Flavour of the Month - April/May 2020 H1-2 Skukuza - Tshokwane (incl all dams)

[Lisbeth]

[Klipspringer]

Birders say Leeupan is a good spot to find Painted Snipe, Pygmy Goose, Dwarf Bittern, Allen's Gallinule and Lesser Moorhen (obviously when not dry).

[Richprins]

Leeupan is a huge seasonal pan with a long history as a prime tourist spot from the mid 1900s. It seems to have changed up and down over the years, as has the bush thickening around it?


As seen from the satellite view, some form of embankment has been excavated around it too, to help keep water.

It has water for most of the year, with two or three quite extensive parking areas around it, which get further from the action as the water recedes!

As Klippies says, good for waterbirds.

It has been used as one of the classic examples of a pan increasing in size as wallowing herbivores carry mud away on their bodies!

[Lisbeth]

It has water for most of the year, with two or three quite extensive parking areas around it, which get further from the action as the water recedes!

but what do you ever say!

It has been used as one of the classic examples of a pan increasing in size as wallowing herbivores carry mud away on their bodies!

Does it really make a difference?

[Alf]

Never seen much happening here

[Richprins]

Wallowing elephants may remove up to a cubic meter of pond sediments each time they visit water sources.


https://www.researchgate.net/publicatio ... _engineers


Mud-bathing and wallowing

During the rainy season water collects in depressions, some as small as an Elephant tracks. These holes attract animals to drink and wallow, their activities further increase the size of these depressions. With subsequent cycles of filling and usage over the seasons it becomes a fully-fledged wallow and/ or waterhole.


https://www.hluhluwegamereserve.com/mud ... wallowing/

[Alf]

Interesting

[Lisbeth]

[Richprins]

Another spot along the road is the Kruger Tablets rocks (Halfway along). One may or may not get out there...

Discussion here: viewtopic.php?f=243&t=5320

More about albinos later!

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Pic courtesy of Custos Magazine a few decades ago.

[Dzombo]

Seen in March 2019

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