KTP March 2013 - Now I've had the time of my life... *

[Mel]

On our way, a martial had seeked shelter in a tree. With the light being so low, the only thing I noticed when driving by was its white underparts.



The giraffe was a bit easier to spot:



The springboks waiting for the rain to pass…



… one way or the other -O







And the wildebeests hogging Kamqua again:

[Mel]

And on our way back I found yet another melanistic gabar goshawk. How weird! First you don’t get to see any for ages and then two in a day?



And a road block of a different kind that marked the end of our sightings that day.

[Mel]

27/03/2013 – Urikaruus

The morning started with my feeble attempts to capture the full moon setting in the dunes.



But in real it was much more stunning than this.

The waterhole remained rather quiet after the first rain the day before. At some point an oryx passed by:

[Mel]

We left the camp northbound in order to see if we could find the cheetah mum with her three cubs. We were cheetah deprived and hoped for easing that ailment. Hardly out of the camp we found some giraffes feeding. But that’s all they did. They never acknowledge our presence by looking at us.



Only an hour later I would next lift my camera to photograph that unusual trio.

[Mel]

Just before arriving at Sitzas, actually I had thought we had arrived at that waterhole already, but it was only a puddle from the rain, we bumped into a huge traffic jam – in KTP terms – of 6 or 7 cars. People were so desperate to see something that they even stopped for tawnies, which most of them probably wouldn’t have if there had been lions around.



They got a bit annoyed with all the attention and flew a bit further off to a puddle in the road. But of course they wouldn’t stay for long as there is always somebody who can’t wait to pass.

[Mel]

So we moved on as well towards Mata-Mata and the much needed loo break and to buy a cold drink from the shop. Well, we hadn’t counted on the shop being closed for the whole day due to stocktaking! Are you flipping kidding me? You need a whole day to check the deliveries and fill up the shelves??? Oh well…

On our way we came across a rock kestrel – haven’t seen many of them yet, so there was one happy gal.

[Mel]

Further down the road the SO metioned that there was a PCG sitting right next to the road. Although I thought that the PCG would fly off once we stopped next to it, I asked Spots to slow the car down. And surprisingly enough, the goshawk didn’t go anywhere. I was intrigued, particularly when I saw that there was a second one around.





We decided to watch them for a bit and see what they were up to. After about 10 minutes we were rewarded for our patience...



Ready, when you are nan.

[Mel]

And then...

A cape cobra came slithering from the direction where the goshawks were sitting on the ground.

[Mel]

The snake would move further on and we followed –

http://v6.tinypic.com/player.swf?file=965w&s=6

until it decided to cross the road and was headed directly for our car. As we don’t really appreciated snakes in or under our car we reversed to let it pass.

[Mel]

On the other side of the road the snake climbed a tree, the goshawks hot on its heels.