On Safari with Mark

4 June 2013

Route: Numbi tar - Napi - S114 - Gwatamiri - S112 - H3 - Napi - Nkameni camp

Animals spotted:

2 hyena on numbi tar at the shabeni link  junction, numerous elephant and rhino sightings throughout the day, A young male leopard was killed by 2 male lions 300m past S65 on the napi, 2 male lion's sleeping in long grass 200m before deleport on the napi, got to hear of a male and female lion 6.6km from S114 on gwatamiri. Went down there and got them lying on the road, A mating pair of saddle billed storks at natural water pan just before the lions on gwatamiri she had caught a cat fish and as not sharing with the male. General game was out today and numerous sightings of Kudu, steenbok, diukers, giraffe, buffalo, warthog and impala was seen.

Strange though, we haven't seen a zebra yet.

Anyway we try again tomorrow.

5 June 2013

Route: Albaseni - Doispan - H3 - Napi - Shabeni koppies - Albaseni - Back into camp

Animals seen:

Zebra, duikers, kudu, warthog, giraffe, impala, water buck and rheedbuck. Many different sightings of rhino during the day. Mother with her calf in the afternoon drive, a few herds of elephant and 1 elephant bull right next to the open vehicle. A herd of buffalo (150) slowly moving towards albaseni in the late afternoon. Might be lucky and get them tomorrow morning.

On our way down the H3 approx 1km from quagga pan 2 lioness walking in the road approximately 2m from the open vehicle. As we were the only ones with them we spent approx 30min before the next car arrived. As it did, so they moved off the road and into the thicket, 2km from that we saw 5 lion's catch an impala. Great viewing and photos taken by guests. Napi rather quiet, until shitihave dam were we found 2 black manned male lions lying sleeping. Distant sighting.

No leopard found despite the fact that weather was ideal for them.

6 June 2013

Dean Enters The Park

Entered the park through Numbi gate and travelled down to Pretoriuskop camp for lunch.
After lunch we travelled from Pretoriuskop camp getting a leopard walking towards us on the road, We then went down Napi road stopping off at a lion sighting of two males on the Shithave dam wall. Things got a bit quite until we got onto the H3 getting a breeding herd of elephants as well as a herd of about 100 buffalo at quagga pan. We then made our way to Skukuza camp, getting some good baboons along the road.

Rhino News

2 #rhino poaching suspects arrested during an anti poaching patrol by rangers in Pafuri. A .458 hunting rifle, ammo, 2 rhino horns and a variety of poaching impliments were recovered during the incident.

Rhino News

#RhinoNews! 2 rhino poachers fatally wounded by rangers yesterday near Langtoon dam. 2 firearms, ammo & poaching equipment recovered.

Update On Rhino Poaching

Update on rhino poaching: The number of rhino poached for their horn in South Africa since the beginning of the year has increased to 249. http://www.sanparks.org/about/news/default.php?id=55508

Poachers Aressted In The Kruger National Park

2 rhino poachers were arrested during a joint operation between SANParks, SANDF and SAPS yesterday 7/3/2013. A 458 ammo and other equipment were recovered.

A Did You Known For The Day

#DidYouKnow - The curved black lines on the rump of the impala, together with the tail stripe, make a large letter 'M' = Fast food for lions (MacDonalds of the bush) ;)

Update On The Rhino Poaching Statistics

South Africa National Parks

 

Update on the rhino poaching statistics:

 

The total number of alleged poachers arrested in the Kruger National Park has risen to 23 from 14 last week.

