7th January: Strange Things with Horns Cont.......

Afternoon Drive.

Rhino ( 2 x Unknown Females) / Vielmieter – Elephant Dam Road Link.

Buffalo ( 4 x DaghaBoys) / Vielmieter – Elephant Dam.

Leopard ( Rockfig Jnr & Ntombela) / Vielmieter – Vielmieter Entrance.

Leopard (Machaton male) / Vielmetter - Vielmetter-Albert Cutline
Elephant ( Breeding Herd) / Vielmieter – Palm Crossing.

Elephant ( Breeding Herd) / Java – Western Cutline.

Elephant ( Kambaku) / Peru – Broken Dam.

Greetings all, I'm back, by the way this is Grant here, Chad got himself an afternoon off. Hope that you had yourselves a great New Year and wishing you all the best for 2011, look forward to catching up with you all. Keeping up with the blog during my leave it certainly sounded like there was no shortage of action and if it is anything to go by, this year promises great things.

Daily Synopsis.

After a very eventful morning filled with lots of great sightings, the afternoons plan was to have a “rustig one” ( restful) focusing on the smaller things. The first half of the drive was filled with a variety of birds and fascinating insects which kept us enthralled until we found ourselves in the region that we had tracked the White Lions into Klaserie the day before. Being in the area we decided to check if our little white friends had perhaps returned, unfortunately it appears they have not as we drove around checking all their favourite spots for any sign, but came up empty handed. With the light fast failing us we popped in to visit two of the Rhino's from the morning that had been relocated by the gentleman in the South. The Rhino's were busy feeding and remained very relaxed around the vehicles, this allowed Johannes to identify them as both being female, and not one male and one female as was previously thought. We are unsure of who our new visitors are and where they come from but they must have been around vehicles a bit to be this relaxed, here's hoping they become more regular visitors. Before taking sundowners we swung around Rockfig Jnr and Ntombela, they had lost their Impala kill from the morning to the ever present Hyena's that lay patiently in waiting for any mistake, apparently their wish was granted. We found Rockfig Jnr and Ntombela sleeping off their indigestion. While we sat their admiring how peaceful and content they appeared they became active and began grooming one another. We spent a great deal of time with them as they allowed us to watch them intimately interact and reinforce that strong mother, daughter bond. Eventually having to drag ourselves away as sundowners could easily have turned into sununders, we begrudgingly left them.

We should have read the signs better, as just before closing down to drinks we ran into the beautiful breeding herd of Elephant that we had the previous afternoon. It was the one with the very small youngsters and the adolescent males that were caught between mock fighting and feeding. The way they tormented and teased one another, they could only be brothers! Finally getting to drinks the the sun had set on yet another perfect day in the African Bush, may tomorrow be just as tough.