Thursday 23 February 2012

22 Feb - Back to Work

Photo of the Day


Morning Drive
(Marka & Shadrack)

Buffalo (Daghaboys) / Motswari - Motswari Southern Access
Buffalo (Breeding Herd)/ Scholtz - Kudu Pan
Leopard (Argyle Jnr)/ Motswari - Motswari/Ingwelala Boundary
Leopard (Skittish male) / Peru - Old Gate
Elephant (Kambaku) / Peru - Peru entrance


Afternoon Drive
(Herold, Shadrack & Andrea)

Elephant (Breeding Herd) / Scholtz - Kudu Pan
Buffalo (Breeding Herd) / Scholtz - Kudu Pan
Elephant (Breeding Herd) / Vielmeter - Vielmeter Khaya
Female Leopard (Ntombi) / Sweet Water Southern Access - Vielmeter


Hi All, as Grant explained I am filling in with the blog for a little while, so I hope you enjoy the posts. After a weeks leave, I was thrilled to get back out there especially after hearing that some of the breeding herds of buffalo and elephant were back as they had been rather scarce since the floods. With a car full of new guests, air thick with humidity and high ambitions we set out on afternoon drive. I headed past Argyle Dam towards Piva Plain’s where a magnificent herd of Impala was feeding in golden afternoon light. It really was a healthy sized herd, with the young males new horns just starting to break through the skin on their heads. Definitely worth a couple of pics! 








I then headed slowly towards Java ambling along quite contently. After about an hour of driving without a peep from the radio I started to be come a bit suspicious and after fiddling with every button on the radio I eventually got through to Herold who informed me that they had been trying to contact me for the last hour, and had already seen Elephant and Buffalo! Seeing as though we were driving a group it was rather important for guests to get roughly the same sightings so feeling decidedly frustrated with my rookie radio mistakes, I began a game of catch up. A breeding herd of elephant had been seen on Vielmeter, and so we heading south. By the time we got there, the herd had made their way to the water reservoir right outside the Vielmeter house and we were able to sit for a considerable length of time and watch them drink. One little one struggled humourously to stretch its trunk over the top of the reservoir.














After a wonderful sighting of elephant, we headed west where Herold and Shadrack were sitting with Ntombi the female leopard. It was a bit of a race against time as she was up in a tree and the surroundings were very thick so if she jumped down, it would have been near impossible to find her again. However, we all managed to have a beautiful sighting of her. And even though the photos do not really do her any justice, I hope they do portray at least some of her atmosphere in the dusk time setting.
 






By the time we left the leopard, it was already quite late and we were all far south. So after a quick drink we rushed back to camp, stopping along the way for an inquisitive hyena who seemed very perturbed by our scent. Clearly the days heat had taken its toll and it was time for a shower and dinner.

It certainly feels good to be back in the Lowveld.

Until tomorrow, Ciao
Andrea

2 comments:

  1. Nice post Andrea. Lovely pictures, especially of the ellies :-)
    Thanks for standing in for the regulars (Chad and Grant)

    Cheers
    Lourens

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  2. Hello,

    It's been a while since my last comment, but I'm still a regular visitor of the blog.
    I wanted to leave a suggestion/request: please, increase the font size of the posts. It's so hard to read with the tiny font size, and when I increase it, the images also grow, messing up everything!

    Cheers,
    Lile

    ReplyDelete