Tuesday, June 9, 2009


Road block on the way to Oliphants


One big, tall, happy family!


Godfrey and Martin, our fearless game guards


One of like 200 giraffe we saw


Zebra


Kori bustard, the largest bird capable of flight in the world


Kudu!


Zebra in the early morning sun


This hyena had an injured leg and hung out just outside the camp fence every night.



There were giraffe everywhere!


Eles coming down to the river to drink


Hippos out of water


Another baby!


Male lion we saw on the way to pick up rifles one morning


The same big male

A lioness from the same morning


There were six lioness in the pride

On the hunt...


A pair of Bataleurs


Eles


Kingfisher...

Waterbuck male

Another giraffe keeping an eye on us...


Big male we saw driving back to camp one night


Hammerkop in the Oliphants River


Saddle-bill Stork

Pied kingfisher, still my favorite South African bird!


Godfrey and the herd of buffalo we walked into


So the past week I spent doing mopane mapping on the Oliphants River in the park. We stayed in Balule camp and worked with a pair of volunteers and an additional game guard. It was a beautiful area with high densities of game. On foot we saw giraffe, wildebeest, zebra, impala, buffalo, and a lion!!! The big story of the week was when I was walking with Godfrey and Mike in a new mapping site. We walked into a big herd of buffalo and just watched them for a bit. They were more scared of us than we were of them. Then Godfrey suddenly said "lion." I was confused until he pointed out the lin in the dense buch just ahead of us. The lion moved out of sight and we kept walking. Just a bit further we saw him again, about 15 meters away. He was a big male and he wasn't too happy at being disturbed. He lay down and watched us for a bout a minute and then got up, obviously agitated. He roared at us and then moved away. That was the scariest part of it because we were in a dense patch and couldn't see him any more. But Godfrey was great and it was a really cool encounter!
Zebra foal I saw around Sable Dam

'Get up, get up and come play!'
This little ele was trying to get his sibling up from a nap


His brother finally gave in


The baby

Elephant and hippos at the Oliphants River


Hippos at the Oliphants

Secretary Bird

White rhino in the shade


Another mud loving buffalo


Zebra


Lioness!


Such impressive animals


Giraffe and baby


Martial eagle


Impala!


Ground hornbill, pretty rare guys


Waterbuck


Giraffe at a waterpoint


All but the first picture come from a trip I took down to Skukuza from Phalaborwa. We drove through the park and had some great sitings. The lioness was great, she came right beside the car. We spent the weekend in Skukuza and I visited with several of my friends from the program.

Wednesday, May 27, 2009

Mortal combat!


This evening at the dam


This guy got within about 15 feet of my truck, a bit close for comfort...


Starling...


Take a drink...


Have a nice roll...


Aaaaand shake!



Lone bull crossing the road this morning, he was in rough shape, probably had bovine TB


Giraffe we saw from the rocks - he stopped to look at us and then decided to move on


Buffalo and calf at the dam


The calf in the middle wasn't more than a couple days old


More buffalo...


There were a lot of buffalo that evening...


Look at the cross the light forms...


Startled kudu...


Baby kudu!


Lone elephant having an afternoon snack...


A lone buffalo at one of the water points - the park was worried there wasn't enough water for games, so they built artificial waterpoints that are good places for game viewing





I've been going on a lot of games drives, mostly back to Sable Dam and these pictures are a result of the last week and a half. It's really awesome to have my own transportation and I'm getting a lot better at driving manual.