A Fantarantulatastic Trip To Kruger - April 2017

[Lisbeth]

The leopard is fabulous

[nan]

me too... like the Leopard

[Richprins]

Nice, Peej! as you say, sightings better on the road!

Much more interesting to take "backlighting" pics!

[Lisbeth]

Much more interesting to take "backlighting" pics!

Please explain this technique, RP ...

[Richprins]

Like this one:






Normally, without the fancy cameras, it would mostly be a silhouette, but now you can see a front colouring of the subject too. I don't know how the hell Peej did that long-distance with poor light? One has to use manual settings?

Post-production also helps, so times have changed for the better with wildlife photography..

Very nice!

[nan]

right... superb

[Mel]

Here I am now too Caught up with your excellent tale and your equally great sightings and photos of them.
Not only for the masses of lions (at least it appears like that ) but also for all the beautiful bird shots -
with or without yuckie breakfast or snacks But I'm sure the leopard made that day for you... Lions you might
also get in Addo, but leopard... rather not.

But either way, you were certainly lucky to have quiet lion sightingS like that during holidays

Like that family portrait of your too, btw. Lis is correct: It's amazing to see how quickly kids grow at that age
Shame we missed each other this time around, but I fully understand why you didn't make it. In fact, I didn't remember
that it takes ages to get from A to B.

[PJL]

The king of the jungle deciding he is the king of the road too

The road was the place to be it seemed

If your trip continues like this you guys scored big time for April

We tried to find that leopard when up that side for 2 days but no luck Great sighting for the H1-4

Scored again with lion

I think we got pretty lucky with cat sightings in general this trip... there's always a wish for more, but looking back we really can't complain

The leopard is fabulous

me too... like the Leopard

Thanks Lis & nan
We too were really thrilled to see the leopard

Nice, Peej! as you say, sightings better on the road!

Much more interesting to take "backlighting" pics!

Much easier on the road
Thanks for the in-depth photography lesson

Here I am now too Caught up with your excellent tale and your equally great sightings and photos of them.
Not only for the masses of lions (at least it appears like that ) but also for all the beautiful bird shots -
with or without yuckie breakfast or snacks But I'm sure the leopard made that day for you... Lions you might
also get in Addo, but leopard... rather not.

But either way, you were certainly lucky to have quiet lion sightingS like that during holidays

Like that family portrait of your too, btw. Lis is correct: It's amazing to see how quickly kids grow at that age
Shame we missed each other this time around, but I fully understand why you didn't make it. In fact, I didn't remember
that it takes ages to get from A to B.

Mel, welcome home
Yep the leopard certainly made our day

[PJL]

April 2nd

Some safari drives stand out head and shoulders above the rest... and this morning turned out to be one of those
So fasten your seatbelts and enjoy the ride as we travel up to Olifants along the H1-4 for our morning drive

We made it to the camp gate in good time, but seemed to be further back in the queue than the previous morning
Never mind, plenty of people turned right out the gate whilst we followed a few other cars left and north. Our first sighting was only a few minutes out the gate with a couple of hyena enjoying the warmth of the road



The kids in particular like hyenas so they were thrilled that we got to slowly drive past them so closely







Once we had got past them, this one gave us a very funny look



We left what was fast becoming a bit of a crowd at the hyenas and a few minutes further along the road found one of the mating lion couples looking like it had been a loooong night



The male seemed a lot more awake than his lady, and gave some nice glances while the cars started backing up behind - we felt fortunate to be in a good position for a view of them





A car arrived from the opposite direction which had us a bit confused, but it must have been a sanparks employee to be travelling before gate opening. He waited a while then decided to make a way past the lions which had the male up on his feet quickly in protest. The good thing was that this gave us all a bit of a route to get past them - by this point we were keen to let others get a view and move on northwards





Driving past the lions the male gave us a big snarl which got the kids excited

One of the most amazing sights this trip was the number of red-billed quelea flocks. At night they regularly flew westwards in huge numbers, only to return again the next morning. Trying to photograph them in a way of showing the sheer numbers was impossible, but here are some on the road just to give a bit of an idea



Up near the S90 there were still plenty of vultures hanging around the previous night's kill. Amongst the many white-backed vultures there was a juvenile white-headed vulture as well as a hooded vulture







Driving on from the vultures we had a very distant sighting of a lion pride moving through the tall grass, but it was much too far away for any photographs.
There was another distant sighting at this point which was our first this trip and good to see - particularly this far north

Approaching a riverine area there was a strange shape at the side of the road, but as we got closer it ducked down. With the engine switched off and no other cars around we waited in silence and hope....

[Lisbeth]

The hyena looks very puzzled. Not strange though.......children who like hyenas and crocs are not on the road every day

The male lion is not exactly handsome, but that’s obviously not what the ladies are looking for

Cliffhanger