The Big Cat Diary and a Couple of Lifers

[Flutterby]

Lots of ellie and rhino sightings!

Lovely butterflies.

[Alf]

Impressive buffalo indeed

Curious elephant that

[Richprins]

Haha, sitting "Petrafied" in the hide!

What a lovely spot, as said, and look forward to more Gardenia pics...

I like the shot of the ellie with mouth open and trunk up....did you know they only breathe through the trunk...not mouth at all!

(Edit: Talking rubbish! )

[nan]

love the Elephants... all of them
the Rhinos... like shadow of each other
impressive Buffalo
like too Butterflies

[Mel]

I wouldn't be able to name a favourite in this episode... Such great pictures of the elephants (on both ocassions!)

And apart from the birdies, I also love those beautiful, beautifut butterflies!

[Pumbaa]

Thanks so much harrys, Lisbeth, Flutterby, Alf, Richprins, nan and Mel for your always so encouraging comments

[Pumbaa]

We carried on to stop for some white fronted bee eaters



and more elephants.



As the road was now leading extreme close along the Crocodile river it happened that a lot of animals were coming for a drink. A far away brown snake eagle could be admired and then we took one of the many loop were you can reach the shore of the river and same revealed even more that the water level was extreme low at least the river was still flowing. Needless to say that we saw a lot, however, everything was far away such as masses of impalas, green backed herons, open-billed storks and great white egrets and we wanted to stop for a while but suddenly from behind a rallye must have been started and one car after the after took a detour via that loop and so we simply carried on due to the traffic.

It only took a couple of minutes and it got suddenly quiet again trafficwise so we could stop at a group of vervet monkeys feeding on some rare marulas



and got surprised by a giraffe who suddenly appeared from behind a bush.



The rest of the ride along the S25 was extreme quiet and as we still had a bit time left we even paid the hippo pools a visit where we could admire a group of waterbuck males



having a great time either in or close to the water.



On the last stretch on that road until we reached the tar road we were shocked by the amount of fallen trees and it even looked as if a part of that area had suffered under a fire not long ago so in fact it was nothing to be seen by fallen trees and the few trees with extreme green treetops looked a bit out of place.

[Pumbaa]

As it was still a bit too early to check in we decided to have a look at Gesantombi dam – and as already expected same was completely empty except the part which you can view from the bridge – Here on one side the hippos still had a green stock on one side left in which they were stacked on each other and on the other side all the other animals including water birds were either busy in fishing on quenching their thirst so needless to say that during our stay in that area the bridge was always filled with cars as there was lot to be seen. A herd of elephants had just arrived and although there was still water left they dug their own holes to drink from as this water obviously tasted much better than the one from the pond



and of course a lot of birds were around as well – We spotted two juvenile saddle billed storks,



and a goliath heron.





The elephants with their borehole tactic fascinated us most and so we always changed from the birds in the foreground to the elephants in the background. Also a couple of impalas dared to walk closer to the precious water



especially with those grey masses so close by.



White fronted bee eaters could also be seen



and then I realized out of the winkle of my eye that a bird had just landed who looked like one of the birds I still wanted to see – a squacco heron – and in fact it was one.



Unfortunately same was always a bit far away the whole time and the light was not that great but a squacco it a squacco and maybe the sighting of this first one will be a good sign to even find more.



A cute impala lady was extreme thirsty as well.



We stayed quite a while on that bridge but as we still wanted to take a break from driving before it was time for our afternoon drive and so we drove to Crocodile Bridge and after the check in procedure was finished we could once again move into our favourite bungalow No. 10 and those two hours we spend on the verandah simply looking around were heaven after the long day on the road but somehow the S28 was calling and so we left camp again in order to find out what might come across on one of our favourite roads in the park.

to be continued....

[Lisbeth]

Lots of bee-eaters

The pic with the ellie, the yellow-billed stork and the impala is super

[Alf]

That's very dry

Looks like a desert