16 Aug The Magic of Zimbabwe’s Mana Pools National Park
For many agonising minutes the African painted dog would let us see only her ears. Like bristly dark radars, they had inched up from her underground den, panning for danger.
Finally, and to my huge relief, she stalked up into the open, her eyes amber in the mid-morning sun, her nose working the breeze.
Tracking lions on foot and meeting elephants in the camp — this is African safari at its most elemental,
says Jane Flanagan.
She was easily visible against the sand mound, and then suddenly the smears of black through bronze to cream that give these dogs their name melted into the backdrop of winter leaves, shadows and bark.