Africa Wild

Lyca says a big for the Pygmy Kingfisher pictures. She would love to see one some day. Kingfishers are my favourite group of birds so I love it also!

Great to see that you sit and watch the behaviour of the birds like we do. Scenes like the weaver collecting food for its chicks are very captivating. It is amazing how efficient they are at finding bugs!!

Gorgeous sighting of the kingfisher!!

Lovely sequence of the weaver and I simply love the pygmy kingfisher

Ja, Pumbaa, that road can be long and empty sometimes, but what wonderful scenery!

I like the jungle pics!

And how lucky to get a pygmy...don't know if I've ever seen one, as I don't know if it's malachite or not, and they never sit still anyway...maybe the pygmy sits still?

Ratel has his own hide named after him? Bloody foreigners!

nan wrote:like Bald Vulture and Bustard
love the busy Weawer
and Village Indigo Bird, not so often seen
and of course the Pygmy

The bird sightings we had this year were simply brilliant

Ratel wrote:Lyca says a big for the Pygmy Kingfisher pictures. She would love to see one some day. Kingfishers are my favourite group of birds so I love it also!

Great to see that you sit and watch the behaviour of the birds like we do. Scenes like the weaver collecting food for its chicks are very captivating. It is amazing how efficient they are at finding bugs!!

We always could sit hours only to watch birds I guess some People already think we are a bit crazy

Fantastic wildebeest interaction

The pygmy kingfisher takes the cake though I have only ever seen 1.

Flutterby wrote:Gorgeous sighting of the kingfisher!!

We had indeed such an incredible luck with that sighting

Lisbeth wrote:Lovely sequence of the weaver and I simply love the pygmy kingfisher

Both sighting were amazing

Richprins wrote:Ja, Pumbaa, that road can be long and empty sometimes, but what wonderful scenery!

I like the jungle pics!

And how lucky to get a pygmy...don't know if I've ever seen one, as I don't know if it's malachite or not, and they never sit still anyway...maybe the pygmy sits still?

Ratel has his own hide named after him? Bloody foreigners!

Originally we indeed thought it was a Malachite but same looked a bit strange because of the purple colour so I looked twice in my bird book and this guy indded sat still

Bushcraft wrote:Fantastic wildebeest interaction

The pygmy kingfisher takes the cake though I have only ever seen 1.

It was such an incredible day that day and the pyfmy was one highlight

Today we wanted to drive via the Balule causeway along the S89/90 and still had the pictures on our mind how the area looked last year during the drought where definitely nothing could be seen besides some water birds in the Olifants this year it was the total contrary as this stretch was teeming with life and on top it also stopped raining meanwhile.

This area is always known rough and stony with not that high grass as in other areas but also this year we had difficulties in discovering a troop of feeding baboons





who were busy in feeding on the seeds in the grass and also the waterbucks found something yummy.



We came across a couple of hyenas walking steadily and determined into one direction without stopping and on the other side of the road a bit away from the roadside we noticed a large group of impalas watching them



and realized that the hyenas were coming closer.



This shot looks like they were waiting in line for something to happen



and meanwhile the hyenas crossed the road approaching the impalas who stayed in the background



but the hyenas were not at all interested in the impalas and simply carried on



but the impalas stayed alert.

We stopped for another black bellied bustard,



a beautiful lilac breasted roller



and for a herd of zebras and finally stood in front of a closed Balule causeway which looked as if same was only flooded recently with lots of debris still lying on the causeway.



So we had no choice then to turn around and drive the way back we just came and although I was in fact not that keen Timon said “Who knows what it is good for....” and soon I already yelled stop “Pearl-spotted owlet” and for sure that was already worth for to drive that detour.



Timon took shot after shot and it took us quite a while to carry on the owlet finally flew deeper into the bush and I still could recognize same as I was looking through the binoculars when same flew away but now it was extreme hard to take pictures and so we carried on but we also had luck in capturing a cinnamon breasted bunting,



a group of kudus



and double banded sangroose



and then we already stood on the high water bridge crossing the Olifants were you are allowed to leave the car which we for sure did. We looked a bit around when a woman in a car stopped and asked us if we are interested in a leopard as she knows where to find one we for sure did not thought twice about it and followed her and it took definitely not that long until we stood in front of a tree with a beautiful leopard lady in and her kill.

Same was located extreme close to the turn off into the S91 and would have been anyway our direction and so whilst Timon parked we thanked her enthusiastically and waited – It was meanwhile 13.13 o’clock and in the first time not much happened and to our anger the spotted beauty stayed headless and did not move much



and in contrary when we thought something might happen she even walked deeper into the foliage of the tree and nearly stayed out of side and keep on sleeping and so we simply had to be patient and started to photograph her kill instead.



to be continued......