End of season

Well it is the end of the festive season, almost the end of tourist season and the end of breeding season for meerkats. You know it is the end of the festive season when shops put up Easter adverts. The end of holiday when there are no more caravans traveling north towards Johannesburg  and the end of breeding season when Liefie the dominant female had her last batch of baby's.
She had the baby's on 16 January.   
The whole family is doing well. All five November baby's are doing well.

The photo was taken the 15th of Jan and she had the baby's on the 16th

Embarrassing

The middle of December season, 12 people booked. 31 December.

I went to the meerkats the previous day to see where they would sleep. I do that every day so as not to embarrass myself.
Now on this specific day i could not find the meerkats, it was a very miserable windy day and a couple of goshawks were having a fears territorial battle over the north western territory.
This made me think that the meerkats were nervous and has thus gone underground for protection, as i could not find them at any of the burrows in the territory.
So using my tracking skills i found some fresh footprints at one of the northern burrows and decided to take a chance and do the tour. I also took my son JD with the next morning as backup to patrol the other burrows. But no meerkats. Had to send my guests home without seeing one meerkat.
When i got back that afternoon all the meerkats were there waiting for me. I did promise them each a radio collar.
The rest of the family is doing fine. Liefie is growing very big and would ave her baby's around the 17th of Jan.