Birds in Kruger | Diary of an Adventurous Retiree

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.

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.

Tortoise crossing the wet road

Is his tongue stuck to the tar or does the tar make the water taste like coke?

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

Wet Lilac Breasted Roller

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.

So waaa to you 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.

My shot with his bill behind the branch

Earl managed a clearer shot

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.

African Pied Wagtail

Three banded plover

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.

This might be a female or non-breeding red-headed weaver

Chinspot Batis with yellow fronted canary in background

Yellow-fronted canaries

Brown headed parrot

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!

Pearl Spotted Owlet

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.

My but he’s grown!

Beware

Have you got some crumbs for us?

Please?

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.

2 July 2014 Celebrating 70 years of Earl

It is Earls 70th birthday today and what better place to celebrate than in The Kruger National Park. Our first few days in the park have been slow as far as sightings are concerned and we began to fear that the animals had packed up and emigrated! Today though they were all out and about specially to greet Earl on his birthday.
It is important to make an early start in the park because of the distances that we travel at extremely slow speed. The first leg of our route started at 6:45 and the temperature was 7 degrees C. (By midday it was in the high 20s) We followed the Maroela Loop to the Nkulu Picnic Site where we stopped for breakfast at 9 o’clock.
First up was a buffalo followed soon after by a beautiful, young bushbuck who emerged silently from the bush and crossed in front of us.

Beautiful bush buck

We were pleased to see several large herds of impala along the way. We also encountered nyala several times and kudu were plentiful – some in bachelor herds, some just females and a few mixed.

Male Kudu

Warthogs turned their backs on us.

There were lots of vultures flying overhead and we wondered if there was a kill nearby but if there was it was not close to the road. We also found one perched in a tree.

Always cute to see are the shy little steenbok and we were to see them a few times today.

Steenbok

We stopped at Nkulhu Picnic Site which is terraced to the river. It is a beautiful spot but the monkeys and baboons can be a nuisance. We managed to eat our boerewors rolls without being harrased.

Crossing a bridge we found some amusing baboons.

The next leg took us to Lower Sabie and we enjoyed many sightings along the way.

A gymnogene gave us quite a performance scratching for prey.

Brown Hooded Parrot

White crowned shrike

Sunset Dam was great as always. We arrived to see an elephant enjoying a drink, hippos and crocodiles sunning themselves on the bank, wildebeest coming down to see what was up, several species of storks having a conference and little shore birds strutting about looking for food.

Three Banded Plover

Grey Heron

Lower Sabie is the most commercial of all the camps and caters for the tourists every need. The Restaurant is now a Mug and Bean! How horrible but I guess the masses must be fed and this is possibly the most efficient way of doing it. The view from the deck is still amazing and hippos and buffalo were on the river bank, a giraffe loped lazily by and open billed storks stood about waiting for something.

It was good to have a break before heading back to camp but we had to be back at camp by 5:30. Earl said we would therefore only stop for the most exciting sightings.

We did make a little draai to a puddle where we knew we’d find some water birds.

Giant kingfisher

There was a lot to see on the way back giraffe, zebra, elephants, rhino, buffalo, several types of buck and birds of course.
At Renosterpan we had our finest sightings of – yes you guessed it – rhinoseros. There were 3 present proving that the name was chosen with good reason.

We celebrated Earl’s birthday by going to the restaurant. Peter and Heather contributed to his gift of a Panasonic Lumix Camera along with the kids and me but they also found a lovely solar powered lamp which they presented to him with a sign in it saying I am 70. They treated us to dinner too. Thanks H2 and P.