Willem was lucky enough to find a male leopard who was trapped in a tree by a herd of buffalo. He was just out of reach of the buffalo’s horns. The buff really tried to get at him, but to no avail. A brilliant sighting!

Further sightings include some cheetah, rhino, wild dog, elephant, more buffalo, lion, leopard, duiker, kudu, zebra, giraffe, impala, klipspringer and bushbuck.

On the birding front we’ve seen loads! Woodlands Kingfisher, Malachite Kingfisher, European bee-eater, white fronted bee-eater, carmine bee-eater, Burchell’s Coucal, Natal Francolin, Tawny Eagle, Brown Snake Eagle, White backed Griffon vultures, Wire Tailed swallows, Crested barbet, Fiscal Shrike, Fork Tailed Drongo, Square tailed drongo, African wattled lapwing & Blacksmith lapwing. Further sightings included a new nest of the Foam nest frogs, a python and a Nile monitor!

Read the latest SAN Parks press release.

Have a great weekend!

Our normal route to Skukuza

Please see herewith SAN Parks’ latest update:

Date: 19th January 2012

Following heavy rains encountered in and around the Kruger area, this is an urgent warning. The following areas have been affected:

Kruger Flood update as at 09h00 on 19 January 2012

Following heavy rains encountered in and around the Kruger area. The following areas have been affected:

Rest camps:

Crocodile Bridge

• Camp fine – water stopped 50m from fence

Lower Sabie

• 6 Tents had to be evacuated - no units flooded – water level outside fence

Skukuza

• No damage to rest camp – water on fence line
• One house in staff village flooded
• Flood damage at Skukuza Nursery

Berg en Dal

• Fine

Tshokwane Picnic Site

• Flooded

Balule

• Flooded

Letaba

• Staff village flooded
• Camping site, swimming pool  and filling station flooded

Talamati

• still cut off flood damage

Biyamiti

• still cut off – no flood damage

Shimuwini

• Still cut off and no flood damage

All other camps north  fine

Access:

• Pafuri E/Gate down to Mopani is fine
• Mopani – Phalaborwa is fine
• Mopani – Letaba is fineLetaba – Phalaborwa is fine
• Letaba – Olifants is fine
• Olifants T-junction to Olifants high level bridge is closed
• Olifants high level bridge – Satara is fine
• Satara – Orpen is fine
• Satara –Tshokwane is fine
• Tskokwane – Skukuza is closed (High level Bridge fine but full of debris – await clearing)
• Crocodile bridge  - Lower Sabie – Skukuza is fine
• Crocodile bridge is closed
• Skukuza- Malelane is fine
• Skukuza –Kruger Gate and Phabeni is closed
• Phabeni – Kruger gate is fine
• Pretoriuskop – Skukuza – closed

All gravel roads South of Letaba River are still closed.

Open Gates:

• Malelane to Berg en DalOrpen to Satara
• Numbi to Pretoriuskop
• Phalaborwa to Letaba
• Phalaborwa to Mopani
• Punda and Pafuri

Further updates will follow. Last updated 12:00 AM.

Issued by:
South African National Parks (SANParks) Communications

Media enquiries:
Reynold “Rey” Thakhuli – GM: Media Liaison & Stakeholder Relations, SANParks Tel:  012 426 5203 Cell: 0733734999 email: rey.thakhuli@sanparks.org

Tourist Enquiries: Glenn Phillips  083 630 4584 or Joep Stevens  082 802 8093

Flood images can be seen on www.news24.com - http://www.news24.com/Multimedia/MyNews24/Kruger-National-Park-is-flooding-20120118-2

Heavy rains have fallen in the Kruger region! Our operations are currently unaffected although this is dependent on roads infrastructure around Skukuza. For updates, follow us on our blog, Facebook or Twitter, or you can contact our offices at +27-11-894-5406.

According to all the reports we have received, the majority of all lodges in the area have been affected with several area of the Kruger National Park are also affected.

Read the SAN Parks official press release for more information on how the park has been affected thus far.

We also had 3 rhino who thought they were ballet dancers and were bouncing around and making the earth move with all that weight. The giraffes, zebra and impala were all still showing face as well as some buffalo. We also saw a few of the smaller creatures like a whole swarm of green milkweed locusts crossing the road and then proceeding to devour everything in their path, as well as some grey tree frogs in the road and by their foam nests. We also saw some african jacanas, black crakes, southern masked weavers and a little bittern.

Today started out slowly with us struggling to find even impala but got kicked up a notch when one of the guests spotted a leopard lying in a huge marula tree. He was just lying around until he spotted some impala in front of our vehicle on the road. He jumped down but then we lost visual and after a while had to give up and move on.

The luck had been switched on as we then had some monkeys with babies, herd of about 25 elephant walking across an open plain, wildebeest with babies, zebra ans 2 rhino. We stopped for a coffee refill at Afsaal and on our way back to camp, we found 3 male lions sleeping on the side of the road. Thanks to a bus making a funny noise, the flat cats lifted their heads and we got a stunning view of them. We also saw a white winged widowbird and some southern red bishops in the river trying to cool down.

