25 May 2015
We had a quiet
start to the day but as very often happens the quietness is broken with a great
sighting. And this mornings quietness was broken with the appearance of three
lionesses who walked straight in front of the vehicle and across the road.
However this
wasn't our best lion sighting of the day, this was a water hole where we
counted, eventually, eleven lions. At the look of it most were lionesses with a
couple of juvenile males. Now the start of the sighting was fairly uneventful
as they were all lying down in the shade but then a small family of elephants
turned up and altered the balance.
The elephants
weren't really interested in the lions but they were enough to arouse the
attention of the cats. Although the distance between the two species was okay
the cats felt it was too close and one by one they got up and moved away from
the elephants and into another shady place. Then a large bull giraffe turned up
and headed down to the waterhole only to be stopped in its tracks. By the lions
or the elephants we will never know!!!!
Our second
highlight was an elephant who we found stood in a big big mud bath. He was
happy splashing himself head to toe with some rather foul smelling mud.
After a while
he was completely covered and walked to a nearby tree to have a good scratch.
First trunk, then head, then sides before scratching his bum. Unfortunately the
tree he had chosen was not the most appropriate one as on several times it
creaked under the weight of a six tonner.
Other animals
seen today kudu, waterbuck, zebra, warthog, impala, klipspringer, steenbok,
hippo, vervet monkeys at break time, a couple of huge crocodiles, dwarf
mongoose, tree squirrel, buffalo and white rhino.
Birds included
the African fish eagle, yellow-billed stork, wooly-necked stork, a bataleur
eating a snake, blacksmith lapwings, grey heron and white backed vultures.
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