 

To read the full story visit http://www.sanparks.org/about/news/default.php?id=55438

My Best Leopard Sighting - 10 December 2012 - Latest Sightings

Jock Of The Bushveld by Sir Percy Fitzpatrick (Chapter 26)( Page 3 ) Our Various Ways

In camp--Barberton in those days was reckoned a mining camp, and was always referred to as `camp'--the danger was due to the number of sounds.  He would stand behind me as I stopped in the street, and sometimes lie down and snooze if the wait was a long one; and the poor old fellow must have thought it a sad falling off, a weary monotonous change from the real life of the veld.  At first he was very watchful, and every rumbling wheel or horse's footfall drew his alert little eyes round to the danger point; but the traffic and noise were almost continuous and one sound ran into another; and thus he became careless or puzzled and on several occasions had narrowly escaped being run over or trodden on. Once, in desperation after a bad scare, I tried chaining him up, and although his injured reproachful look hurt, it did not weaken me: I had hardened my heart to do it, and it was for his own sake.  At lunch-time he was still squatting at the full length of the chain, off the mat and straw, and with his head hanging in the most hopeless dejected attitude one could imagine.  It was too much for me--the dog really felt it; and when I released him there was no rejoicing in his freedom as the hated collar and chain dropped off: he turned from me without a sign or sound of any sort, and walking off slowly, lay down some ten yards away with his head resting on his paws!  He went to think--not to sleep. I felt abominably guilty, and was conscious of wanting to make up for it all the afternoon. Once I took him out to Fig Tree Creek fifteen miles away, and left him with a prospector friend at whose camp in the hills it seemed he would be much better off and much happier.  When I got back to Barberton that night he was waiting for me, with a tag of chewed rope hanging round his neck, not the least ashamed of himself, but openly rejoicing in the meeting and evidently never doubting that I was equally pleased.  And he was quite right there. But it could not go on.  One day as he lay asleep behind me, a loaded waggon coming sharply round a corner as nearly as possible passed over him.  The wheel was within inches of his back as he lay asleep in the sand: there was no chance to grab--it was a rush and a kick that saved him; and he rolled over under the waggon, and found his own way out between the wheels. A few days after this Ted passed through Barberton, and I handed Jock over to him, to keep and to care for until I had a better and safer home for him. One day some two years later there turned up at my quarters an old friend of the transport days--Harry Williams--he had been away on a long trek `up north' to look for some supposed mine of fabulous richness of which there had been vague and secret reports from natives.  He stayed with me for some days, and one evening after the bout of fever and ague had passed off and rest and good feeding had begun to pull him  round, he told us the story of their search.  It was a trip of much adventure, but it was the end of his story that interested me most; and that is all that need be told here.

