27 December Evening drive: we had new companions, a Dutch family, Mark, Kiki etc. Imogen took photos.
Lions again! We went back to where we’d seen them this morning. We found male lion no 2. After a while he wandered uphill. We followed him and found his brother and the lioness. After a while she got up and they mated. Siya says they’ve been doing this every 30 minutes or so, all day and all night for the last two weeks. ML no 2 watched. Siya thinks he must get his turn occasionally. Ml 1 and the female don’t eat during this time, so must be getting very hungry.
288 291 297 302 lions
There is a new area which was added to the reserve a month ago. Siya and the other rangers don’t know their way round very well yet and some of the road aren’t good. Two male elephants discovered the new area recently and have been exploring it and having fun by doing branches off trees and often knocking the trees and agaves down. A big mess. We found them after a while.
Also on this drive : croaking cisticola bird – sounds like a frog, common buzzard or step buzzard, red hartebeest, red collared widow bird, large herd of wildebeest with lighter coloured babies which are well camoflaged against the rocks, Kudu, impala, Eland which were huge, ostrich, a yellow mongoose, white rhino and her baby again by the water.
317 bontebock?
At the lake by a semi ruined Dutch settlers house we glimpsed hippo and saw African darter. Very windy there so we abandoned plans to have an evening drink. Weather has changed, forecast for tomorrow is for much cooler weather.
Nice meal, Tim and Denise had kingclip.
28th Dec
Morning drive, just the three of us and Siya. Much cooler this morning, we should have worn jeans and jumpers. We made good use of the ponchos provided.
Drove over to the south side of the reserve near the cheetah rehabilitation centre. We were hoping to see one or more cheetah, but no luck.
We had good sightings of several hippo in the lake there. We also had a close up with a large herd of buffalo with babies and ox peckers, and nice sightings of a “walking of giraffes” ! We had coffee near a water hole visited by several male kudu, and a pair of African darters, fighting or courting.
420, 424, 429 439, 9629
442 Ox pecker
movie DSCF9627
movie 9637 giraffes
387 hippo
392 wildebeest with calves
We had a nice view of some zebra with babies. The movie is quite long with a cute baby at around 1:00.
photo 363 zebra
We also saw : zebra with babies, solo jackal, common reedbuck, almost hidden among the rocks and grass, blue wildebeest with babies, a single male black wildebeest, Eland, African spoonbill, African blacksmith lapwing or plover, black bellied bustard, francolin, white faced whistling duck, ostrich, long tailed widow birds, red bishops
353 – 7 – 8 – Eland
445 – antelope + 456 with white one
457 blue wildebeest
464 – reedbuck + 459, 461, 467
Unpleasant, but we saw several animal carcasses during our time at Nambiti. This one was the remains of a wildebeest.
We saw a pair of male impala having a fight. Siya explained that in his I. Zulu culture some men are polygamous. The traditional doctor, the siyama prepares a medicine from impala testicles to help his fertility.
Back for coffee and breakfast and to warm up!
Tim found a scorpion in our “tent” this morning. I got help to remove him. We managed to remove last night’s frog by ourselves. We got a good night’s sleep once the wind died down.