Six giraffes looking for my sixth blog from Africa

 

 

 

 

 

 

John Miller stayed at the reserve today while I went out to see the Blythe River Canyon. So he has already put out his blog and gone to bed.

After six weeks in Africa I am still looking for a Leopard.  I did see a Cheetah this week but unfortunately there wasn't an opportunity for a picture. 

John, Claudia (head ranger), and I had a giraffe dung spitting contest.  I won with a shot that had to be 30% longer than my opponents.  There was talk of a re-match since I am much taller but one dung spitting contest is enough for a life time.

We had a successful bush walk this week.  Rhinos look much bigger and a little more frighten when you are on foot.  Fortunately they were more scared of us and took off through the woodlands.

We bogged our cruiser down to the axles in sand after a river crossing.  After two hours of jacking up each wheel multiple times and placing rocks and palm fronds under the wheels we were still stuck. A radio call was made and a tractor pulled us out in short order.

Here are this weeks pictures.

This picture was taken in poor light at the end of the day.  But it is the only picture I have of a hippo expressing displeasure because we were too close.

This is a Paradise Whydah. The male only grows this long feathers during mating season. After mating season the feathers drop off.

This is a Lilacbreasted Roller in flight.  While this picture isn't as sharp as I would like I believe this shot gives you a better idea of how beautiful these birds are.

 

Lilacbreasted Roller

Many of the animals in the reserve use the roads on a regular basis. These hyenas were jogging in front of the cruiser for quite a ways early one morning.

 

 

 

 

 

 

These Yellowbilled Hornbills were perched right next to the road.

 

Pale Chanting Goshawk

This sign is in the reserve.  It translates to "It is great to live in the bush"

This is the first of three pictures of the Little Bee-eater.

These White Face Ducks must have had motherly instinct.  They were shortly chased away by the Knobbilled Duck mother of these 17 ducklings.

Waterbuck Antelope

Giraffe silhouette at sunset.

The first of eight lion pictures.  There were thirteen cubs and three moms hanging out in the shade on a hot day. The moms will suckle any of the cubs not just theirs.

I thought this guy was so cute that there are three picture.

One of the females was watching us closely.

A Leopard Tortoise - the only kind of Leopard I have seen in Africa.

Helmented Guineafowl

Crocodile

 

 

 

The Blythe River Canyon. The third largest canyon in the world.

A wide angle closeup of a chameleon.

 

Only two more weeks in Africa. I hope to have picture of Leopards and Cheetahs to show you next week.  

The 4oo mm of rain they had here a few weeks ago has changed some of the animals movement patterns. It looks like there has been a significant impact on the wart hog population.

The camp is quiet now. Looks like I am the last one up. Last night at this time a large bull elephant stopped by.  I hope he is not between me and my bed.

Blog 5 from Africa

John and I have been in Makalali for over a week now.  It has been very hot and humid.  The animals are hard to find so it was a poor week for pictures.

 

The volunteer program supports research efforts here at the reserve.  We record all animal siting’s on fixed drive routes once a week including the GPS coordinates.  On every drive we record data on raptors, impalas, wildebeest, and warthogs. John and I are trying to capture elephant and lion pictures for animal ID kits.  But you have to see lions before you can capture their image.

The accommodations are very good here.  John and I have a room with a private bath and I have to say it is nice not to have to clean up other peoples messes.  Much better food selection at Makalali, it is nice to have chicken breast to eat instead of backs and wings. 

I got to sleep out with the animals this week.  We drove to an open grassland area, put down ground tarps, aligned nine sleeping bags and called it home for the night.  We were surrounded by zebras, giraffes, wildebeest, antelopes, and hyenas.  To keep the hyenas at bay we worked two hour watches to: keep a fire burning all night, use the spot light to check for predator eyes every thirty minutes, and chased hyenas when they got too close. Fortunately I had the 10 to midnight shift and slept until 4:45.  At that time two of my fellow campers where having a tough time convincing a hyena to leave the immediate area.  So I got up and threw a stick in the general direction of the hyena.  It either thought it was food or that I wanted to play fetch. After a little more convincing it left the area.

