Skip to main content

Honey Badger

 

Our game driver spotted this bowlegged guy trotting down the road. He was coming straight for us, so with heart-thumping anticipation, it looked like he would walk right past us. But, dang, he eventually stopped, looked our way, sniffed the air, then turned on a dime and made a beeline for the bush where a couple of young lions were napping. The lions looked up and let him pass without so much as a muffled roar. 


This badass is a Honey Badger, an animal with a reputation so fierce even lions avoid them because these little warriors go straight for the testicles. Faces and eyes are also fair game, their long claws and sharp teeth can shred skin to the bone. During my seven years in South Africa, this was only my second encounter with a Honey Badger; the first had only happened days before in The Kruger.


My friend and I were sitting around a campfire one evening. Wine flowed, and the flames of the fire created a warm, safe feeling. Well, safe(ish) because the baboons that surrounded us were determined to steal our food. We were chatting about who knows what when a Honey Badger crossed in front of our shoeless feet like he owned the place. We froze, afraid to move lest our faces fall victim to his notorious bad attitude.  


But, he didn’t seem to give a hoot about us, headed straight for the garbage, lifted up the cover, took a sniff, sat up on the edge, and looked at us as if to say, “What the heck, where’s the leftovers.”  Then we heard something behind us, and holy cow, another Honey Badger plodded on by, looked at his buddy, who, I swear, shook his head in disgust before they scampered off to the next campsite.


Honey Badgers are misunderstood. They are wicked smart, can make tools, can slither out of their skin to escape a predator, and can hypnotize honeybees with their stinky anal spray and steal the honey with nary a sting. And humans are absolutely meaningless to them in their quest for survival.


The Honey Badger is definitely an animal worthy of respect! 


#honeybadger #personalessay #lastmonthsinsouthafrica #ilovethebush



Comments

Popular posts from this blog

The Golden Glow of the Bush

  The Golden Glow of the Bush I have seen some glorious skies during my travels around the world, from the smog-induced fluorescent sunsets in Moscow to the burning red horizon in Lake Tahoe. Looking up toward the heavens at dusk is my favorite time of day.  But, nowhere have I ever been so mesmerized by the setting sun than in the bush. Why? Because the light the fading sun casts on the landscape is like no other. Call it the golden hour or the magic hour, or the hour when a quiet hush blankets the land as day turns to night. Birds sing their bedtime songs, jackals practice their forlorn calls, and predators wake, yawning widely, preparing for the hunt. The fading light signals transformation from the brightness to darkness, from things seen to those unseen.  Lazy, sleeping lions transform from looking like cuddly stuffed animals to ferocious stalkers of anything that moves. Hunger calls them to action, stealthy and relentless in their pursuit. Owls waken, looking for bu...

Super Mom

  Super Mom   Super Mom    Seeing a coalition of eight cheetahs in the bush is more than a lucky sighting; it is rare and magical. What's even crazier is that my friends and I had already seen this family many times during the year and a half before taking this photo. Here's their story. Two cheetah sisters had two litters around the same time. Sister one had six cubs, and sister two or three cubs. For whatever unexplainable reason, one of sister two's cubs migrated to sister one's family, making her the mother of seven. She quickly acquired the moniker of Super Mom by all the rangers in the park. One mom, seven cubs. She had to chase them all around when they were babies, feed them (they have about a 58% success rate when chasing down a meal), teach them the ways of the bush, and most of all, keep them safe. Whenever we saw them, they were healthy, playful, and did whatever mom told them to do - move, rest, get down from a tree, get out of the road, stay quiet! We g...

Ranger Dean

  This young man is Dean, and he is a ranger at Tandala Trail Camp in the Dinokeng Reserve. Dean is not just any ranger; he is my favorite ranger. At 25, his wealth of knowledge about bush flora and fauna equals any seasoned ranger I have gone with to the bush. In this photo, Dean hopped out of the vehicle to explain why elephants eat the bark of certain trees. It is because the bark of some trees is sweet and delicious. Dean also explained that the damage done to the trees will kill them unless the ellies only tear the bark from one side. If there is bark left on one side, the tree can mend itself, basically grow back the bark that acts as a shield against destructive weather and invading insects.   There are many things that I appreciate about Dean. His ability to identify birds by their call, tracking skills, and knowledge of the flora are remarkable. But the best thing is that he won’t carry a gun. Instead, he has a long stick that can help control a situation if an a...