Thursday started bright and early at 4:30am. Moses picked us up at our quarters at 5 o'clock prompt, and we headed out onto the reserve for our early morning drive. It was pretty chilly out at the time, and when we started off it was still pitch black (other than the stars) and we had to use the spotlight. The morning drives, however, are supposedly amazing for seeing game, so I was pretty excited. I was not to be disappointed! Right off the bat we saw Xhulu and Shiesta near the front water hole. My camera didn't do a fantastic job in pitch black, but I gave it my best show. In addition to all of the plains game, we saw a black-backed jackal, the herd of cape buffalo, nine elephants (including two of the babies), and - my favorite - a pair of rhinos. 
After the drive, the whole group went back onto the reserve for another game capture. We figured that it would be another productive capture day, because the skies were overcast and the temperatures were way down compared to the days before; William can't push the herds very long distances when it's that hot out. However, it was a pretty quiet day as the majority of the big herds were on distant plains on other parts of the reserve. The first run we had, four blesbok came through, but two of them wriggled and jumped their way out of the nets and escaped. I was hiding with two others in a central patch of bushes in the middle of the trap, as to be one of the first to the animals once they came through. Myself and Bruce, a middle-aged Scottish guy, were the first ones of one of these two blesbok. I ripped the blesbok's back to legs to the ground while Bruce went for the horns. However, he didn't get a good enough grip and the animal bucked, sending one of its horns through Bruce's pant leg! Luckily for him, it just barely broke the skin and produced a massive bruise more than anything else.
During our late morning shift after breakfast, we went back out to see if our game capture could get any more successful. It didn't really, with only one more group of animals coming our way. This time, it was a group of four springbok. Two of them saw the nets ahead of time, though, and leapt clear over our nets. The other two were wrestled to the ground and given their anti-tick booster. William got a herd of zebra to come close but they kept swinging wide, so we eventually gave up. I was a little bit antsy for zebra just because they don't have a vulnerable point like horns from which it's easy to grab them and pull them down. William says that with a zebra you just have to go for the legs, hope you don't get stomped on, and pull it down that way.
After lunch we did more weeding around the cheetah pen, while the hungry lionnesses that hadn't been fed in a couple days walked back and forth along the fenceline surveying us. It started raining, so Pelile our coordinator let us quit and go play with the lion and tiger cubs. We went in their enclosure and they were all riled up; we played with them by letting them chase us around (play for us but kind of instinctual hunting for them) or by holding our hats out for them to jump and attack. They are certainly cute now, but for how ferocious they already are I would never play those games with a bigger one. 
It rained until dinner, which was perfect weather for sitting on the patio with a book. I happened to have my camera ready and snapped a picture of one of the vervet monkeys that hang around the camp. After dinner we just hung around and played Twister for lack of anything else to do.
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