After enjoying a midday take-away toasted sandwich and an ice cold cider on the terrace overlooking the dam at Berg en Dal, our route back to our lodgings at Lower Sabie took us along the Crocodile River dirt road, direction East.
It was sunny, cloudless and stinking hot, with very little going on.
A squirrel sprinted across the road a little way ahead of us, so I slowed down and stopped to see if it was up to anything.
The squirrel had stopped in the short grass on the edge of the road, and when it realized that we were watching, it quickly scampered up a dead Hardekool (Leadwood) tree nearby and disappeared into a hole some 4 meters above the ground.
Having decided that there was nothing more to see, I was just about to move on when a small face with two huge honey coloured eyes located between two even bigger pink ears popped out of the hole, followed in quick time by a round bushy body and a long tail. It was obviously not the squirrel, but it still took a second or two to realize that the squirrel had ejected a bushbaby it probably time-shared the hollow tree truck with. We were still digesting this all when a second bushbaby popped out of the hole a few seconds later.
The two bushbabies appeared to be pretty distressed about having been unceremoniously ejected into the very bright sunlight at a time of day not quite compliant with contract conditions. With both bushbabies circling aimlessly around the hole a few times, one decided it had had enough and took the lead by popping back into the sleeping quarters, to be closely followed by the other.
Nothing further happened for happened after that, so we assumed that the two bushbabies had managed to come to some sort of agreement regarding sleeping arrangements with the squirrel.
What an unusual and special sighting – and all over within about 20 seconds.