Flavour of the Month - October 2014-S28 Nhlowa Road with the Ntandanyathi Hide

All kinds of information on members' favourite routes in Kruger
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Dindingwe
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Re: Flavour of the Month - October 2014-S28 Nhlowa Road with the Ntandanyathi Hide

Post by Dindingwe »

The legs of the Green-back Heron are usually grey-yellowish, but become orange-reddish during breeding season. Same for the skin between the eye and bill.

Some picture from Ntandanuathi Hide in June 2016, after the drought. The rains were not sufficiant and the pool remained very muddish.

Hippos
Hippos
Grey Heron
Grey Heron
Hamerkop
Hamerkop

In December 2016, the water level was back to normal and big mammals could be seen around.

Elephant
Elephant


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Re: Flavour of the Month - October 2014-S28 Nhlowa Road with the Ntandanyathi Hide

Post by Flutterby »

Nice pics. \O Thanks for the explanation on the heron. ;-)


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Re: Flavour of the Month - October 2014-S28 Nhlowa Road with the Ntandanyathi Hide

Post by Richprins »

Thanks, Dingwe!

Learnt something new on the heron \O
Last edited by Richprins on Sun Apr 22, 2018 6:04 pm, edited 1 time in total.


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Re: Flavour of the Month - October 2014-S28 Nhlowa Road with the Ntandanyathi Hide

Post by Lisbeth »

So it is not a sunburn on the legs lol

:ty:


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Re: Flavour of the Month - October 2014-S28 Nhlowa Road with the Ntandanyathi Hide

Post by nan »

is in the books.... I can't speak English, but try to read what it is about birds... and others ;-)


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Re: Flavour of the Month - October 2014-S28 Nhlowa Road with the Ntandanyathi Hide

Post by Richprins »

From a 2012 aat report:


https://www.africawild-forum.com/viewto ... 3&start=10

aat wrote: Sun May 27, 2012 4:01 pm
This time I like to take you with me for some nice cheetah sightings. All in two days
Alltough there are not many left we so far have been lucky to see them during our trips to kruger.

Let’s start with this one… somewhere along the S28 (between Crocodile Bridge and Lower Sabie) we saw something in the field… stopped for a better look and yesss… male cheetah.
First impression we got…

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He was a bit at a distance but using a bit of zooming I could get him a bit closer
After a while (20 minutes) he was standing up

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and
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he was a bit lurking around…mainly laying down and “sleeping”

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With a friendly look at us

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So we left him after some time…no action …lazy Cheetah !

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Thinking about other Cheetah sightings in that area … we did not see male cheetah’s that often….
Next day lots of wonderful sightings and late afternoon we decided to drive the S28 again..why not… this road has been very nice for us over the years.
We were just saying to each other …should be fun to see this Cheetah again..but this almost never happens…
A few minutes later….hahahahaha….. there he was again…now a bit closer to the road.

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Cheetah’s are the favorites of my wife Elly…she always get thrilled to see one and I heard her lovely heart pounding …. I told her… you are lucky my dear… another present for your birthday trip.

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The Cheetah was alert… he was listening and looking around… what did he hear or smell ?

A small herd of ellies ….that’s what he heard

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Not very relaxed anymore…. But a nice lovely look at us

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With all the noice made by the ellies he moved a bit…

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But lazy as cats can be…(most of the time) he found another place and decided to lay down again

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So end of the Male stories… But…. Where males are the females can’t be far away…so let’s jump in the car again and continue the Cheetah surprizes….

Why not taking the S28 again….

Sssstttttttttttt some movement in the grass… a cat… more cats… lions? No Cheetah’s …

Stopped the car…window down…. Cheetah’s smelling something ?

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Mhhh must be a good smell there…. Axe for men or Chanel no 5 ??

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How many Cheetah’s ….

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Two..?

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No…Three ?

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Number will be cleared later….
Difficulty was the high grass and bush to “shoot” them better….so just waiting for right opportunities to capture them…
They were all moving …walking..stalking…smelling…
Please be visible for us…

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A bit further it was getting better… getting the feeling they would like to cross the road … at least we were hoping …

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Yessss…they came closer and closer…. mhhhhh

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Then…. Close to the road… and as they learned from mother…. Look right…look left….look right… (based on experiences with fast driving blinking machines on their roads)
The only good thing here is that they were posing a while before crossing the road.

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As is should be…the youngsters were following mom…

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Ehhhhh ? what do I see in the mirror..? Another Cheetah… so nr 4.. did not see this one so far…but we like these kind of surprizes

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Final shots before they moved away in the grass and bush at the other side of the road.

