Flavour of the Month October 2013: Old Main Road the S90

[Richprins]

Mavumbye drinking trough:

[Richprins]

I saw my first ever roan antelope in this area north of Mavumbye, in the 1980s!

There were a couple of them with a herd of sable!


Then it turned out they had interbred, creating a "roble"...

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found it, and my old diary!

30 June 1987 - entry 75: "See a lone Sable bull quite near road on left, Very good sighting. Lots of Zebra further on, interspersed with more sable, some lying down. Suddenly see one looking rather like roan, but dismissed it. Drive a little further, and are amazed to see perfect view of a roan walking towards us with rocking gait! See four more pairs of roan horns lying together in grass on rise, some way away.."

My map lists 8 sable and 5 roan, although the first one I dismissed was probably then the "crossbreed", making 5.5 roan and 7.5 sable!

Even though it was my first Kruger roan, I had studied the animals carefully at the Pta zoo, and slavishly followed photographs.

I'm sure the latter 4 lying down were roan, therefore indicating that it was not just the lone bull in the area!

[Richprins]

From a 2012 Blutuna report:


https://www.africawild-forum.com/viewto ... &start=100

Day 7. Balule.

This morning we set off towards Satara down the S90 and about 1 km past the S89 junction we ran into these...

This is my very poor attempt at reproducing the classic Nigel Dennis shot..



and some more conventional pictures...




Also along the way, a little Giraffe with a designer double-afro horn-hair-do



a Kudu that couldn't wait to cross the road



a Red-Crested Korhaan



a BBj that got up and called for its partner




a friend of Dick Terrapin who had taken up residence in a roadside puddle



A Slender Mongoose crossed the road in front of us and instead of vanishing into the undergrowth, stopped and took a look at us

[Richprins]

A sable very near the Gudzane Pan where the S-90 and S-41 meet (2013 Bushcraft story):


https://www.africawild-forum.com/viewto ... 5&start=20



The rest of the S41 was fairly quiet until about 500m from the S90 when the Cow suddenly shrieked “STOP, STOP it’s a sable” I stopped and spotted a waterbuck “IT’S a waterbuck”, “NO, there!!”



I couldn’t believe it as I have never heard about sable in this area before.

This sable was also a drip and slowly approached the road, but each time I moved the car to follow the sable backed off, so I reversed to give him plenty space and he eventually decided to bolt across the road.

[nan]

wow

[Richprins]

Breathtaking sequences of the southern part of the road to be found here on Pumbaa's 2013 report! :

https://www.africawild-forum.com/viewto ... 1&start=50

[Richprins]

And then the northern end:

we drove also already on the S90 coming closer to Bangu but a strange sighting made us stop again as we could watch some strange bugs/ants on the ground walking like soldiers in formation and after a while the outer “soldiers” changed with the ones marching in the centre of the formation and the ones in the back row with the ones in the first row. Maybe someone of you can help me with the id of these strange creatures which finally disappeared on the road side in the bush.

A large group of kudus could also be discovered in the high grass



and obviously were in the mode to do some running after the hot day yesterday.



Whereas all the ladies were situated on one side of the road their handsome Mr. could be found on the other side



busy in feeding on a yummy bush. Maybe he simply wanted to have time for himself as it is indeed a hard job to please all the ladies in the same way.....

Lots of ellies were also around but gladly far away and here I love the ellie between some endless green – the vegetation at that stretch of the road was lovely and once again so different compared to the rough red sand around Olifants which is making the tracing of animals in contrary a bit easier!



Another group of kudus made us stop again.

Then we spotted a catlike silhouette walking right on the road – incredible but true another wild cat! – but same made it impossible for us to take a decent picture as same, as soon as we approached disappeared in the high grass and not even the grass did move and maybe revealed in which direction the cat had just walked so we could only guess where same might appear again and that was most likely in front of our car and then this procedure continued for approx.10 minutes.



This was the only proof picture we were able to get and we already thought that we might have lost her when she suddenly jumped up on the chase of a francolin – That would have been the ultimate picture but at least this sighting once again left both of us with open mouth – The francolin escaped with the usual noisy call and the wild cat could no longer be seen.

Somehow we had already passed Bangu where nothing could be seen and normally wanted to turn around but suddenly Timon babbled something like: “strange horns” ??? and whilst I followed his look discovered our very first Kruger reedbuck male



at least the head of same as this was due to the high grass the only thing we saw from him – WoW That road was one of the best we had driven this year and not only delivered from the Southern part but also from the Northern part.



A bit pity was that our reedbuck only looked for a minute into our direction and then jumped away in high speed and was no longer to be seen.



