We got up in the black this morning. It thundered and kind of showered here all night long. We got up early and drove for an hour in the dark to get to the base of the mountain.
We started climbing and then just at first light, glassing as we were climbing, we saw eight Menelik's bushbucks including one real big male. We also saw today five female greater kudu. And we saw the lesser kudu variety, including three males, one of which was really big, and then probably 10 or so females. Lesser kudu are about half the size of the greater kudu, and they're an absolutely beautiful species of antelope.

But nothing was close enough today. It looks like it's going to be a pretty tough hunt. We're going to be working hard to get a crack at any of these species. The Abyssinian greater kudu which is what I'm hunting, there are like five tags a year let out per year, and they are only hunted here in Ethiopia. The tags are hard to get, and so is the animal. Success rates are low, but we're going to do our best and see what happens.
We also saw tons of dik-dik's today. On the drive out we (Jason) judged 19 different dik-dik's; we saw probably 100 more and we were looking for one that's over 3 inches (in horn length). It's difficult to say the least trying to judge something that is 3 inches to 3 1/2 inches. The world record is something like 4 inches. I don't know how Jason is even judging them.

Today we saw more cool birds including the corybusters which are the heaviest birds in Africa. These smaller birds called bee-eaters basically ride on the backs of the corybusters as the corybusters fly along low to the ground and kick up grasshoppers, and as they do the bee-eaters catch the grasshoppers. One of the many amazing sights here in this part of Africa ...

The Next Day ...

We went out early again in the dark and climbed like son of a guns up into the mountains. It's just cooking hot; sweating, sweating, sweating! We saw a bunch more bushbucks today. The census counters didn't see any when they were here, but we've seen 15 now in two days including one magnificent male. But I don't have a tag for these bushbucks because the quota is cut back.

We didn't see any Abyssinian kudu today, none. We saw some lesser kudu about 160 yards away, but no males. We came back to camp and there are two new hunters who showed up at our Omo River camp, Greg Gibson from Indiana and his buddy Eric. They had been hunting where we were in the Dati area. They got a hippo and a buffalo there, and their hippo was about only 50 yards from where I got mine! So they're here in camp hunting for everything that we're hunting for basically. It's fun, everything's going good. Jason is doing well. He has good eyes and is spotting all kinds of animals.

We're now up to 52 dik-dik's seen and judged. Today was a 30-plus did-dik day; only one today that was real big, but it got off in the brush too quckly. We're going to keep hunting hard. We've got at least 10 more days to hunt ...