15 Jun, 2007

The meerkats are back at their burrow, wrestling and grooming and warming themselves in the evening sunlight that bathes the distant mountains and spills across the valley floor.

The profile of the Swartberg mountains to the north of the Little Karoo, etched against the pale evening sky, evokes the face of an old man sleeping.

But as spring arrives here in the dry and harsh Little Karoo of South Africa, there’s a sense of things waking and new promise in the air. Flowers are in bloom, and the meerkats Earth-Touch has been filming for some time have a litter of new pups, eager to discover the world.

Today, the meerkats returned from their day’s search for food, to do what meerkats always do at this time of the day: wrestle with each other, groom, and soak up the rays of the setting sun.

Meerkats have less hair on their stomachs than on the rest of their bodies, and stand upright to warm their dark-skinned tummies in the sun, using them like built-in solar panels.

The Karoo chat (Cercomela schlegelii), a common little bird of this semi-desert region, is ever present around the meerkat burrow.

These small, ground-nesting birds often follow the meerkats around on their foraging sorties through the day, capitalising on the fact that the meerkats disturb foliage as they go, and put insects to flight for them to snap up.

Even while play-fighting and grooming in preparation for going down into the burrow to sleep, the meerkats remain constantly on the alert for possible danger.

– Earth-Touch crew © Earth-Touch

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