A Remarkable Addo Day Trip (December 2016)

[PJL]

Lovely shots of the secretary and nice angle on that dust devil.

Thanks Flutts

[PJL]

Once we had finished our lunch, we popped over to the viewing area by the main camp waterhole. The place was teeming with elephants but we also had some other visitors



The mom gave us some beady-eye treatment



We slotted in down at the underground hide and enjoyed the sights, sounds (and smells) of the herds





This youngster was enjoying its mothers touch



Another cute youngster



There was even some attempted piggy-back rides (at least that's what we told the baby elephants).... but the female was not impressed and got rid of him very quickly



The bird hide area at the main camp has recently been cleared and re-planted with reeds. In years gone by it was a great place for seeing weavers and bishops, and I'm sure once the new reeds grow up it will again be a great spot. For now there was just an egyptian goose

[Richprins]

Award-winning studies again, Peej!


Shame, that lizard has already had his/her tail removed...bad luck there.


I like the beady eye!

[Pumbaa]

Simply brilliant shots, PJL,

either the ones from Valli, the buffalo herd, the meerkats, the elephants or the secretary bird ones - All are amazing

[Mel]

Oops, it was only lunch time but already a really good sighting day with lots of great photo opportunities... Well, the "remarkable day" doesn't come out of the blue, I guess

So, Aardlam is back to her old stomping ground around Zuurkop. Shame she didn't show that day.

But I agree with you on the secretary: in the KTP you can get bored with them because there are so many (actually, I always enjoy them because they are fun(ny) to watch), but in Addo it's fantastic to see them. And with a kill even...

What reason is there it renew the reeds?

And when did they fix the view at the hide? Back in 2012 we thought it quite hillarious that you couldn't see a thing of the waterholes and ellies only if they were basically in the hide with you. So we were pleasantly surprised to see how well you could watch from there now. (Unfortunately it was Easter and the parents hadn't trained their youngster about how to behave in a hide, so the fun was short-lived...)

[PJL]

Award-winning studies again, Peej!


Shame, that lizard has already had his/her tail removed...bad luck there.


I like the beady eye!

Thanks RP
It seemed to be a permanent beady eye

Simply brilliant shots, PJL,

either the ones from Valli, the buffalo herd, the meerkats, the elephants or the secretary bird ones - All are amazing

Thank you Pumbaa

Oops, it was only lunch time but already a really good sighting day with lots of great photo opportunities... Well, the "remarkable day" doesn't come out of the blue, I guess

So, Aardlam is back to her old stomping ground around Zuurkop. Shame she didn't show that day.

But I agree with you on the secretary: in the KTP you can get bored with them because there are so many (actually, I always enjoy them because they are fun(ny) to watch), but in Addo it's fantastic to see them. And with a kill even...

What reason is there it renew the reeds?

And when did they fix the view at the hide? Back in 2012 we thought it quite hillarious that you couldn't see a thing of the waterholes and ellies only if they were basically in the hide with you. So we were pleasantly surprised to see how well you could watch from there now. (Unfortunately it was Easter and the parents hadn't trained their youngster about how to behave in a hide, so the fun was short-lived...)

To be honest the reeds at the bird hide were in a very shabby state - the whole area including the water has been 'renovated' and it certainly needed it
Interesting about your experience back in 2012 - my guess is that it was when there was a lot more water around and the elephants would have been congregating at the lower waterhole further away from the underground hide. It's a natural one, so relies on rainfall and when we were there it was empty.... so all the ellies were at the pumped waterhole up closer to the hide

[PJL]

For our afternoon drive we started on a route up to Carols Rest, and along the way we found this grumpy-looking buffalo bull



It looked like he had been fighting some bushes based on the vegetation still attached to his boss



Carols Rest turned out to be a very peaceful scene with some nice zebra coming to drink





Once there was some space at the waterhole a warthog family moved in for a drink along with their teeny tiny little one



The miniature hog was very cute



Back down on Nzipondo loop we spotted a male southern black korhaan - another sighting to join the list of species which we really don't see all that often in the park



But an even better sighting was on the other side of the road where we found the female korhaan with a chick... what luck!



Continuing along Nzipondo, this kudu was posing very nicely in the afternoon light



It had reached that time of day when we needed to start thinking about heading home and which way to go. The consensus was to head through the south of the park (we hadn't been in the south yet the whole day), but to do so via the buffalo kill just to see if any lion had popped out there. As we turned off the main road to take the gravel road to the buffalo kill, the kids noticed a few cars parked up further along the main road... it was so close we figured we might as well check out what had been seen...

[Flutterby]

Don't think I've ever seen a korhaan chick!!

The warthog chick is also pretty cute!

[PJL]

Don't think I've ever seen a korhaan chick!!

The warthog chick is also pretty cute!

Love it... I'm going to start calling them warthog chicks from now on

[PJL]

So what were the cars parked up for? Elephant in the bushes? No... finally we had found a lion

my parents (who live overseas) were with us and they haven't had much luck recently on lion sightings when they've been here.

Well at least that luck was now changing

This male lion is named Gibson - yes I know some people don't like the naming of wild animals, but it certainly helps for identification and tracking purposes of these cats in Addo. Although he was flat out fast asleep, we were fortunate to be in a nice spot at the side of the road with a view of him as more and more cars started to arrive... we were happy to wait as he would surely wake up sometime

Sure enough after a while there was a bit of movement, and then the process of waking up began...

First some weapons maintenance



Then an attempt at opening his eyes



A little rear-end cleaning



Teeth fully checked



And we have a lion ready to roll



He continued posing very nicely for us - such a magnificent animal





Gibson then got up and fortunately for us started walking in the direction of our car
He was hobbling a bit on his front left leg - you can see his stance looking a bit strange here



He soldiered on, and we were treated to him passing just a few metres from us





Quite quickly he disappeared into the nearby bushes, and we wondered whether he might be heading up to Gwarrie pan to drink as that was the closest water that I could think of, so we drove up there to see if he would appear again. Unfortunately there was no further sign of him, but whilst waiting there was a jackal in the distance and elephants came down to drink