The Big Cat Diary and a Couple of Lifers

[Flutterby]

Lovely lions pics. Great pics of the crocs and pretty birds.

[Lisbeth]

A crocodile feast

Another open-billed stork and once more a beautiful malachite

[Richprins]

Ja, white rhino, Pumbaa!

Nice croc action...normally a dead hippo at the causeway over the years, interesting to see a buff!

[Pumbaa]

Those crocodiles had a feast. No wonder the one took a nap

It was in fact a feast

feroce Crocs
Lions playing
like very much the Open-billed Stork and the cheeky one
again nice serie of birds

it's a real pleasure to follow travel tale

Thanks nan - the closer we came to water the more birds could be seen

Lovely lions pics. Great pics of the crocs and pretty birds.

It was another wonderful day

[Pumbaa]

A crocodile feast

Another open-billed stork and once more a beautiful malachite

Over the next days we saw many more open billed storks

Ja, white rhino, Pumbaa!

Nice croc action...normally a dead hippo at the causeway over the years, interesting to see a buff!

In fact the buffaloes were not that plentiful in the beginning of our trip

[Pumbaa]

Due to the absence of grass one of the hippos in Sunset dam started to feed on some green cabbage







After a relaxing time there we carried on but the rest was extreme quiet although we first travelled along the tar close to the Sabie and there we stopped for a handsome younger kudu bull



and a bushbuck.



We already expected a quiet drive along the S21 due to the absence of water there the drive was a bit disappointing as also due to the drought the normally prevailing birds when no other animals are around were as well absent. At least we spotted a couple of giraffes



and some impalas who already started to assemble under a tree in the shade to escape from the sunlight. At least the chosen tree had enough leaves to offer enough shade for all of them



and we spend quite a while with them to also get some lovely close ups.

[Pumbaa]

After a long stretch without seeing nothing besides dry bushes we turned into the Biyamiti loop and as the river still had a couple of puddles and larger areas with water left it got more busy and as it was meanwhile extreme hot this loop was invaded by elephants. One of them had an itch against which something had to be done



others were sharing a tree



whilst other were either drinking from the puddles or dug their private waterholes.



At least nearly all of the elephants in that area could be seen today in the riverbed of the Biyamiti to cool a bit down.



A partly pink elephant was also around and fed with pleasure close to the roadside.



The Biyamiti loop was in fact also more frequented by other cars that day and so we met a lot of them and also when we arrived at the weir we had to wait a bit until it was our turn for sure when we arrived there and due to the time of the day and the heat more elephants were around and the smaller ones were allowed to take a bath whilst the adults were drinking mannerly.





After we let a couple of other cars passed we also could watch a bit more around and noticed two hammerkops waiting for some fish to swim by



to be continued....

[Flutterby]

Lots of ellies!!!

[Lisbeth]

Ellies of all sizes

Great pics of the hippo

[Richprins]

Interesting that pink elephant, Pumbaa!

One sometimes gets them, and they are totally pink when young! There is a pic somewhere...

Leucistic or something!