Jock Of The Bushveld by Sir Percy Fitzpatrick (Chapter 20)( Page 6 ) Jantje

At night as he lay unable to sleep the bats came and made faces at him; a night adder rose up before his face and slithered out its forked tongue--the two black beady eyes glinting the firelight back; and whichever way he looked there was a honey-bird, silent and angry, yet with a look of satisfaction, as it watched.  So it went all night: no sleep for him; no rest! In the morning he rose early and taking his gun and chopper set out in search of hives: he would give all to the honey-bird he had cheated, and thus make amends. He had not gone far before, to his great delight, there came a welcome chattering in answer to his low whistle, and the busy little fellow flew up to show himself and promptly led the way, going ahead ten to twenty yards at a flight.  Jantje followed eagerly until they came to a small donga with a sandy bottom, and then the honey-bird calling briskly, fluttered from tree to tree on either bank, leading him on. Jantje, thinking the hive must be near by, was walking slowly along the sandy bed and looking upwards in the trees, when something on the ground caught his eye and he sprang back just as the head of a big puff-adder struck where his bare foot had been a moment before.  With one swing of his chopper he killed it; he took the skin off for an ornament, the poison-glands for medicine, and the fangs for charms, and then whistled and looked about for the honey-bird; but it had gone. A little later on, however, he came upon another, and it led him to a big and shady wild fig tree.  The honey-bird flew to the trunk itself and cheeped and chattered there, and Jantje put down his gun and looked about for an easy place to climb.  As he peered through the foliage he met a pair of large green eyes looking full into his: on a big limb of the tree lay a tiger, still as death, with its head resting on its paws, watching him with a cat-like eagerness for its prey.  Jantje hooked his toe in the reim sling of his old gun and slowly gathered it up without moving his eyes from the tiger's, and backing away slowly, foot by foot, he got out into the sunshine and made off as fast as he could. It was the honey-bird's revenge: he knew it then! He sat down on some bare ground to think what next to do; for he knew he must die if he did not find honey and make good a hundred times what he had cheated. All day long he kept meeting honey-birds and following them; but he would no longer follow them into the bad places, for he could not tell whether they were new birds or the one he had robbed!  Once he had nearly been caught; the bird had perched on an old ant-heap, and Jantje,  thinking there was a ground hive there, walked boldly forward.  A small misshapen tree grew out of the ant-heap, and one of the twisted branches caught his eye because of the thick ring around it: it was the coil of a long green mamba; and far below that, half hidden by the leaves, hung the snake's head with the neck gathered in half-loop coils ready to strike at him. After that Jantje kept in the open, searching for himself among rocks and in all the old dead trees for the tell-tale stains that mark the hive's entrance; but he had no luck, and when he reached the river in the early afternoon he was glad of a cool drink and a place to rest. For a couple of hours he had seen no honey-birds, and it seemed that at last his pursuer had given him up, for that day at least.  As he sat in the shade of the high bank, however, with the river only a few yards from his feet he heard again a faint chattering: it came from the river-side beyond a turn in the bank, and it was too far away for the bird to have seen Jantje from where it called, so he had no doubt about this being a new bird.  It seemed to him a glorious piece of luck that he should find honey by the aid of a strange bird and be able to take half of it back to the hive he had emptied the day before and leave it there for the cheated bird. There was a beach of pebbles and rocks between the high bank and the river, and as Jantje walked along it on the keen lookout for the bird, he spotted it sitting on a root half-way down the bank some twenty yards ahead.  Close to where the chattering bird perched there was a break in the pebbly beach, and there shallow water extended up to the perpendicular bank.  In the middle of this little stretch of water, and conveniently placed as a stepping-stone, there was a black rock, and the bare-footed Jantje stepped noiselessly from stone to stone towards lit. An alarmed cane-rat, cut off by Jantje from the river, ran along the foot of the bank to avoid him; but when it reached the little patch of shallow water it suddenly doubled back in fright and raced under the boy's feet into the river. Jantje stopped!  He did not know why; but there seemed to be something wrong.  Something had frightened the cane-rat back on to him, and he stared hard at the bank and the stretch of beach ahead of him.  Then the rock he meant to step on to gave a heave, and a long blackish thing curved towards him; he sprang into the air as high as he could, and the crocodile's tail swept under his feet! Jantje fled back like a buck--the rattle on the stones behind him and crash of reeds putting yards into every bound. For four days he stayed in camp waiting for some one to find a hive and give him honey enough to make his peace; and then, for an old snuff-box and a little powder, he bought a huge basket full of comb, young and old, from a kaffir woman at one of the kraals some miles away, and put it all at the foot of the tree he had cleaned out. Then he had peace. The boys believed every word of that story: so, I am sure, did Jantje himself.  The buffalo story was obviously true, and Jantje thought nothing of it: the honey-bird story was not, yet he gloried in it; it touched his superstitious nature, and it was impossible for him to tell the truth or to separate fact from fancy and superstition.

Elephant Attacks a car in the Pilansberg National Park on the 22nd Febuary 2011

Below are some photos taken while one of the large elephants in the Pilansberg National Park known as "Amarula" took out a car he was walking past while in musth. This is when an elephant releases a sexual pheromone and in this state is highly aggravated.

This is why it is always advisable to go on a safari with a professional safari company with guides and rangers that are qualified to get you around the national Park in a safe manner, as they know what signs to look for when moving in amongst the animals found in the parks.