Our last morning here so we were out pretty smartish so as to not waste a moment. The first 3 sightings were more of a guessing game, like identifying the owner of this print.
Hippo - I think, plus of course Toyota Landcruiser
It was still quite dark in places so bird ID was based solely on the silhouette?
Hammerkop - I was surprised they nest in trees as I've only ever seen them at the water's edge.
And finally Ian and I were convinced this was a big leopard sitting in the bushes.
Sadly not though, just another ALT!
The next photos are mostly of birds, although no new sightings.
Cape Glossy Starlings
I think this is probably a Burchell's Starling rather than Meve's.
This one I've included just for the amazing myriad of different coloured feathers.
Red-billed Spurfowl
And a cute little Vervet monkey keeping a close watch on us from above.
We'd always assumed that termites chose to build their mounds around the bases of trees, but in actual fact the termites are there first and the tree germinates from within (presumably the seeds are taken in and the growing conditions are favourable).
Suddenly as we were driving along a track through fairly dense vegetation we turned a corner and a couple of 100 meters in front was a truck. We looked to the bushes at the side and along walked the lionesses on a hunting mission - they were so close I had no time whatsoever to change lenses, angles, or settings, I just pressed the shutter and hoped! These are SOOC (straight out of camera).
And suddenly they were gone, deep into the undergrowth so it just wasn't worth trying to follow them or second guess where they might re-emerge. Also by now it was getting hotter, so they may well just decide to find a shady spot and sleep the day away.
So we headed off in search of a suitable spot for a cuppa and followed another truck over this rather rickety bridge made entirely of wooden poles lashed together which apparently needs frequent maintenance.
Handsome Common Waterbuck f.
And her equally handsome m. partner
Jonah stopped at what seemed to be a kind of salt plain for us to check the tyres and have a drink/snack but there were a couple of other trucks around so I felt less than comfortable dropping my pants! Luckily after a few minutes they all drove off and I was able to relieve myself in privacy.
In the distance some Red Lechwe (I think I got a little carried away)
And closer to us a pair of Pied Avocets with their distinctive curved beaks
After a short break we drove off again, desperately hoping to find something interesting to watch/ photograph but it remained very quiet so all I have is a few more birds, some taken at the limit of my camera/lens's capabilities so just record shots really.
Pied Kingfisher mid dive and yes of course I missed his entry into the water!
Magpie Shrike (I think I've shown better pictures of this bird before so I'm not going to attempt to clone out the branches).
We were making our way back to camp when we came across this male hippo.
It's unusual enough to see them out of water during the day, but this one also had a tooth growing out of his mouth which looked more like a warthog's tusk.
We were parked quite a distance from him but after several minutes he started to look at us a bit grumpily.
Then suddenly he was heading towards us at a vast rate of knots. Hippo can run at about 30 km/hr on land and as I've said before more people are killed by hippo in Africa each year than by all the big cats combined. Although we felt pretty safe in the truck, Jonah was obviously keen not to provoke the animal further and so slammed the truck into reverse and we beat a hasty retreat. There was no time to ask him to remove his hat, nor did I have the brains to switch my camera to video.
Once he was confident we were on the retreat, he stopped running and stood staring at us until we went.
Just around the corner was a lone male elephant, also knee deep in water, and for a moment I thought he was going to charge us too.
But luckily he just wandered off as it could well have been a very different outcome.
Phew, it's been a hair raising few minutes.
We then spotted a small troop of Vervet Monkeys with this little one playing hide and seek with us
Just look at the length of this guy's tail and I've cut the end off!
I think this clearly shows the "blue balls" at their best angle!
Time to get back to camp now and sort our final packing.