3 June 2015
Early this
morning we were surprised by a drop of rain (wtf, it is JUNE, we should not
have rain from end of April till end of October!). But it didn't diminish our
spirits. In the morning we saw a small family of elephants huddled around a
recent pushed over tree (done by one of the adults?) so the whole family could
eat the nice leaves. A little baby kept hanging around Mum's legs for safety.
But we topped
this in the afternoon by seeing a herd of 40 - 50 elephants! We lost count
halfway through the herd crossing as there was too much going on. A sub adult
chased a car that had no patience to wait for the elephants to cross and wanted
to get through (and did so but now rather in a hurry). An adult was throwing
sand over her back to protect her from the sun. And a young bull was looking
for a fight with a younger elephant. But after this young one shied away, he
picked a fight with another youngster. However, one of the adults had enough of
his attitude and told him off for picking fights!! Loudly and persistently as
she chased him for 100m with some others in her tow.
A second
highlight was our giraffe sighting as it was a group of 14 of them!
Everywhere we
looked there were giraffes! In the beginning they were spread out, but they
started huddling together a bit so we got plenty of them in one photo shot.
They were lounging
around and then as if on a walkabout they all crossed the road in a nice line.
And lucky us, this happened right in front of us!
Other
interesting sightings: two warthogs sleeping, waterbucks, common grey duiker,
buffalos, impalas, zebras, two separate lion sightings (one male sleeping in
the distance and one female coming up really close to the vehicle and within
minutes she had disappeared completely), vervet monkeys, slender mongoose,
kudus, a hyena came running down the road but took a wide birth around us
through the bush, hippos sunning out of the water, a crocodile and white
rhinos.
Birds we saw
included a goliath heron, a fish eagle, a cloud of flying marabou storks, brown
snake eagle, grey louries, magpie shrikes, an african hoopoe, southern ground
hornbills, sub adult hawk eagle, bateleurs and a brown hooded kingfisher.
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