We also got the opportunity to go on a bush walk this week.  We tracked rhinos through the bush. We never caught up with the rhinos.  We did see zebras and a giraffe. Trying to dodge the plethora of spiders and not get stuck on one of the ten variety of thorn trees proved to be challenging at times.

The reserve is still recovery after having received a foot and a half of rain a few weeks ago.  The river crosses are rough.  We make it easily across the water but the sand that has been deposited on the banks is a problem. We were stuck at one location for about 30 minutes.  But after jacking up the truck four times and placing rocks under the tires we were able to move on.

Here are the pictures for this week, not up to the usual quality. Many of the animal pictures were taken at night using a flash.  Lots of bird pictures because the animals were hard to find.

This young bull false charged us a couple of time but only after he was sure were were driving away. He pushed a small tree over to let us know he was serious.

The most elephants I have seen in one place.

Good size comparison

One night we saw eleven cubs being baby sat by one female lion

Play time

Two headed giraffe

Hyena pups at their den

Come on get up I am hungry

Andrews our ranger trying to find the water buffalo.  Water buffalo are very aggressive therefore the rifle. They kill more people than any other animal in Africa.

Checking to make sure there is still a rock bed for us to drive on.

Woodland Kingfisher

Spotted Eagle Owl

Wahlberg Eagle

Hamerkop checking out his reflection

Black Stork

European Bee-eater

Lilacbreasted Roller

Tawny Eagle

Yellowbilled Hornbill

Redbilled Hornbill

Mike leading our bush walk

These water lilies were the prettiest thing we saw on our game walk.

 That's all for this week.  Hopefully there will be some lion and leopard pictures in next weeks blog.

Last Blog from Kariega

Hard to believe 4 weeks have already come and gone.  News highlights/low lights for this week are:

·        This week a mouse drown while swimming in the sink, I guess the life guard was on break.

·        Another mouse received flying lessons after being caught snooping in my closet at 1 in the morning.

·        There are a lot less Waddle trees in the reserve as volunteers: whacked and sawed medium size trees, girdled the big trees, and pulled small tress from the ground. My hand haven’t had calluses like this for years.

·        It has rained for the last three days and all of the roads are closed in the reserve so we haven’t been on any game drives or out of the house very much for the last three days.

·        John and I are fortunate enough to have the only dry room in the house. Most have ceiling leaks and a couple have water running in from outside doors.

·        Justine, the volunteer ranger, cooked Chicken Curry for us one night and pancakes one morning.

·        We got to eat in the Lodge restaurant on Thursday night.

·        We went on an early morning game drive and got great pictures of the lions and elephants.

Here are this week’s pictures.

The star picture I promised.  We only saw stars one night this week. I was experimenting with different exposures this evening trying to find the right combination. I thought I would get another chance to capture some quality pictures, no such luck.

Steppe Buzzard

The Royal Couple

An elephant giving himself a mud bath. The mud protects them from the sun, cools them, and keeps bugs off.

Two lion cubs resting in the shade.

Big male lion on the prowl

A large lion checking out those people with cameras clicking

A cub walking down the road with Mom following close behind

Mom looking for her other cubs

A Zebra colt

Zebra colt with mom

A series of six elephant baby pictures showing them having fun.

Another lion picture

Blesbok Antelopes practicing their dance routine.

Zebras

Water Buffalo who thought we were too close. Notice the rain in the picture.  This is one of the few photos I took in the last three days.

Two hippos checking us out

We are off to Makalali Game Reserve on Monday morning.  I am looking forward to seeing another part of South Africa and a lot less rain. John tells me there are a lot more animals in Makalali so there should be some great photo opportunities.