Somehow we made in record time from the airport to Malelane where we reached the Spar around 15.00 o’clock after everything else went more than smooth and well. After one hour the shopping marathon was history and we were on our way to our lodge which was this year located at the Crocodile river and after everything had been packed away and re-packed for the Kruger modus we still had around 2 hours to simply stroll around from view point to point at our lodge until it was getting too dark to see any longer anything or even to photograph.
Lots of birds could already be spotted whilst hefting our luggage and our groceries into our room and I even noticed a couple of speckled mousebirds but had no camera handy so first we had to be content with a dark caped bulbul
and then we tried to photograph a yellow billed kite in flight but Timon was obviously out of practise and got the background sharp instead of the bird but I somehow liked this failed pictures and same made it therefore into this trip report
but finally Timon could also capture the raptor in flight.
Lots of elephants could be seen as well – lone bulls who walked off into one direction and even large herds who made their way slowly from bush to bush into the other direction
and from island to island in the river
and also from that view point we already noticed that it was ones again extreme dry especially compared to the wet summer last year at least the river looked fuller than during the year of the drought in 2016.
To our delight the speckled mousebirds returned and we even got the chance in taking a couple of pictures
also we noticed a dove
and even a bushbuck made herself comfortable close by where we stood.
We noticed lots of cattle egrets in flight
who finally landed between the legs of the elephants and partly more cattle egrets were present than elephants. For sure the view was simply breathtaking and we were so happy to be back again.
Were you staying just on the other side of the river near Marloth?
