Unicorns or melanistic zebras...

Out of diesel fuel for a day so the first morning after Julia, Ben, and Emily arrive in camp only Ben and I go out to happy zebra den, which had a very active den scene for early morning in happy zebra. the happy zebra animals are usually up late at night and sleep well into the morning. We saw another leopard last night (three in three days!) another beautiful sighting as it walked along the edge of the river for a minute before disappearing in the brush. I didn’t get any photos but I’m not complaining!

Almost immediately after entering south territory today we saw three males wandering to the north east- we saw one male with two b scoops and decided it was toledo until it started getting lighter out and the third adult male started looking an awful lot like Trotsky. Finally we realized it was Trotsky and these were north animals not south animals. Why it took so long for us to realize that it was north animals and not south is laughable especially since we were on the border.

Then we also saw a very strange black animal that looked kind of like a horse. It was standing near a tree and I thought maybe a sable antelope based on the size and color. However as we drew closer it became apparent that it was a horse-like animal and Julia throws out unicorn. We moved to a runaway horse from the escarpment.

When I first saw it I blurted out “Julia! What IS that animal??” Finally through the binos I see stripes but black and dark gray stripes, a melanistic zebra? Finally we see that is standing under a tree and is in the shade. Amazing out here how being in the shade can make an animal look totally black when everything around you is so bright from the sun. Fun morning. The zebra turned out to be one that we've seen in north that is distinguished by his very short tail and several huge bloody gouges in his rump where a crocodile got him during a crossing. We named him Bloodonk-a-donk because of this. Hopefully he makes it!