The Cape Buffalo - or African Buffalo. It has a far more violent reputation than most of its Asian cousins - especially the Water Buffalo which has been widely domesticated and provides mozzarella for your pizza. This buffalo has never been domesticated. It’s simply too strong and fierce. Of course they start off pretty cute.
A first for me: the eerie Bathawk (if I’m not mistaken). I WAS MISTAKEN. It’s apparently a brown morph Honey Buzzard. Well there you go… Who knows what circumstances in its youth led to an ordinary hawk leading a double life fighting crime in this frightening guise? We’re home after the usual exhausting trip across the country - notwithstanding a wonderful time in Jozi with @sophdex, @ezlemoen, some lovely parents, and many cats and dogs. It took all of one minute in Observatory during which we were both inside for some rando to try steal the lens which this picture was taken with out of the car. He was most offended that I was suggesting that his reaching into the car, opening a bag, and trying to secret the lens under his arm implied that he might have been attempting to steal it. The nerve of me to suggest such a thing! I think he actually believed himself too. ...
Impala Lilies are blooming in The Kruger National Park in spring.
Another very common bird in The Kruger National Park: The Yellow-Billed Hornbill. And again, although they’re everywhere, they’re always fun. So full of arch, suspicious character and long glides just at windscreen level.
It’s not hard to love the warthog. Knee-high to most of the things you see on the savannahs and deserts of sub-Saharan Africa. Tough as nails. Trotting along with their maned and whiskered piglets in a train, their tails up like flags. Or down on their wrists nosing in the dirt. Unlovely but loveable - they’re jaunty endurance in the face of powerful challenges. This, like the last one, was taken in 2012.
Our painted wolf is the most dramatic dog in the world. Like their distant cousins in the frigid North, they’re superb pack hunters. Even at this early age, they learn to work together as the most lethal mammalian hunting team there is. Unfortunately, they have no resistance against canine distemper that inevitably spreads among them from domestic dogs - wiping out entire packs at a stroke and reducing the numbers of this apex predator to a handful. Perhaps one day they’ll figure out a genetic vaccine that can be passed down from mother to pup. This is an old one from December 2012.
A waterbuck bull. It has big horns and a ring around its butt. What’s not to like?
This was the second leopard posing on our drive this afternoon. We only stopped for a few minutes for this one because it was 20 minutes to gate closing. The other one that @withoutaleaf photographed was even more amazing.
There have been heavy rains. We’ve never seen Kruger this green before. Photos can’t convey the glowing, emerald green of parts of the Southern Park. The animals look like they’re in one of those English ‘safari parks.
It’s hot in the Kruger Park. Yesterday was 42 degrees. Today is predicted for 44 (as usual, I have no idea what that is in loony units - join civilization and go metric). Everything we saw on our drive from Malalane to Skukuza was moving slow in the boil. Birds were panting in the trees. If anyone can say what this dark brown eagle is, I’d appreciate it. Brown eagles are my Waterloo. ...