From Floods and Surprises in River beds

[Lisbeth]

Amazing how quickly the birds discover a newly filled birdbath

Strange to see a Verreaux's Eagle-Owl that is not hidden behind twigs and leaves

I don't remember having seen the orange bushes

Nice that it cooled down

[Flutterby]

Lots of birds to see. Lovely rhino sighting.

[Mel]

WOW, I don't even know where to start! I like that hamerkop, the tawny, the francolin, the kingfisher, the sunbird, the Verreaux -
actually all of them

Great landscape shot too

[Pumbaa]

Very different once it cools down, hey Pumbaa?

Quite unusual for the owl to sit in the open like that!

Lovely rhino in the riverbed setting!

At least after it heated up with each day in the park it now started to cool down

Strange to see that road so quiet

It was simply too dense and during the previous day simply too hot

[Pumbaa]

Amazing how quickly the birds discover a newly filled birdbath

Strange to see a Verreaux's Eagle-Owl that is not hidden behind twigs and leaves

I don't remember having seen the orange bushes

Nice that it cooled down

I guess they do not occur in the entire park but we saw them also during previous trips near Olifants

Lots of birds to see. Lovely rhino sighting.

We definitely could not complain about the number of different birds we saw especially in the South

[Pumbaa]

WOW, I don't even know where to start! I like that hamerkop, the tawny, the francolin, the kingfisher, the sunbird, the Verreaux -
actually all of them

Great landscape shot too

The variety of birds in Kruger is simply incredible

[Pumbaa]

Unfortunately the 18 kilometers on the private road were far too soon already over but for sure we stopped a bit longer at Biyamiti weir where today quite a lot of water dikkops



could be captured extreme close.



Compared to the busy red bishops



the water dikkops appeared



still a bit sleepy but as normally this bird is during the day very well hidden under bushes we were happy to see that many of them today even still so close.



After a while also a sandpiper landed and same started with its breakfasts,



a lot of masked weavers were also around and finally to our delight also a malachite kingfisher arrived and presented itself directly on the weir.



A couple of Egyptian goose hang also around and a couple



showed us their meanwhile nearly fully grown goslings. As it was already our last visit at this weir during that trip we stayed a bit longer but as nothing more arrived we finally carried on

[Pumbaa]

but came not far as suddenly a torrential rain shower came down and we had to close our windows fast and also stopped the car and simply waited that the rain got less which same did after around 15 minutes but the thunder still could be heard very close. We stopped for a very impressive kudu male



who very agile climbed over huge rocks a small hill



just like a klipspringer.



Same fed on and on and obviously was not at all disturbed by our presence



and after he had enough he in fact climbed over the stones onto the hill and disappeared on the other side.



The martial eagle we came across next was not that happy about being drenched and already started



to dry its wings and feathers in the non-existent sun.



We stayed quite a while with same as it is always such impressive raptor especially its wing span. Then we stopped at one of the view points and there we first spotted a huge fig tree and after a more precise examination we spotted either on top or on branches in the tree a larger group of green pigeons



who were in fact extreme well camouflaged and we only concentrated us on the one sitting on top as same was the best visible one but in between we noticed also a squirrel running around on the ground.



We had such great fun in observing and photographing the green pigeons that we as so often during our trips forget about the time



and stayed far too long at that sighting but as we stood in a loop we were not disturbed by any other cars



To be continued….

[Flutterby]

Lovely colours in all your pics!

[Lisbeth]

Great Martial eagle and the green pigeons are very pretty

To me it seems that the dikops always have a sleepy look

Cute squirrel

A very proud looking big kudu bull