June Field Notes: Wild dog denning

Cold mornings, the river dropping, wild dog packs at their dens.

June arrives with a cold most people don’t expect to find in Tanzania. Mornings begin at fifteen or sixteen degrees, occasionally lower. The Rufiji has dropped enough that sandbars are surfacing where there was open channel a few weeks ago; the fish eagles are already inspecting last year’s nests. Out in the miombo, the first wild dog packs are settled at their dens, the alpha females tucked away with newborn pups. For about a month, those packs’ worlds will contract to a five-kilometre radius — and so will ours.

The river: Actively dropping; sandbars beginning to surface; channels sharpening.

The bush: Still green but the grasses curing — that golden-tan, hour-of-the-day light, all day.

On four legs: Wild dog denning in full swing; packs anchored to a single den-site; the only month dogs are reliably found.

On the wing: Fish eagles refurbishing nests; first African skimmers settling on freshly exposed sandbars.