NOT the day of the jackal!
In extraordinary pictures at an African watering hole, it’s definitely...
WHEN you have a reputation to preserve as one of Africa’s most efficient predators, there are times when you might really wish there were no photographers around.
This hungry jackal used all his speed and skills to snaffle a tasty breakfast last week, only to be left nursing his hunger, his wounded pride captured on camera for all the world to see.
The jackal was lying in wait for the flocks of birds that fly into a watering hole in Kgalagadi Transfrontier Park, on the border of South Africa and Botswana, every day at first light.
Spying its quarry, some earlybird doves, the jackal leaped into the watering hole in hot pursuit… but wasn’t quick enough and was forced to retire, wet and hungry, to await another chance.
After an hour, a noisy flock of sandgrouse arrived. But the jackal again mistimed his attack and could only watch dejectedly as his breakfast took to the skies.
Australian amateur photographer Jenny Andersen, 43, who took the extraordinary shots, said: ‘The jackal is there most mornings from dawn. The doves are first to the watering hole, but they’re fast and it’s lucky if he catches one.
‘But they’re just a warm-up for the sandgrouse, which fly in in big, noisy flocks and come to drink about an hour after sunrise.
‘The jackal usually sprints in and launches himself into the air, mouth agape. He’s most successful when he times it on their final approach, and nabs one right out of the air as they’re coming in to land,’ Jenny added.
But this time it seems it just wasn’t this jackal’s day.