1 June 2015
This morning we
slept a bit longer and had some breakfast before we set off. As we were getting
on the vehicle we had a tip about some lions so we set off to find them.
On our way we
saw our first elephants of this safari! It was a pretty cool sighting of this
mother elephant just walking slowly to the next tree when suddenly out of the
bushes comes her calf running across to keep up with her. Her whole body
language was screaming "mommmmmyyyyy waaiiiiittt!!" It was funny to
see her calm down as soon as mum was near and they started feeding off some
bushes. More and more they disappeared into the bush until it was obvious that
even big grey elephants can completely disappear behind trees.
We did get a
glimpse of those lions further, twice for about 5 seconds. They had made a kill
but were already full, so they were just sleeping it off close by.
Unfortunately
that close by meant in the high grass and in between many bushes, so getting a
visual when they were lying down was impossible. But when one and then another
stood we could see the shape of them quite nicely. Upon returning to the site
later we didn't see any lions but we did get a good look at the buffalo they
had recently killed and half eaten. Until the smell got the better of us and we
went back for lunch!
Our second
highlight was a visit to Shitlhave Dam where we sat and watched the world go
by. To start it was a small group of waterbucks, some woolly-necked storks and
a hippo. The hippo was quite funny as he was standing out of the water but was
still too sleepy to do anything. So he had fallen back asleep still standing,
with his mouth drooped down on the ground. A couple of times he woke up and
walked a couple of steps before going back to snooze. It looked like he had
been in a fight as he had some big wounds on his side and face. A red-billed
oxpecker was picking at his wounds.
More and more
waterbucks were coming and some males started to pick a fight with other males.
Other woolly-necked storks were also flying in and a juvenile fish eagle was
flying over. A crocodile came on shore to sun itself and zebras came down to
drink too.
Other interesting
sightings: impalas, kudus, steenboks, warthog, more zebras and a herd of
elephants.
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