find the caracal. When we arrived with the meerkats they were scurrying around frantically digging for insects and really big maggots - they are them quickly but occasionally I got a glimpse of one going down! The youngsters were digging but also making a ' feed me' whine which the adult they were with occasionally relent to. We watched look-outs on top of bushes scanning for predators (John saw one go to sleep on duty on a bush and fall out - thud!) The alpha female was easy to spot - when you knew- as she was very rotund and heavily pregnant - unusual in the fact she has 7 teats as opposed to the normal 6.
After a couple of hours we had coffee then made our way back to the lodge - declining brunch at a viewpoint as we had overdosed on coffee snacks. Instead we had a late brunch @2pm just before the afternoon drive. In the intervening period I went to the gym, sorted photos and quickly snapped a sable who wandered past our deck.
The afternoon was a search for aardvark and pangolin - aardvark nil, pangolin one(won)! We thought it might be a nil all draw as Ben followed the tracks of last nights pangolin- to his burrow, out for his forage and back to the another burrow - perhaps they had all fed early as it was a cool windy day?
Then Liam saw some tracks - we had to drive quickly ( seat belts on) to get Ben after Liam decided Ben could track faster than him and the light was fading. Ben didn't get our hopes up as he said they were yesterday's as other animals had crossed them - but he set off. While Ben was tracking we continued to look for Aardvark - then we had a call on the radio he had found one.....of course not close to the road so we had a trek but it was worth it - we spent half an hour with the pangolin which was much more wary than the one last night.
Elated we had a cold drive back - but the fun wasn't over, an eagle owl flew across the road and landed in a tree close by and the a wild cat bounded across the road and actually positioned itself on the edge of a bush such that we could photograph it ( today's photo) - unbelievable! We think it was watching an elephant shrew in the bush in front of it. In the distance we heard cheetah growl - but saw nothing- but there was a rhino at the waterhole - the old one from the other day. We checked again for the caracal by there was no sign and the fox had gone.
Sadly it was a warm up, packing and dinner as we leave tomorrow.