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Re: Flavour of the Month - October 2014-S28 Nhlowa Road with the Ntandanyathi Hide

Post by Richprins »

From Blutuna 2014:

viewtopic.php?f=263&t=5893&start=20
BluTuna wrote: Thu May 21, 2015 10:37 pm

And some more from the hide.
Hippo.
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Barrel roll.
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And by far the best sighting ever at the hide....
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Re: Flavour of the Month - October 2014-S28 Nhlowa Road with the Ntandanyathi Hide

Post by Richprins »

Some interesting mist pics from Pumbaa - 2013:


Pumbaa wrote: Tue Apr 30, 2013 11:46 pm

I was already so much looking forward to drive the S28 today as this is still one of our favourite roads in the park and can offer between nothing and magnificent sightings nearly everything and you never know what to expect. Well today a phenomenon called dense mist happened and so it was hard to look more than 50 meter into the bush and everything farer away stayed invisible for us. Nevertheless the animals obviously loved such weather and we were blessed with some amazing sightings, especially this still very tired rhino.

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There is indeed nothing wrong with our camera it was simply extreme misty and for sure large and tall animals such giraffes simply could not be overlooked.

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They were busy in doing what they do the whole day: feeding – I simply love that! and for sure raised my mood extremely with such an early daily giraffe fix.

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Due to the prevailing humidity in the air these many orb web spider webs were that morning extreme good visible and Timon stopped nearly for each and every spider web in order to get the best possible shot of same.

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The ever present wildebeest in that area were also present although we only could identify the one close to us as everything farer away was non-existing for us that morning.

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Better not to know what we might have missed this blurred morning.

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Funny was that the golden orb web spiders were exceptionally easy to spot that morning – This is for you, Anne-Marie, and they could nearly be found everywhere in the park so in total they must have been millions, altogether.

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Lots of barn swallows were still cuddled together on a dead tree, zebras and even a Jacobin cuckoo came into sight although its colours and the picture itself came out not that good because of the mist.

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Even an elephant appeared although I must say that this was a scary moment for us as we did not know whether there might be more hidden in the mist but the picture which came out is one of those we wanted to have under all circumstances maybe compared with the silhouette of a giraffe and a sunset in the background. Sigh!

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It was calm and you could already guess that early that this might become an extreme hot day after the mist had cleared up. The birdies also did not let us down today although this nicely posing red-billed hornbill did not like the mist that much

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whereas this lovely tawny flanked prinia was already busy in catching something to eat.

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From time to time the further we drove North the fog was already gone completely and the sun came up and then everything was dense again and we even felt the humidity in the air. Maybe this picture of a lone marabou demonstrates best what I wanted to describe.

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Although the Nhlanganzwani dam is destroyed now for a couple of years we always pay a visit there it is a nice drive and normally a lot is to be seen and especially our beloved birds did not let us down here and so it was today – Magpie shrikes occur always more than plentiful in the area and are easiest to be photographed here as they are not that shy and allow one enough time to stop the car, position the camera and snap away

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they even sit still after Timon snapped away a couple of times.

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Gladly for us was that the mist now had gone completely and the sun enlighten everything in a lovely light and so we could watch a bit farer away in the bush and soon discovered that majestic martial eagle in a tree which was a bit far away.

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We are always impressed by the size of this stunning raptor and felt honoured that same allowed us some nice shots. Funny is that we each year in nearly the same bush do find arrow-marked babblers and today same was a bit puffed up.

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Re: Flavour of the Month - October 2014-S28 Nhlowa Road with the Ntandanyathi Hide

Post by Richprins »

Image
Black Coucal

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Re: Flavour of the Month - October 2014-S28 Nhlowa Road with the Ntandanyathi Hide

Post by Richprins »

From Blutuna, 2013:


https://www.africawild-forum.com/viewto ... &start=110

BluTuna wrote: Fri Dec 06, 2013 3:28 pm

At the hide there was plenty of action. I managed to get these mating Dragonflies (Wandering Gliders I think).

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A croc and some Hippos were in the water.
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And Nhlowa the Elephant dropped in to quench his thirst and get some beauty treatment.
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The residents were not amused!
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but Nhlowa ignored their protests and threat displays and continued applying his mudpack - all that was missing were the cucumber eye patches.
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But the residents were probably just protecting this youngster.
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There was also some bird activity, the Cattle Egrets were flitting about.
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To be continued......


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