Back to the cold

Holy jesus, it’s freezing in Vancouver, especially relative to California where it was shorts weather.

It’s strange. I don’t feel like I’m home.

Saturday Morning Documentary: BBC Natural World: Africa’s Dragon Mountain

In South Africa, there’s a long chain of mountains known as the Drankensberg, or Dragon Mountain.  Here in this somewhat harsh yet somewhat green landscape, a type of African antelope called the Eland roam.  At first glance, it looks like the Eland are out of place in the colder, grassy valleys and hills of the Dragon Mountain and should be instead in the African savannah, but as we find out, there is much grass and food to be found here.  At the same time, though, dangers are everywhere: jackals, vultures, but even deadlier is the weather. If it rains too much, the soil is diluted and the nutrients are lost from the grass.  This forces the herds of Elands to navigate up and through the mountains, constantly in search of food.

This is the focus of most of the film.  From time to time, it will also mention and show other creatures in the area such as ice rats and baboons, which are interesting too.  It’s only at the end of the film with the help of a helicopter do we really get a grasp of how far the Elands have trekked — their paths etched along the green mountainsides, going miles on end.

Cool documentary, even without the help of awesome David Attenborough narrating.  Who knew antelope could actually be kind of interesting?

Elands on Dragon Mountain