19th October 2008 : We are the Dik Dik Whisperers

Ian and I fancy ourselves as Dik Dik Whisperers (she says, tongue in cheek, you understand...)

You will recall that we have been feeding the dik diks (and various other creatures who help themselves too) with maize [a.k.a corn] each evening. They have become so tame that they now come and feed within 2 metres of us as we sit on the stone wall by the kitchen, throwing handfuls of maize to them. We can even call them now, by shaking the maize container - they have learned to recognise the sound and come gingerly out of the undergrowth when they hear it. There is a pair that comes every day - the male in particular is very tame (though they both come almost within arms' reach) - and another single female which I think may be their fully grown offspring, for three of them used to come all together, until the youngster was chased off. Now they arrive separately, but will occasionally all feed together. Being as tame as they are has allowed me to get some big close-ups of the dik dik from the kitchen. They're quite funny little creatures when you look at them so closely, with their strange long trunk-like noses that twitch from side to side:

What makes me laugh is that Slim (and now sometimes Jim too) has also come to recognise the sound of the maize container, and when I call the dik diks, the mongoose(s) appear too, so I always need to make sure I have a couple of goodies for them as well, and they come and feed alongside the dik diks:

You can see Slim in the top left corner of the photo, waiting for her share of the spoils...

And then there is the pair of Crested Francolin, who always hang around but are still extremely skittish. Often they will only come in to feed once I've gone (or will come early in the morning to pick up leftovers) but occasionally one or both will come while I'm sitting on the wall feeding the dik diks, grab one piece of maize then dash away as fast as their legs/wings will carry them. They do make me laugh for they really should be more accustomed to us by now and know that we are not interested in having them for dinner!

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