Mockingjay

This post is dedicated pretty much completely to the animals Kaggie and I spotted in our first day in Kruger. Let’s start it off right. We left Karongwe game reserve a little before six. We had not made it out of the reserve yet, and we find our first wildlife: a leopard! It was in the road, scampered off, then stood about 12 feet away just long enough for us to get a good look. Good start.

We saw buffalo on the way into Kruge, and arrived at the boom gate on the Orpen entrance, but before being able to register, we came across two white rhinos fighting! Awesome. They two were also close. 7am has arrived, and already 60% of the big five has been spotted. This is shaping up to be fantastic.

We next fell upon a group of vultures huddled over a carcass. Pretty cool. Then it we discovered that what we thought was one vulture bent over was really the horns of the buffalo they were eating!

We make a turn to go south, and come across all manner of creature: impala, waterbuck, steenbok, giraffe, kudu, vervet monkey, crocodile, hippo, and elephant. Kaggie and I are rocking this park. Then we hit a short dry spell, where not much of anything showed up on our keen wildlife radar (aka our five senses). But we finally came across a group of stop cars looking at something. Lions. Boom. 10am and the big five has been accomplished.

The afternoon went about as equally well. We continued to see everything under the sun, including two more elephant sightings, a rhino, a lion, and some hippos chilling out of the water. We realized late in the day that we had only the leopard left to get the big five for a second time! We searched and searched to no avail. But as we drove home at sunset, we found it. A leopard lying right next to the road (and of course approximately 15 cars attempting to get a good look). Sorted, we got the big five twice in 12 hours. Not too shabby.

We were rewarded on the drive home by a traffic jam. But of course, this traffic jam’s silver lining was seeing another three lionesses relaxing in a sandy portion of a mostly dry river bed. Can life get better? I submit that it cannot.

Here’s some pictures:

bushbuck

ground hornbill