Our luck has continued over the last couple of days with absolutely unbelievable sightings! The heat has been almost unbearable making the afternoons a little quieter, but all the early mornings have been paying off!

We have seen the ‘big 5′ many times over, a lot of plains game, beautiful birds and even the reptiles and insects have been keeping us busy!

A total of 8 leopards have been seen - 2 in one day, 3 the next including one hunting impala, a mating pair the next, then a lone male lounging in a marula tree. The lions have been harder to locate lately but we have had beautiful sightings - 2 females in the road, a female soaking up the sun in a riverbed, 4 females playing together early one morning and then 5 young males later that same morning hunting giraffe unsuccessfully!

We were also lucky enough to spot 2 male cheetahs in an open area but they disappeared into the shadows when they spotted some impala. I have heard about a female with 4 small cubs in the same area so finding them is my mission at the moment!

The elephant herds are getting larger as the small family groups are joining up due to the abundance of food, and with this we are getting lovely sightings! With the heat they are absolutely loving the many waterholes around and giving us great photo ops with them playing in the water!

We have been very lucky seeing black rhino twice, once a big male was right next to the road, feeding just after his daily mudbath and the second was a sight I never thought I would see. We found 2 rhinos quite far into an open clearing and upon looking at them for a while I realised there was something wrong with the picture. I looked very closely and realised it was a black and white rhino moving together! I was completely in shock! It was amazing to see how these 2 completely different animals didn’t mind each other at all. But it was amazing to be able to show my guests the differences in plain view rather than trying to explain with no reference! It was amazing!

With the heat lately the reptiles are moving around a lot more and we have seen a lot of tree agamas, giant plated lizards and this morning we saw a huge boomslang and a small black mamba crossing the road!

The bugs have also been around, much to the guests dismay. Our one guest, who was not scared of the normal snakes and spiders like we usually get, was absolutely petrified of grasshoppers and we had many a laughs as they just loved her!!

The birds have also been loving the insects and abundance of other food and we have been seeing a lot of beautiful ones. We have had the lesser spotted eagle, African scops owlet, striped kingfisher, juvenile malachite kingfisher, green backed herons, yellow billed kites, lesser masked weavers, and the rowdy red billed buffalo weavers! Counting at least 55 species, without event really trying to spot any!

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This entry was posted on Monday, February 20th, 2012 at 1:18 pm and is filed under Birding, Kruger Park wildlife, Recent sightings. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.

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