Ooh page turned
We headed out the gates, past a small group of impala hanging around nearby and soon arrived at Sunset dam.
This black winged stilt (I think?) was wading the shallows, searching for dinner.
And this hippo was enjoying a late lunch of pondweed, he (she(?), I have a tendancy to refer to things as male unless I know otherwise...) was well and truly digging in taking huge mouthfuls.
Leaving sunset dam and looking down into the river we spotted a breeding herd of elephant drinking. These three were standing a little away from the others, but once they had drunk their fill they all moved on together.
We crossed the bridge over the Lubyelubye river (which was bone dry, does it ever run or is it usually dry?) and spotted three or four cars parked by the side of the road. Had we found the leopard that had been spotted earlier? We parked and searched through our binoculars, no sign, so we slowly reversed back and asked one of the other cars if they could see it. ‘Yes’, they said ‘he had just been in that tree there but had got down a few minutes before and was sitting underneath now’, our car was too low to see him, even the 4x4’s were struggling and one by one they pulled off leaving us gazing hopefully at the area we could see, alone. Soon another car arrived, bigger and higher than our hire car so we shared the area and he says he can just see the leopard sitting there, and a few minutes later he tells us he could see it walking away. Without us even catching a glimse of even one spot!
Suddenly The Husband has a brain wave! The man told us it looked like the leopard was walking parallel to the road in the direction of Lower Sabie. He turns to me and says ‘I bet it’s walking along the riverbed, let’s go back and sit on the bridge’, so we reverse to sit on the bridge. As we sit watching the other car, who told us he could see the leopard move off, pulled up and we told him what we were thinking. It didn’t take long until I spotted movement in the bushes and then he appeared, unhurriedly but seemingly with a destination in mind he walked along the riverbank and away into the bushes, out of sight! Wow, how beautiful is he! The excitement in our car was unreal!
I knew there was a good reason I keep The Husband!
We continue on our way, stopping every now and then to admire what we see. As we cross the bridge over the Vulwamati we stop to see if there is anything in the riverbed. Lots of birds, but I’m not enough of a birder to be able to name them. Then suddenly we see movement in the undergrowth and as we watch we see a leopard walking up the riverbank away from us. We don’t have a much more than a glimpse, soon he is gone and no amount of manoeuvring the car to find different views is going to get us another sighting.
Wow two leopard in the space of an hour! Can it get any better than this?
We decide not to drive on any further and rather to have a slow tootle back to sunset dam until we need to head to camp. As we are turning around a voice from the back shouts ‘Raffe, raffe!’ and sure enough Monster has finally spotted his first ‘raffe’!
What are the small lumps behind his ear, are they from tick bites?
A group of these guys (crested Francolin?) are next to the road scrapping and sparring with each other, but they stopped as we pulled up and the next car along scared them away from the road.
Not much further along the road I spotted a splash of blue sitting in the tree and The Husband stopped but the next car along scared it away before I could get a picture. I did get a picture of this beauty (female bearded woodpecker?) sitting in a tree though.
This youngster looked up from grazing as we passed
But not everyone was so keen to hang around.....
We got the feeling we were being watched, and soon spotted the culprit. This eagle (Tawny eagle?) was sitting in a nearby tree watching the world go by.
We got back to sunset dam and sat near the waters edge (there weren’t that many cars there) until gate closing time. The hippo from earlier was still munching on the pondweed and his friends were snoozing nearby.
There were more wader birds than earlier
Three banded plover (?)
Blacksmith lapwing (?)
Not sure with this one?
And a yellow billed stalk who appeared unaware (or unconcerned) about the croc just behind him.
But it wasn’t long until he decided it was time to look for some dinner before bedtime
I was busy taking photos and The Husband was busy scanning the bankside for anything interesting when he suddenly said ‘what are those ducks doing over there?’ there was a group of ducks and a group on mongeese (mongooses?) we watched and it looked for all the world as if the ducks were chasing the mongeese away from the waters edge.
By now the sun was starting to set and the clock was creeping towards gate closing time so we headed back to camp. Monster was snoring happily in the back (I think the excitement of seeing his raffe knocked him out) and The Husband was feeling grotty (not enough to drink!) so we had an early night. We had a long drive the next day!
Could tomorrow get any better?
). We all took our malaria meds and I'l be watching him like a hawk for the forseeable future!
Glad, too, that you kept that husband. 
)