There is a moment before dawn, when the bush feels suspended between dark and light. Before the first light touches the tops of the tallest marula trees, and the air still holds the cool breath of the night. On such mornings, if we’re out tracking on foot following fresh tracks, I sometimes like to pause and simply breathe. The world smells alive. The dust, the damp earth, the faint musk of a passing elephant. The sweet, faint scent of wild basil crushed beneath my shoe.
We humans live largely through our sense of vision, but to the animals around us, the sense of smell is the foundation upon which their entire world is built. Every whisper of wind carries large amounts of information. A story written not in words but in airborne molecules.
When a wild dog, a leopard or a lion inhales, for example, their noses perform a small miracle of design. Part of the airflow is directed toward breathing, while another channel is devoted entirely to scent. As they exhale, the air doesn’t simply rush out the front like it would with ours. It escapes through tiny slits on the sides of the nostrils. These slits create tiny vortexes that pull fresh odour molecules inward. Even as these animals breathe out, they’re drawing the world in.
I think of a leopard moving through the Maxabene riverbed, its head low, nostrils flaring gently. To us, the air may seem still and empty. To her, it is thick with signals. Perhaps the sharp tang of a hyena that passed recently, the earthy musk of impala, the faint rot of a distant carcass. Every molecule tells her something – who was here, how long ago, what condition they were in, even which direction they moved. She reads the landscape in scent, the way we might read tracks in the sand.
Elephants live in a vast ocean of smell. With their trunks lifted to the wind, they gather entire stories. The arrival of another herd, the fruiting of marula trees, and the proximity of water. Their sense of smell is believed to be among the most powerful in the animal kingdom. To watch an elephant pause with its trunk gently sampling the air is to watch past memories unfold. Scent layered upon scent, history floating across the landscape in a form invisible to us.
An elephant’s trunk, curled into the wind, helps it to accurately perceive its surroundings.
One morning just over a week ago, with a steady south-easterly wind blowing across the reserve, we watched a lone hyena emerge from the thickets. Her nose was high and her gait purposeful. She began to move across the open crest, tacking from side to side almost like a sailboat working into the wind. Each time the scent ran cold, she’d correct her course, calibrating constantly, staying true to whatever invisible thread she was following. For fifteen minutes, we watched her work the wind, silent but determined. Eventually, she slowed and stopped at the base of a jackalberry tree.
It is interesting to note that hyenas have slightly longer snouts than the big cats, as well as longer slits on either side of their nostrils. From my observations, I would think it is safe to say their sense of smell as a predator is one of the best out here.
We followed her gaze upwards. Almost completely hidden within the dense upper foliage lay a young female leopard, her impala carcass hanging beside her. She must have made the kill the previous day. The hyena lay down beneath the tree, patient and expectant. She had sailed the invisible seas of scent across over a kilometre of bush and arrived precisely at her destination.
What fascinates me most is how smell bridges time. A sight vanishes the instant you blink, a sound fades the moment it is made, but a scent lingers. It holds the presence of the past. That’s why predators can follow a trail long after the animal that left it has gone. The air remembers.
And perhaps this is just one of many quiet teachings the wild offers us, to pay more attention to what we cannot see. Each animal is confined to its unique combination of physical senses, humans included. We live in a narrow spectrum of a much greater whole, and it is easy for us to mistake the edges of our perception for the edges of reality. There is so much more happening out there if you observe things with deep curiosity. If only we would learn to sense with more than our eyes.
Matt Rochford
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