At last the wait is over

Born on 1st of November they eventually showed their faces for the first time today, five new baby's and they look strong and healthy.

First hot summers day

So what do you do when it is 40° in the shade and you are a meerkat in the Karroo?

You find some shade under a tree, scratch the hot topsoil away and lie down flat on your tummy to cool down.

??????????????

So Boeta is still with the family, no sign that he has any plans to leave soon. The young female that left after he came back also returned to the family.
I do not take kids younger than 10 years on my tours, just because it is cruel to the child to sit still for that long.

So when someone asked very nicely, i decided to take them with me when i do my afternoon trip to the meerkats. I do not take people with me in the afternoons because the sightings are not guaranteed. But these people asked nicely so there we go. Got to the burrows just after 18H00 with still 1 ½ hours sun left, but no sign of the meerkats, i even canceled my tour for the next morning. Next morming i'm there and found them at the main burrows, so i let the people know to meet me again the afternoon and again no meerkats. This time i did not cancel my morning tour and there they were. So the third afternoon i went to find them and 17H45 they were at the burrows but only went to bed when the sun went down. Only the 4th afternoon did i find the reason, I went to the burrows at 16H00 and staked out from a distance with my binoculars and then i saw the culprit, a yellow mongoose attached the baby sitters, who then gave alarm the whole family came to the rescue and to protect the baby's the whole family stayed with them for the remainder of the afternoon, so that was why we did not see the meerkats at the burrows ore anywhere in the territory the first two times.