Mashatu - Day 3 PM

I finished the Day 3 AM post with elephants but here's a few more pictures that belong with the morning session.

Grey Lourie or Go Away Bird as it's commonly known because of its distinctive call.

This is the hide, accessed via a ladder.

You can see how cold Garibou finds it at 1000.

I haven't taken many views yet to show the wonderful colour of the mopane leaves prior to abscission.

We've seen so few zebra I had to take this one.

This fellow was just outside camp

And his mate already at the waterhole.

I raced down to the hide as quickly and quietly as I could, but he still sensed my presence.

Just a lone Impala which had such dainty steps and I thought at first it was the angle of the photo that made his horns look different lengths.

But his right one was definitely longer.

Back out for the afternoon drive and we bumped into this elephant - almost literally - her disguise was so good.

We could all tell instantly that she wasn't thrilled to see us and so we weren't at all surprised that for once Daniel left the engine running, ready for a quick escape should it be necessary.  In the event, there was just a bit of head shaking and we all sat quietly whilst her small herd crossed in front of us.

As if I haven't posted enough elephant pictures today!

I don't recall where we came across this lone hyena, half dozing in the sunshine, but I'm posting it for one reason only - given what we learnt about hyena anatomy in Kenya I wonder if it's male or female?

A few braver than usual wildebeest including an AoA contender.

LBR, in flight and in focus - what more could I want (other than the sky to be a consistent colour).

Another animal that is always very skittish and runs away from the truck is the Eland, Africa's largest antelope.  Apparently this response is inbuilt from the days when they were heavily hunted for their meat which is still very sought after today but hopefully now purpose bred.  They are very handsome creatures and as well as being able to jump 7' they can also maintain a trot indefinitely.

Red-billed Hornbills (Flying Chilli Peppers)

What superb camouflage this Silver Backed Jackal has.

Another handsome antelope is the Kudu.

We then found the 6 cheetahs again, but as George had already spent a long time with them this morning whilst we were in the hide and they weren't being particularly photogenic, we didn't stay long.  Mum was sitting separately on guard.

Whilst her cubs lazed around under the shade of a tree.

Sleep was clearly more important than stupid photographers.

Another male ostrich, although Ian is sure it's the same one we saw yesterday morning.  I never have much luck photographing them as their heads are so small in relation to the body and often so far away.  Today was no exception.

I was amazed when he stopped dead and lifted his tail, but then I realised why!

Having not got a decent guinea fowl image this morning, I tried again as they were heading for the trees to roost for the night.  I managed a couple of half decent shots, although I think the bird on the right was a bit camera shy.

Lone Duiker looking lovely in the golden light.

No mistaking the owner of this skull.

After another beautiful sunset came our least favourite part of game drives, using the spotlight, as we rarely see anything of much interest (usually just scrub hares and the odd hyena) but tonight we were fortunate to see leopard.  Unfortunately despite my best efforts with denoise software the images are still quite poor.

She was definitely on a hunting mission and we followed her for a while along one of the dried up river beds.

And there's a Lion Special to come - quite a good afternoon!