Friday, May 1, 2009

In the Mara, expect the unexpected

Carnivores.

They're big, scary, and they eat a lot of meat, right? Well, not always. Jackals sometimes seem to be the exception to these rules.

Not long ago, I happened upon this hungry jackal who was sniffing around a warthog and her babies, looking for a little morning bacon.


Naturally, you'd think the warthogs would flee the scene to save their hide. Nope...the tiniest piggie lunged at the jackal, launching him into obvious panic mode.


Not so big and scary, I guess. He ended up slinking off into the tall grass, sans breakfast (and probably with a bit less personal pride than he had started with).

This morning, we saw a jackal who seemed to be feeding on some little bits of bone. Ever the opportunists, jackals often consume the miniscule leftover scraps that lions and hyenas may ignore.


On closer inspection, however, we saw that the jackal wasn't eating scraps after all...it seems that mushrooms were the delicacy of the day. The onset of the rainy season has caused fungi to pop up everywhere, and this jackal was feasting on a whole crop of little white mushrooms.

I'm pretty sure there's a moral to all these jackal stories...if you can't bring home the bacon, you'd better be willing to investigate other options.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

I think you meant to say the "Morel" of the story...

Kate said...

Ah, very clever :) I actually worried that the whole "bringing home the bacon" thing was a bit heavy-handed, so I'm glad to know that I can hit you over the head with bad jokes and puns and you're still aching for more!

Debbie said...

I love jackals... always on the move.. always somewhere to go. Almost as cute as the bat-eared foxes.


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