Hyaena | Diary of an Adventurous Retiree

Staying outside of a game reserve is not ideal but it’s better than nothing. We’re loving The Homestead which is just a short distance from the entrance gate. Day visitors may only enter the game viewing at 7:00 am while for residents it’s an hour earlier. In the past we would be first at the gate! But today we only woke up at 7 and entered the park after 8. Then we had a leisurely breakfast at The Cattle Baron before setting off on our game drive.

There are many different types of antelope in the park and they’re all thriving. First we were greeted by this beauty.

Lovely male kudu with another in the background

Addo Elephant Park is one of the few places in the country that is home to the flightless dung beetle. Visitors are warned to watch out for them on the roads as they cannot fly away to safety.

The flightless dung beetles mostly feed on elephant or buffalo faeces, but they have been recorded to also feed on dung from other species such as rabbits, baboons, antelope and ostrich. Read about dung beetles here

We really enjoy the birdlife in the parks we visit but Autumn in Addo hasn’t produced anything too exciting. These are some of the birds we managed to photograph

Cape Wagtail collecting nesting material

Speckled Mousebird

Cape Glossy Starling

Red-necked spurfowl

Southern Boubou

Capped Wheatear

Tortoises tend to be less plentiful as winter approaches but we did find one who was still quite wide awake

We found lots of plains animals in the south today. There are a number of waterholes that attract them and the grazing in also very good. All the animals are looking very healthy. We enjoyed seeing a number of different species making Addo look like what one expects Africa to be. It was lovely to see a mix of zebra, kudu, red hartebeest, warthogs and elephants spread across the veld.

We learned that elephants were starting to dominate the waterholes and leaving little over for the other creatures. So the authorities have placed an electric fence around one we saw today. The wires hang down to a certain height and prevent the elephants from drinking but are high enough for the smaller animals to be unaffected. No chance of the zebras being squirted by elephants at this waterhole!

Do you see the wires hanging just above the zebras

This elephant walked right past – obviously knows what will happen if he goes to this pub!

Oh the bliss of elephant free water!

BUT at the waterholes where they’re free to frolic there was a lot of fun today. They swam and played and rolled in mud to their hearts content.

It’s hot – I need a swim

Oh what fun

Look at me!

Mom – I love this

What’s going on here?

Time to get out

Most of the waterholes we visited had tons of frisky elephants taking the waters. It was fascinating to watch them.

We stopped at Jack’s picnic site for coffee

And the final excitement of the day was this young hyaena lying next tot he side of the road – not often seen in Addo so we were thrilled.

The wind died down last night and did not blow us all away to Oz. We all had a good night’s sleep but the effects of early rising for the past week have taken its toll on our teenage grandchildren. It took a while to coax them out of the tent this morning and it was after six before we went off for our morning drive.

Shan was out of it for the first hour of the day!!

We did a short morning drive along the S100, checked out the Leopard/Hyaena kill and then went back to camp. These are the highlights:-

Vultures were feasting on the leftovers of the leopard’s kill.

We also found some white storks. I imagine they’d just made a delivery of babies to some Park Parents.

We found a spot where there was a Painted Snipe, Grey Heron, African Black Crake and Fish Eagle.

Painted Snipe

Fish Eagle

Some other birding delights of the day were:-

Finally I got a half decent photo of a Magpie Shrike

Carmine bee-eaters

Amur Falcon

Then we had an encounter with a bull elephant in musth. He owned the road and just kept coming toward us. “Reverse, Grandpa!” yelled the kids. “We’re going to die!” moaned Shannon. “Tell my parents I love them!’

Slightly scary when a giant heads straight for your vehicle

While they were freaking out they both kept their cameras trained on the scene videoing the drama. There were other cars on the road too and we all just gave the Elllie his space and reversed until he decided he’d had enough fun and went off into the bush.

The commentary on the video was hilarious. “I don’t know who will see this but at least you will know how I died. This is freaking terrifying! Grandpa – reverse faster. (chuckles from Grandpa) Don’t worry kids he’s not angry he won’t do anything. (from Grandma) That’s was the last crushed people said (from Shan) Lots of nervous laughter.

It all lasted about three minutes and when it was over the kids said – Man that was scary! – But really we were in no danger. This was no angry, charging elephant.

Back at camp we had breakfast and spent a few hours chilling before going out again at 3. It was not a very exciting afternoon – probably just as well after the morning drama. The highlight was coming across a mommy hyaena with cubs

I was also thrilled to get the African Hawk Eagle

The weather was cold again today but by this evening we could see that it was clearing. The Earl cooked a chicken casserole for supper. An elephant passed by the fence. He was so silent that had the neighbours not alerted us we would not have seen him. It is such fun being close to the fence.