Thursday, 10. February 2022 – O.R. Tambo - Malelane
After all the required formalities had been done and we packed everything in the rented car we headed straight into the direction of our beloved Kruger and besides a short stop at Milly’s along the N4 and a shorter traffic jam caused due to road works we reached Malelane quite early and after the obligatory shopping marathon at the Spar there we arrived at our booked lodge already around 16.00 o’clock so we still had plenty of time until it got too dark to sit on our verandah and enjoy the view over the Crocodile river into our beloved park.
Timon caught the camera and started on our verandah while I was re-packing our luggage for our Kruger trip and in between I also looked outside the window and scanned the area or walked onto our verandah but to my luck in the beginning it was still a bit quiet as it was still around 36 degrees and that was most of the time during that trip our afternoon temperature so extreme hot.
In the distance a group of elephants were bathing in the river and a group of Egyptian goose flew by
so as it was still quiet – we hoped that not only the elephants but also a couple of antelopes might come a bit closer later - so Timon walked over to the nice pond at the parking area to maybe discover a couple of birds there a bit closer and after he already discovered a white faced duck a red collared barbet just landed on a branch close to him.
To his surprise whilst photographing the barbet also a water monitor swam by and must say that we never saw that many monitors during the whole trip as this year which for us reptile lovers was fantastic.
Luckily the red collared barbet still sat on the branch a bird we in fact did not see that often but always are eager to find one and mostly we do find them either in camp or today at our lodge.
Another bird we also do not see regularly during our trips appeared next on the scene a thick billed weaver
but this one posed and displayed like mad so a Mrs. must have been close by.
Same was in fact not shy
and even got interested in Timon’s camera.
A hadedah also could be detected before it got quiet at the pond as well. At least Timon had more than lovely sightings already for that short period of time he spent there.
Meanwhile he returned to our room and caught another bird in flight but missed a waterbuck who now was already a bit too far away.
Indeed the elephants meanwhile came closer and most of them were feeding
the Crocodile river as well as the pond were on previous trips considerably fuller but it looked as if it rained steadily during the previous months and weeks and to our delight a herd of elephants appeared vis-à-vis from our verandah at the edge of the river and started to use the loose sand as slide.
