It was another glorious morning as we set off for the hide again.
A quick snap of a Kori Bustard out for an early morning stroll, very grainy as high ISO but it doesn’t deserve any time being spent on it.
When we got to the hide Garibou was already there with 4 Americans and their tour leader, fortunately all on the left hand side so that left the right to me - I carefully positioned Ian in my second favourite spot so we could swop around if necessary. They were an unusually unfriendly group of people.
Even though I haven't had a chance to review yesterday's images, I'm determined to try and take fewer photos today and to sit back and enjoy the experience. Although I wouldn't mind capturing a moment like this one - it's taken by Greg du Toit and is poster size on the hide wall.
I'm pleased to say that today I did get some acceptable images of Helmeted Guinea Fowl, in fact 108 of them but I've whittled that down a bit!
I think the Swainson's Spurfowl on the left is hoping to be accepted into the UN.
These gorgeous birds are Green Pigeons, yet in our bird book they look so plain.
The first elephants arrived about 10 mins earlier than yesterday and from a totally different direction; coming in from the back of the hide to the right.
Whereas yesterday once the elephants started all the other animals seemed to stay away, today the elephants didn't stay as long and other animals visited - random images in chronological order as usual.
I've never really thought about how Impala drink, but very much like giraffe it seems.
This little chap came charging in at one point and I though Yippee, here's my image - but as you can see it's pretty rubbish and once again I have the magenta spot. One thing that makes me doubt this camera is the lack of MP and the resulting limitations on cropping.
I do love their tails.
A quite large herd of Impala then visited, it quite makes your eyes go funny.
This one had to kneel to drink though which presumably makes him even more vulnerable to predators.
We were then lucky to be visited by a small mixed herd of Eland and Kudu which were very, very nervous and would start to bolt at the slightest noise or movement. Garibou suggested that we all wait until the animals had relaxed a bit and actually started to drink before trying to take some photos, but unfortunately the Americans either didn't understand or didn't want to understand and so continued to snap away - specially the one with the really loud shutter (aren't I smug!). Needless to say they didn't stop long.
The next group of Elephants arrived in a rush, barging each other about for the best position.
And then a couple proceeded to squirt water around. The US group leader had left his camera on the very RHS of the hide and it got a full on soaking.
The next non-elephant group was some wildebeest led by this youngster who positively gambolled in from the far side of the waterhole.
Around the same time we were also visited by a huge flock of Red-billed Quelea - as I've said before they move almost as one and are very hard to photograph but maybe they make quite nice abstracts.
Nice portrait of a Red-billed Hornbill
We then saw a little bit of "action" as a huge bull elephant coming to the waterhole from the right, took exception to another herd of wildebeest approaching from the other side and so decided to see them off!
Leaving him to celebrate his victory.
A brief moment of quiet allowed these lovely Meyer's Parrots to have a drink
Over the next 20 mins quite a lot of elephant visited and they all seemed so photogenic I got rather carried away.
Oops, I definitely got carried away with that little lot!
All other animals seemed to have vanished for the time being, so here's some more, different, elephant.
We're not too sure what's happening here; we suddenly noticed a commotion amongst the herd leaving the waterhole and it looks as though 3 of the youngsters are having a bit of a bundle.
We'd commented yesterday to Garibou that none of the elephants had actually gone in the water and he said that was because they respected clean water and didn't want to pollute it by going in (and presumably pooing in it too). That seemed to me to demonstrate an extraordinary, human-like, restraint (but then again elephants are extremely intelligent) but today the behaviour was certainly more what we expected and in fact it became a bit of a free for all, especially amongst the youngsters, and although it's hard to tell them apart, these aren't all the same animal (ps - I've given up correcting the purple spot)
You may wonder why I've clipped so may ears, heads, trunks, tails and feet - in my defence, for such large animals they don't half move quickly!
Some preferred a dust bath rather than the real thing.
Tongue tied or trunk tied, it's hard to work out where one elephant begins and another one ends!
Sadly it seemed that all too soon it was time to leave, except there were yet more elephants arriving and so we had to stay as it could have been dangerous should we try to leave. Over the last two mornings, the reliability with which Garibou has predicted more arrivals has astonished me; I assume he can see out of side/back of the hide or hear them coming, or is just simply an elephant psychic. The American party got away first and about 10 mins later it was considered safe for us to leave but as you can see there were still a few elephants enjoying the waterhole so Daniel was parked very close to the hide.
One of the things that made Daniel such a good guide was his flexibility; it was already 1020 and we were due back at camp for brunch but George and I hadn't had many zebra to photograph so he was happy to linger a while, whilst keeping a close eye on the elephants’ behaviour.
As always, the youngster was so cute.
And with swishing tails the little family walked off into the sunset, well mid day sun.
With the waterhole finally clear of animals, Daniel drove right in front so I could take this shot, of course the "windows" are closed now so it doesn't look quite the same.
What a morning, despite being determined to take fewer photos, I actually took more than twice as many as yesterday. There are also a few videos which Ian took that need editing, but for now I need a break from elephants.