Africa Wild

Hi all.... thanks for the comments and Pumbaa..... this story will have some "relationship" with your TT title...

*** NEW Travel Tales ***
We visited Kruger from April 21th till May 8th.


09 – Catty day

Time is flying …3 weeks to go before new Kruger adventure starts

I think I have to speed up the stories about last trip

Satara camp… early morning and again, always this decision to make … where to go?
Waiting for gate to be opened , 10 cars in front of me and about 25 behind me… holiday time in kruger. Gate open… 80% turning right… no-one turning right to Orpen so… we did…

After about 15 minues driving

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Lions on the road… and yes…Elly woke up immediately counting 8 lions in total and with a big big smile she asked me … what is the score so far ???? I did not answer…thinking “ my time will come”

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It was a very “busy” pride … on the road… crossing the road, going downhill…. running again… no way to capture them all together. So looking around I saw them everywhere…
So I only could try to capture them one by one

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And.. when one was tired of running and sitting down closeby

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or with a few…. What a nice wake-up call this was. Love to see lions walking, busy , sleeping ones are nice but boring….

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let me finish this sighting with this lovely posing one

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(about sleeping lions – the day before we saw a pride along the S36 close to the “old” Lugmag dam …. Watching them is always great but it does not offer many different pictures so I only show one of this sighting …. And Elly’s cat-counter went up again…pfffffffff)

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We saw more this day, but that’s another story…(coming soon)

Like all days , you have to be back before gate closes…. Then preparing dinner (Braai) and having dinner….
Just starting and what happened ?
This beautiful AWC African Wild Cat appeared. We have seen them before in Satara but this time the cat was sitting down, took all the time for posing and camera is not far….

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I could make a lot of pictures but like to show some without this “firing” eyes. Even a close-up was possible

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On the radio I just heard the song by Stevie Wonder…. “Is’t she lovely…..isn’t she…..”

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Dinner was waitng so a last shot of our pet….

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Dinner was great and so…. Good night and see you next story



Aat & Elly

That one picture of Miss Satara look indeed familiar to me, Aat,

and indeed when we spotted her during our very first night at Satara I got the title of my trip report

Also the lions shots are stunning - Great that you saw that many of them

Thanks for the comments,
Pumbaa - Saw your pics of Miss Satara , lovely to see this wild cat taking a sundowner or having a braai.... just a bit extra after a day of driving around... later that evening two other Satara "pets" visited us... Honeybadgers, with a lot of noise

Just a day after previous story I like to take you with me through kruger watching the tuskers we met. No cats for Elly this time but tusks…..

10 – Tusk time

Lots of cats so far but now we are going north….. less cats and more tusks….. (I hope)
Visting Mopani and Shingwedzi should bring me some tusks and I hope som nice long and big ones…

We were on our way and close to Letaba camp we met MAHLAHINI. I was exited since it was the first time I saw him with my own eyes.

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From Letaba to Mopani our camp for a number of days.


First one I met was KALEKA, saw him in 2011, 2012 and now 2014. His tusks are growing well

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He was very closeby but very relaxed so he gave me the opportunity to get a glimpse of his face

Same day and not far from each other another old friend showed up… NGODZI
Also saw him before in 2010, 2011 and now 2014 and same story, his tusks are growing well.

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Up to Shingwedzi and even before I could check-in another nice tusker showed himself, NKOMBO
NKOMBO was collared and named by STE (Save the Elephants org) but he lost his collar
He was walking and climbing at the other side of the shingwedzi river…but…

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3 days later he was on the other side and because he recognized me (smileeee) he came closer and closer….finally crossing the road just in front of me

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And

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Like Kaleka also Nkombo gave me a wink…

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We also went up more north for a day and found this potential tusker a bit north of Punda Maria. He was wounded. His tusks are thick and estimating his age he can develop coming years

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and

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Going south again and during our last day in kruger my friend NHLOWA showed himself.
He is kind of special to me since I “found” him already in 2006. Then I saw him in 2009, 2010 and now in 2014. He developped well, his tusks are growing fast. It was really exiting to see him again. First sight was quit far away but he came closer and closer so just waited for him


Just to show you the difference , here my first picture of him in 2006 (no notch in his left ear , he got this notch later)

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and in 2014 he developed into:

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his goal was a “waterhole” so covering himself with muddy water

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Thanks for joining and see you back for next story


Aat & Elly

Thanks dup
Hope to see it with my own eyes soon.... 2,5 weeks to goo for take-off to kruger. Busy with setting up calendar for the tusker=meetings

dup wrote:Thanks Aat & Elly, I enjoy your TR 110%. Was at Shingwedzi beginning Sept 2014 and never saw so much elephants in that area before.What make me happy was the effect that the floods have on the amount of open water available, despite the dam that was washed away.

