8 July 2014 Day Trip to Letaba
We started the day at 7 a.m. warmly dressed and expecting rain. It did drizzle for an hour or two so we decided to take the tar road to Letaba, have breakfast there then take the dirt roads home. This turned out to be a wise decision as the rain stopped for our return journey.
First up today – Impala. If they’re around you know the park is healthy!  Stopping on a bridge we found a huge herd of buffalo crossing the river.

Crested Francolin were up early, zebra crossed in front of us and then we found our first tortoise of the trip. Strange that he was not hibernating on this very cold morning. Heather suggested that his burrow might have been flooded and he was forced out.

A lilac breasted roller was fluffed up and wet looking rather sorry for itself.

We saw bull elephants quite a few times. I feel quite sorry for the male of the species as elephants have a matriarchal society and the alpha female leads the family and when the males get to a certain age they have to leave the herd and are only allowed to visit.

Birds of prey have made themselves scarce this trip but the brown snake eagle is often around.
Baboons amused us several times today too.

We have not stopped too many times for birds as they seem to be scattered abroad. But we did find a few bird parties and this little lark had us guessing. We finally decided it was a monotonous lark.

We stopped to look at giraffe, zebra and elephant and then arrived at Letaba at 9:15.

Refurbing of the restaurant and rest rooms are in process. Bug and Mean have taken over and we were apprehensive as to the service having had two bad experiences at Satara and Olifants. Our waitress was lovely but we had to speak simply as she did not understand everything we said. Our drinks arrived in less than 15 minutes and our meal in less than half an hour which we find quite acceptable. The food was good. My coffee was the house blend which is bottomless. The first cup was not very hot but as I take it black it was drinkable. I was offered a second cup and I asked for it to be hot and it was! Usually their coffees are served in a mug but I asked for a cup and a cup I received. So we were impressed with Mug and Bean, Letaba! After breakfast we walked around the camp trying to find owls but they were clearly away on holiday. Instead we found a grey-headed bushshrike. It was not easy getting photographs as it moved constantly and his behind the foliage.

Bushbuck love Letaba and find their way into the camp.  We found one trying to look inconspicuous under a tree.

We took a slow drive back to Olifants along the river road but there was not much to see. The cold weather had clearly sent the critters into hiding.
There were of course stops to see the usual suspects of giraffe and zebra etc. The vegetation is very pretty in this area with Mopane trees in varying colours from autumn to new spring leaves. So the colours are green, yellow, orange, red, bronze. At one of our stops we found pied wagtail, 3 banded plover and a coucal in a tree.

A flock of canaries startled us out of a reverie and we stopped for ages taking photographs. There were other species among them like grey headed sparrow and twin spot batis. Red winged starling flew into a tree and as I watched them I caught sight of a brown headed parrot hiding in the foliage. This caused a great flurry of camera activity and finally we all managed to get some decent shots.

After this excitement there was a dry spell of driving until among the beautiful burnished colours of the Mopani trees I saw a ball of grey. I called stop and Earl reversed and even when I saw it again I was tempted to say – no its nothing but I raised my binoculars to it and found a pearl spotted owlet. It took a while to describe to the others where I was looking and there was great excitement when everyone spotted it. We had a brief minute or two when suddenly it was gone and we could not see where it had flown too. A really special treat!

We had tried to fill up with diesel at Letaba but they had run out so we needed to be sure to get back to Olifants before we ran out. We arrived back at quarter past 2, filled up, went to the shop and then had left overs for lunch at our huts. At half past three we went out again this time to find our crocodile and terrapin pond. We always visit this pond as the first time we found it a baby croc and his terrapin friends came rushing to the edge to meet any vehicle that happened along. Clearly someone had started feeding them and they still try to cash in on the deal. And yes they were there! The croc is much bigger and more frightening now but still ruler of the pond! I wonder if he will ever migrate away from it.

To end the day we found kudu and then a korhaan.

It was our tamest day so far but a slow day in Kruger is still better than a good day in Cape Town.