But the highlight of the day had to be 2 of our afternoon sightings. We found a python on the road who just sat posing for us and we found the calmest black rhino around. We spent about 20 minutes with him only 20m from us while he was marking his territory and eating the small shrubs off of the floor! It was amazing to see and we felt very privileged being able to see him!”

]]> http://blog.krugerwildlifesafaris.com/recent-sightings/kruger-sightings-14-15-january-2012/feed/ http://blog.krugerwildlifesafaris.com/recent-sightings/kruger-sightings-12-13-january-2012/ http://blog.krugerwildlifesafaris.com/recent-sightings/kruger-sightings-12-13-january-2012/#comments Sat, 14 Jan 2012 14:02:51 +0000 Outlook http://blog.krugerwildlifesafaris.com/?p=866 Kylie’s at it again! “Yesterday afternoon didn’t disappoint after all our awesome sightings. We had an amazing elephant sighting with a huge breeding herd playing in a small water pool right next to the road, throwing water all over themselces as well as each other, and then also a very large elephant bull without a tail in musth, right next to the road.

The zebra, impala, giraffe, klipspringer, rhino and crocodiles were also playing along all showing themselves to us but the highlight for us had to be the pack of wild dogs we saw. There were 16 of them including big puppies and they were just all lying in the road and then as it got cooler they all got energy and starting playing 5 meters from our vehicle. It was an amazing experience especially knowing how lucky we were considering how endangered they are.

Then this morning our luck continued when we were lucky enough to have the big 5 before breakfast. Had a leopard all to our selves just sitting in the bush a few meters off the road and then straight after that we found 6 male lions sleeping but after a while they started moving and we got to experience some lion love between them. We also had a total of 7 rhino and a big herd of buffalo and a couple of breeding herds of elephants.

The highlight of the trip for a lot of people was the dung beetle fight we witnessed. There were 3 males all fighting for one ball of dung and we were all amazed at how strong and vicious they got. Very entertaining!

We also had some cool birds like the southern ground hornbills, european beeeaters and guineafowl with brand new chicks. Another amazing day at the office!

“Every drive has brought many unexpected but amazing sightings over the past 5 days. We have been very lucky in seeing at least one of the big cats in every drive, seeing lions 4 times (including once where 3 big males were walking up the road towards us and stopped about a meter from the vehicle and just stared at us allowing us great shots), 3 leopards with one that was not a happy cat being absolutely covered in mud, and very strangely but very luckily we have seen cheetahs 4 times. This is very strange around the Skukuza area as it is such thick vegetation but we have had sightings of 3 brothers, a lone female and a female with 2 cubs all around this area.

Asides from that we have been seeing a lot of elephants and buffalo, a couple of rhino and lots of plains game. The zebra, wildebeest and impalas have grown in numbers with the ever growing babies who are already starting to look like the adults they are getting so big. The baboons and vervet monkeys have also been up to their crazy antics again, one morning our Land Rover being used by 2 young baboons playing platforms.

The birding is has also been great. We have been seeing amur falcons, tawny eagles, steppe buzzards, yellow-billed kites, and there are even a couple of pale morph Walhbergs around. On the smaller side we’ve had sombre greenbuls, tawny flanked prinias, rattling cisticolas and many many more!

Game viewing in the Kruger National Park took off with a bang! Dylan and his guests had brilliant sightings with the Sabi Sands guests all of the big 5 as well as a pack of wild dog hunting, killing and eating a bush buck! Back in Kruger they were treated to a rare sighting of 3 cheetah being chased towards our game drive vehicle by 3 white rhino! Further sightings include a pride of lion on a buffalo kill loads of plains game and a rare black rhino!

Our groups in the north had very interesting sightings around an elephant carcass near the Nhlanganini Dam. The elephant broke his leg during a fight with another elephant bull and had to be put down by the Park rangers. Although this is very sad, it is part of nature and because of this, several other animals could feed their young. Various types of vultures and several hyenas were spotted.

Further sightings included a couple of lion sightings, including 3 females and a young male stalking a zebra, more hyena, a big herd of around 200 buffalo, several elephant herds and single big bulls, as well as a black backed jackal.  Several herds of plains game are showing off their new born babies and our one group saw a tiny 5cm terrapin on the road at the river.

The southern part of the Park has had a lot of rain, but sightings remains great with all of the big 5 being spotted on several occasions. One group was lucky enough to spot a leopard which was spooked by some guineafowl of all things, while the others had a leopard crossing the road right in front of the vehicle along the Sabie river!

The afternoon drive produced 3 of the big 5, including elephants, white rhino and buffalo.

Next morning got 8 lions lying in the shade pretty close to the road, a brilliant lion sighting. (4 lionesses and 4 sub adults) some great bird sightings and lots of plains game.

The morning drive out the park- Another great leopard sighting in Knob Thorn Acacia, 3 huge old bull elephants in the road, white rhino, buffalo and plains game. A really good hour and a half’s drive with the Panorama Route finishing off another excellent safari!