RARE
Today was a wonderful day! We woke up at 5:30 am for a day out in the African bush. We received word that a couple of roads that have been off limit to us were now accessible, so we waisted no time to get to them as soon as possible so that we could see what we were missing out on. I was extra excited to explore today because I was on the tracker seat, so it was up to me to find us something good! ( no pressure ; ) Our first sighting started with a whole buffalo carcass that was around 3 weeks old. When we checked the perimeter to make sure whatever had been feeding on it was gone, we jumped of the vehicle and approached the carcass. The smell of it was almost unbearable, but it was really neat to get that close and check out all the bones and evidence around the carcass. I felt like I was in CSI or something walking around the buffalo looking for cat prints and vulture feathers. When we decided we had enough of the smell we took a couple of the loose buffalo hooves and put them in a bag to add to our interesting collection in the classroom. As we continued on the path I spotted something unbelievable! At first glance it looked like a cross between a rock and a snake , but as I continued to focus on it I realized that it was moving! I quickly yelled for the driver to STOP! and when he did everyone asked me what I saw , but I didn’t know what to say , because i have never seen something so odd in my life! All i could manage to do was wave my hands back and tell the driver to back up , back up. Just as Sean started to look at me as if i was hallucinating I pointed to what I had seen and heard Sean say OH MY GOD! I had spotted a Pangolin! for all of you who don’t know what this is , it is one of the top 5 rare species to see in Africa, you can live your whole life here in the bush and never see one of this species because it is very shy and nocturnal, but there it was clear as daylight walking around scavenging for ants. We all whipped out our cameras like the paparazzi and starting to take dozens of pictures and videos because we knew this could be a once in a lifetime sighting! When we sent a radio message through to the other vehicle , we had to repeat ourselves 3 times , because they were not expecting to hear the word Pangolin, as they booked it to get to this amazing sighting we decided to quietly get off the Land Rover and approach this strange creature who did not seem at all affected by our presence. I was so amazed by what this creature looked liked and how it moved. It reminded me of a little dinosaur that walked on its back two legs and kept its front legs off the ground. I just kept saying oh wow like a million times! As the other vehicle approached everyone jumped out and was very anxious to spot the rare Pangolin. Nellie our guide said that she has been guiding for 12 years and has never seen a Pangolin, so the look on her face was priceless! As we all sat and watched it for about and hour , Sean decided that since this may be the only time we will ever see this we should go all out with it, so we got within inches of the pangolin and even got close enough to see it curl up in a ball and touch it very lightly. This did not go well with some of the students , so they did not wish to proceed with the sighting and went back to the vehicles . We had a small dispute when the sighting was over about crossing this animals comfort zone , which we definitely did and it was unethical , but well worth it!
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you go girl…great sighting!!