South Africa - Kruger National Park Safari Day 2

We were on the road at 6am when the gate to Skukusa opened. This day was cold and rainy in the morning. We were all forewarned and we all came dressed in layers of clothing that could be shed as the sun came out in the afternoon. It was drizzling and raining all morning. We all used our blankets instead of sitting on them. In addition, Thulani pulled out ponchos and we covered our legs with them. The Jeep has a windshield for the driver but there is a second windshield attached to the top of the roof that can be let down to prevent rain from coming in from the front on the passengers whose seats are higher that the driver's seat. There were at least two times Thulani put that windshield down because of the rain. One would think this would 'dampen' (pun intended) the spirits of the safari people. It did not. In fact, it really enhanced the South Africa/Kruger National Park experience. We saw another side of what it is really like. These animals don't really have shelters. The elephants must keep eating all day to stay alive. They just do this in the rain. So there is wildlife to be found and observed even on a rainy, cold day. 

Our first siting was guinea fowl.  

And then we saw a lone hyena.

We crossed a bridge and found a Goliath Heron standing in the river bed. Simply beautiful.

We saw a sable antelope close enough to get a good picture.

Followed by a kudu's face. This picture got lots of 'likes' on Facebook which surprised me as the kudu is fairly obscured by the growth in which it stands.

Giraffe...necking!  Bwahaha!! Seriously, we watch them use those long necks to move the other one out of the way. Seems they didn't want each other to be in their personal space.

The next two pictures are an example of how Thulani found a bird, a hippopotamus and a crocodile at a distance. He put the Jeep in reverse and positioned us for better picture taking. I zoomed in with my camera and you can see the bird in the tree, the hippopotamus in the water and the crocodile, which looks like a log, on the beach.

This is another example of a nearly dry river bed...for now.

This bird is a Lesser Striped Swallow.

Followed by a Tawny Eagle.

Miracle of miracles, we spied another leopard!

And more elephants...this time one had a torn ear. Life is very difficult in the wild.

I call this the March of the Lion. We experienced several of these. Thulani would find us a spot and stop the Jeep so we could get our pictures as the lion moved around. This time he crossed the road. Please note the crazy person determined to get his picture with his helmet cam and his camera and his body outside of the Jeep. Very foolish to be outside of that Jeep with a lion who may be very hungry. Ugh!!

Then we had a baboon encounter.

And we found more waterbuck.

You've heard of a 'tree full of owls'. Well, we didn't see that. But we did see a tree full of baboons!

Then we saw a Tawny Eagle and an Egret.

The back of this elephant lets you know it was raining. You can see the rest of this little herd across the field in the rain still eating, and eating, and eating.

On to find more baboons. This time they were grooming each other and themselves. One must have considered himself groomed and he made a lounge chair out of the branches in the tree.

Near the baboons were some vervet monkeys.

There were three different birds next. I was not able to identify the first bird. The second is an egret. The third is stork.

These cape buffalo are fearsome to me. Their antlers look like someone took their hair, parted it in the middle and severely, severely I tell you, combed it to over their ears. It looks like those horns are on their so tight it makes their eyes seem stretched to the side. I think they are part of the Big 5 and were hard to hunt because they always had a headache with those antlers on so tight. That's my story and I'm sticking with it.

We spotted probably my favorite little animal on the safari, another leopard turtle.

When I pictured how Kruger would look, I pictures those open spaces with the yellow grasses and acacia trees popping out over the landscape. I remember watching a thing on television one time and they said the acacia tree looks like it is upside down in the ground. Finding a really nicely shaped acacia was harder than I thought. I did get this one picture that I really liked.

Now look at the Cape Buffalo and see if it doesn't look like he has a headache.

It was still raining in this picture.

When you come upon this on one of the roads, you know there is something to stop and observe. All the driver's jockey for a good position for their visitors. People are usually good to get the view and their pictures and then move around for another car of people to get their view and pictures.

In this case, they were observing these cape buffalo.

We then observed another march of the lions.

Now, a gentle kudu. Look at those amazing antlers. How does one sleep with all that on one's head?

More birds. Two pictures of storks and a third picture of the African Fish Eagle.

This just shows how quickly the landscape changes. All three of the pictures were taken within feet of each other. The first is with a tree and the second is the same place without the tree. The third picture is just to the left of the rocks. Amazing.

Here is a pretty bird. It is a Saddle-billed Stork.

On this hill we found wildebeest roaming with zebra.

Here are the very rare brown elephants! One of our intrepid group looked through her binoculars and said, "I see elephants! But they are brown elephants!" This sent Thulani into peals of laughter. He assured us the brown elephant is very rare. By this time we were beginning to pick up on his teasing of us. These elephants actually had just given themselves a dirt bath to protect themselves from the sun. Hence the brown color. From this point on we were all looking for the rare brown elephants and then getting a laugh at ourselves. 

Next we visited another watering hole. This was my first view of this watering hole. This is tree full of yellow-billed storks. At the edge of the water in the sand is a young crocodile. Look at those huge bird's nests.

In the tree were actually two kinds of birds. On this branch of the tree you see an African Spoonbill with the Yellow-billed Storks on the rest of the limbs.

There birds loved to ride on the backs of the hippopotamus. The hippopotamus love that they eat little bugs and things that get on their backs that they would not be able to be rid of in any other way. It is truly a mutual admiration society. In this case the bird is a black-headed heron.

We were all fascinated with the crocodiles just laying there with all the storks and an impala right near them. 

These are three other birds found along the banks of the watering hole. First a yellow-billed stork, second a hamerkop, and last an egret.

We passed a river bed and found this wooly-necked stork.

In this same river bed was a hippopotamus. We watched it an it didn't move. We were all sure it had died. Then it twitched and we were all relieved it was still alive. It was just asleep with its head to the side.

Now Thulani found us something we had not seen before...a mongoose. These are miniature versions but they are mongoose nonetheless.

Another elephant.

Two more landscapes. The first on is my one of my favorites with all that South African sky and clouds.

We encountered another herd of zebra. The third picture I can hear the mother zebra saying to the baby, "Come on. Follow me dear!" The last picture I have title, "Yes, Yes, No"!!

And one lone giraffe. 

We found another sable antelope.

More giraffes.

And some baboons.

We drove to the top of a large hill and it afforded a grand view of a nice valley toward Mozambique.

 As we came off this small mountain, we spied another of these trees. Remember, it is the end of their winter. There will eventually be leaves on these trees. They are called ironwood trees. We were pretty sure they would be great to decorate for Halloween.

Back to the animals. We found a warthog.

Then we found more amazing elephants.

 

We did see the wild dogs. There are only a few hundred in all of Kruger National Park. Quite the treat to see them. They look a lot like a hyena. However, they are more balanced in their build. The hyena has larger front shoulder area and tiny hips. The wild dog is more equally distributed in its shape.

Then we saw wildebeest.

This very interesting looking bird is a bateleur. Have no idea how to pronounce that name. It looks very eagle-like to me.

A few more cape buffalo. Their head still looks like it hurts to me.

We are headed back to Skukusa. We paused to watch the march of the lion.

We would pass the water we saw earlier in the day on our way to the gate. This time there were more birds. The hippopotamus was still there. And, the crocodile was still laying in the sand. Seems like life is very leisurely in Kruger National Park sometimes.

We had dinner in the restaurant again and got to bed for a good night's sleep.