Blog Eight from South Africa

Play time

Hard to believe eight weeks have come and gone.  I am headed back to the US tomorrow.  This was an interesting week here.  The first two days we hardly saw any animals.  On the third day we saw some very angry elephants in three different locations.  

Two large females false charged us and trumpeted loudly to let us know they didn't want us too close.

Then a large unhappy male came out of the trees

We drove about 15 minutes farther and female from another herd let us know we weren't welcome.  We returned to camp for lunch and a large bull came to the local watering hole.  We drove out for pictures and he put on quite a display.

Part of his display

He got so close to the cruiser that I couldn't even fit his head in the view finder.

 The elephants must have been letting us know that things were changing for the better because over the next two days we saw all five animals that make up the big five. These animals make the big five list because they were the most dangerous to hunt.

The Cape Buffalo is one of the most dangerous animals in Africa.  They can be very aggressive and don't mind charging cars.  If hunters didn't kill them with the first shot the buffalo went after the hunter.

When the Cape Buffalo are lying down in the grasses they are hard to find.

The Redbilled Oxpecker eat the bugs that pester the Cape Buffalo.

The Leopard is in the big five.  We saw two of them on Friday evening.  This female walked up to the front of the car.  I cropped the picture to take the hood out of the shot.  I would like to have stood up to get a better shot but that is a bad idea.

The Leopards are a challenge to see in the grasses and trying to get a clean photo is even worse.

Mom and a cub in the tall grasses.

Mom walked out into the road for a few moments.

We found a breeding herd of elephants on Saturday morning.  There were two young elephants.  The female elephants did their best to shield them from us make taking photos a challenge.

This young one found a stick to play with.

This three month old Rhino was out grazing with mom and two older siblings.

This is mom.  She has large horns so she can protect her offspring.  Three of the White Rhinos I took pictures of a month ago have been poached in Kariega for their horns

I took 1200 pictures of lions in three hours on Saturday night.  How could you not take lots of pictures they were so cute. I now have no hard drive space left on my computer. Good thing it is time to go home.  While I have deleted over 2000 pictures I still have almost 9000 to go through.

One of four females that was watching fourteen cubs.

A male cub that is a little older than his siblings.

Cub sandwich

Just cute

A little neck scratching.

I won't be capturing sunset pictures like this in the USA.

A few other pictures from this week.

Ground Hornbill - There are only about 5000 left in the world.

Vervet Monkey

Giant Plated Lizard

Good bye from Africa.  I really enjoyed my eight weeks with John Miller. And I am looking forward to seeing his pictures of lions in trees in about 10 days. Check out his blog at jemillerwildlifeimages.com

I hope to have a photo blog in two weeks of Texas Wildflowers and in April look for pictures from Australia.  Bye for now.

Pat