15 September - 50 Shades of Grey

Photo of the Day - Shongile grooming on a rock

Morning Drive

(Herold, Peter, Shadrack, Godfrey & Andrea)

Rhino (1 male, 1 female)

Elephant (5 Kambaku) / Vielmeter - Noshe River Road

Buffalo (4 Daghaboys) / Vielmeter - Noshe River Road

Buffalo (Breeding Herd) / Karans - Kudu Pan

Afternoon Drive

(Marka, Shadrack & Andrea)

Rhino (1 Male)

Leopard (Shongile female) / Ekuvukeni - Ekuvukeni Access

Lion (3 young males) / Borneo - Borneo Airstrip

Buffalo (Breeding Herd) / Mbali - Windy Way

Elephant (1 Kambaku) / Peru - Madach Pan

Okay so I have yet to read the book - but I know it has caused quite a stir and I thought it amusing as I headed off into a cold, dark and dreary morning. My plan was therefore to do a blog wholly in black and white (and grey of course!) and that worked well for the morning! However, the afternoon brought Shongile and she always deserves colour!

The morning started with a very playful trio of zebra who posed for us beautifully. We sat with them for a rather long time as they continued to entertain. Carrying on, we came across a fair number of White-backed vultures and in the hopes of finding something interesting Jacky and I hopped off the car for a while to follow up. Unfortunately as these things go, we found nothing so continued on our way.

Oxpeckers on a patterned giraffe back!

We then by chance bumped into the two young rhinos. They were the most relaxed that I have seen them - clearly not to keen for much action on this cold morning. They slowly grazed past the car - I think they were willing us to leave so that they could have a mid-morning nap as they appeared to want to lie down.

Swinging past Kudu Pan en route home, we then found a breeding herd of buffalo as they finished up a morning drink stop. Great to see the herds back. There were a few more white backed vultures around but resulted in nothing.

Afternoon drive started with Dave calling us on the radio to call our guests and start drive early! Johannes had spotted a leopard on his way back to Motswari and Dave held her for us until we all started game drive - talk about Motswari team work! Thank goodness he did because we had an awesome sighting. It started with rather tricky terrain - thick mopane and steep drainage lines - but paid off as Shongile took rest on a large flat rock and then proceeded to groom herself and pose like the model she is! 

We then headed back to Karans/Borneo area to follow up on all those vultures. As we bumbled along, Jacky's excited voice shouted... 'Ngala, Ngala'. Three young male lions were peering at us from behind a termite mound at about 150m. The second they realised we had seen them, they were off. Despite our efforts to relocate, the lions disappeared into the bush. As frustrating as it is to not have managed a photo, the fact that there are still lions out there who have probably never seen a vehicle before and are that wild is incredibly special. 

The rest of drive was rather quiet with only a brief visual of a Giant Eagle Owl. Shongile had made up for it though!