Thanks... just about 2,5 weeks to go for new appointments with my friends. I sent them an email and asked them to clean their ivory for better pictures
Most of them are angry that they are not recognized by the professional team in Letaba (1 person)
If you read all their "requirements" to be recognized as tusker I don't understand they named Bidzane and Mbazo and fully missed real tuskers like Mandzemba, Mavatsani, Babalala2, Kaleka, Ngodzi etc. Well, with an handful of posts in more then 6 months time they must be very happy with their professional tusker threads.

Pumbaa wrote:As always the tuskers force was with you, Aat

Great sightings of the mighty ones and awesome shots as well

RP,
I have more pics of him also detailed ones of the wound. To me it looks very much the result of a fight.
I will post some pics on "strange behaviour" with some detailed pics.

Richprins wrote:For the life of me, I can't work out what the injury is to that Punda ellie...either a gunshot or a fight with another bull?

Post it under "strange behaviour" and I can pass it on?

*** NEW Travel Tales ***
We visited Kruger from April 21th till May 8th.

11 - Nice sightings and "Lesson in gardening"

We were still in Satara and enjoying our braai with the AWC. B.t.w. I saw that there are AWC babies now in Satara and in a few weeks time we are there… hope to see them

From AWC we also came to talk about the AWD (Painted Dogs). Thinking loud we were saying…we haven’t seen them so far and a bit of a tradition is to see them always during a trip.
Two days to go…

Early morning taking turn-off to Orpen and after driving about 15k, just after the lions we met on the road we some some movements in the bush. Stopped the car and guess…. Yess…. Painted Dogs… smileeeeee

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Not easy sto have a good view on them but waiting and waiting for a few pictures

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and last one

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Tradion is still tradition
Also this day ended with a nice braai and next day we were going south.

Wake up call 04:00 am…. Packing and ready to go… just outside Satara thick fog, we almost could not see more then 50 meters. Not that nice. Getting close to the turn off to S33 we saw smaller animals on the road… too much fog to recognize them, but then smiling. Talking about the “devil” in Satara ended up in another sighting with Painted Dogs.

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We could make a few shots before they disappeared in the bush

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A few moments later a lucky bushbuck crossed the road, not seen by the painted dogs because of the fog…

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We moved on south with some nice sightings (next story)

We were driving the S28 (why not..?) and saw a nice bull just along the road… he was in musth so no risk to pass him.
He suddenly decided to give a lesson in gardening

Step 1: you go to a tree and shake it (leaves were falling down)

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Step 2: shake harder if result of step 1 is not the result you expected

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Step3: you’re almost there so waiting 5 seconds and try the final push

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Step 4: Tree down and happy , yammie… leaves of other tree are better

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Thanks for joining and see you back for next story


Aat & Elly

No it was not Nhlowa , tusks of this bull looks bigger because it was close-by , in "real" they were not that impressive.
Lucky ?????? mhhhh what can I say...

Lisbeth wrote:S28.............. Was it Nhlowa doing the gardening?

You seem to be very lucky with sightings of painted dogs For you and Elly it is enough to want to see them and there they are

RP,
Looks like they (doggies) do well idd, also heard of increasing number of sightings of doggies closer to Mopani. May be a split-off of the pack near Phalaborwa finding their own place

Richprins wrote:Lucky with the doggies, aat! They seem to be doing well in Satara-Orpen area, many years now!

Not impressed by the gardening..ellies are destructive bullies, IMO, and there are too many!

Thx... was fun to see this "decided" bull playing mr macho. Tree down, eating some leaves from the tree next to the one he destroyed and then turning around and walking away... he was in musth... so an excuse for his behaviour.

Pumbaa wrote:Great that you were able in finding doggies again, Aat

Love also the bushbuck in the fog and that ellie lession is brilliant - He had nice tusks too