The next sighting was also a lifer for us, as we spotted a strange looking raptor which permanently landed a couple of meters in front of our car grabbed something from the ground and as soon as we broke the pain barrier in form of a 10 m distance,



flew up again, so increased the distance between herself and our car and landed again in the middle of the road and pull apart what she just grabbed and enjoyed breakfast – Our very first Montague’s harrier female!



and needless to say that with that sighting and our very first Kruger reedbuck a couple of minutes ago our day was already made.



I forced Timon not to drive too close to her and so we could at least although still far away take a couple of pictures and whilst enlarging these pictures later at home at the screens we noticed that the road must have been littered with grasshoppers which formed the breakfast buffet of our beautiful raptor lady.



Which one did taste best?



Gladly for us that from the other direction the whole time this sighting lasted no car came and so we had the honour in watching her quite a while. A bit farer away in a bush another Montague’s could be seen but same did not dare to come closer. Finally also our Montague had enough and joined the other one on the far away bush.

We somehow lost Being and time and so we noticed the turn off into the S41 only when same was a kilometre behind us and so we decided to also drive the rest of the S90 instead of turning around and so include a visit at Ngotso North which we did not visit often and we were not disappointed with this decision, as a lot of usual suspects could be found.

A large elephant herd crossed our path and I simply had to share this picture especially with the soft green grass



and obviously the kudus also liked that road that morning much, as another group came across



and also ostriches were busy in searching for breakfast. Also lots of Carmine bee eaters and European swallows were buzzing around all of these animals and whilst afterwards watching the pictures we noticed on nearly each picture at least one of these birdies.



Another black-backed jackal which we found this year a lot on this road just found something delicious.



Meanwhile also the sun could be seen more often than earlier that morning but is was still extreme windy and I still had my jacket on. Female ostriches



and wildebeests spread all over the rest of that road were nearly the last animals we saw until something feathered made us stop again. A lovely tawny pointed us the direction back to Olifants



and took off from that tiny bush same was sitting on



only to land in a close by tree to be maybe a bit more protected against the strong wind.



When you look at the feathers of the tawny this maybe show you how strong the wind was still blowing.



“Today flying is cancelled I have to use my feet!”

[Richprins]

Kruger Sightings
‏Verified account @LatestKruger
2h2 hours ago

06:00
2 Black Backed Jackal Pups
S90, 4.5km from the H1-4
Near Satara
Vis 5/5
Tinged by Is Moz Bos Team

[Richprins]

From Pumbaa - 2014:

https://www.africawild-forum.com/viewto ... 0&start=50

Already on the S90 we had to watch our steps or in this case our tires as again a great number of these land snails were busy in crossing the street.



The wildebeest and zebra herds from yesterday evening came also across and then we had the best black backed jackal sighting we ever had. In total 7 jackals were running hectically on the road in front of our car – a group of four and a group of 3 split up and finally the family group of only 3 had chased the other group away at least from the road, the grass in that area was far too high and offered a more than good hiding place.



Gladly for us the group of 3 stayed on the road and did not get disturbed by our presence and from time to time even were offering amazing photographic opportunities, even one shot with a flying jackal could be captured.





Then the little one, meanwhile nearly the same size as mom and dad started to beg for food and to watch this behaviour between the family members already made our day.





Due to the high and wet grass our little family had no intentions to disappear and even a car which passed us did not chase them away – A pity for them that they were not interested in jackals as they indeed missed a more than wonderful sighting.



Funny was that right in front of the jackal a quite impressive, as if they are not always impressive, giraffe trotted slowly right in the middle of the road in the typical giraffe trot.



Needless to say that our day was already made by these amazing sightings and on top today was one of the few days without any rain or any severe clouds and the sky kept the whole day steel blue. We had a great time in stopping, photographing and observing the jackals who could not when such cutie were looking to you.



Time for some rest and yawning – What the lions could do I could do even better.



In contrary to the morning rush hour on the S100 this road is only frequented by a handful of cars especially in the morning so we nearly had the jackals all to ourselves and for us this road is always an insider tip.



Far too soon in an area where the grass was not that high our beloved family finally cleared the road and disappeared.

[Richprins]

From a 2014 Heksie story:

So I drive and I see something shining in the road up front, bunt not sure what it is, I drive further…
I see then a snake slithering, and out of the bush jumps a mongoose!!!!! WHAAAAATTTTT!!! You must be joking!!!
It is a Kruger stand-off and we are the only spectators. On the one side (rooting by mum and sis) a slender mongoose and on the other side (rooting by Heks) a Mozambican spitting cobra… we spent 12 minutes with them until they parted, so unfortunately we have no winner but it was the best time spent this whole trip. Let the pictures do the talking (sorry for the amount of them)














































As they parted we drove next to the cobra we looked at us, and after a few kiekies we moved on as time was moving against us.

https://www.africawild-forum.com/viewto ... &start=300