Originally I was anticipating writing a
small blog post about every day in Kruger, but it’s hard to get
into town to upload and I already have another trip (to the cape) to
post about. Here are some more shots from Kruger, and some of the
highlights of the trip:
Most game parks offer night
drives, where you are taken out in an open top safari vehicle for a
few hours after dark. Otherwise nobody is permitted outside of the
camp gates after sunset or before sunrise. During our stay in
Kruger, we went on two night drives and had some spectacular
sightings. We saw several small spotted genets, Civets, a cackle of
hyenas on the prowl, and perhaps the coolest sighting of the trip; a
lioness attacking a porcupine. When we first spotted them, the
lioness was circling madly around the porcupine. If a lioness can
manage to get a paw under the porcupine and flip it over, she can
kill and eat it. They circled for about 2-3 minutes getting closer
to our vehicle every circle, until they were only 15-20 meters away.
In a flash the lioness’s front leg was coated in quills. She
limped away unhappily and began to groom herself, snapping each
quill in her teeth after pulling it out of her leg. We watched her
groom herself for a minute or two, while the porcupine remained
patiently in a defensive position for her to leave. Angrily, the
lioness started to circle the porcupine again for a few seconds
before deciding that the effort wasn’t worth the meal, and
slipping back into the darkness.
On our first morning in the park,
we stumbled across a group of ground hornbills (featured last post).
There was at least three adults with 1 juvenile. Two of the adults
started to feed each other, and then the juvenile they were with.
The Ground Hornbill is endangered, and their range is now limited to
large parks like Kruger, so it was nice to get a solid sighting of
them.
Seeing all of the big five in one
trip was a nice surprise. The big five is the name given to the list
of most difficult game to hunt on foot in Africa, and consists of
the lion, leopard, rhino, elephant, and Cape buffalo. Obviously I
wasn’t hunting any of them, but they are still some of the most
charismatic mammals to see in Africa.
At one of the water holes we
stopped at we managed to spot and African Harrier-Hawk climbing
around a red billed buffalo weaver nest (check the nests out on
google). Although we didn’t see it grab any chicks, it was cool to
see.
On our last night we stopped at a
bird hide that was close to the main camp, where there was a fairly
large heron rookery. An African fish eagle flew over, and the entire
water hole filled with piercing heron screams. After the fish eagle
passed over, we watched the herons feeding and building their nests
for about an hour. There were several hippos around the hide as
well, including a mother who was playing with her calf.
All in all it was
an amazing trip. We managed to spot and identify 114 species of
birds, most of which were lifers for me. I have to come back some day
and spend a little bit longer.
