Makalali Game Reserve - Week 3

It's hard to believe but week three at Makalali Game Reserve has come-and-gone. The good news is that I finally saw a leopard...actually three leopards...a momma and her two cubs. The bad news is that I got almost no clear/clean images of them. This was do partly because of my mistakes and partly because of external factors, like people in the vehicle moving around so much that it was close to impossible to hold the camera steady. But I did manage to get a few good shots like this one: 

If you're a leopard fan, you should see some of Pat's great leopard shots (at patgower.blogspot.com). Now if we can just find a leopard-in-a-tree this last week.

Two days before we saw the leopard we had four lions walk right by the vehicle. What made this interesting is that the vehicle's started quit working and once the lions had passed, we had to get out and push it to get it started again. One thing that you don't want to do here is be outside of your vehicle when lions are around. Here's one of the images I took when this happened:

This week was filled with excitement...even though it's still quite hot here during the day, we were still able to see numerous animals. So here goes:

White-faced Ducks

Leopard Tortoise

Blacksmith Lapwing

 Every day this female warthog brings her babies to eat grass in our front yard

Giraffes in the sun

Purple-crested Turaco - I've been trying to get a decent image of this gorgeous bird for weeks now...unfortunately this is as close as I've gotten so far. Maybe next week I'll be lucky and see him close-up...at least enough to get an image that does him justice. 

Crested Barbet

European Bee-eater

We saw a few bull elephants this past week...which is always exciting.

Giraffes at sundown

Foam-nest Frog

 Whitebacked Vulture

Redbilled Oxpecker hitching a ride on a giraffe 

One of the many river crossings at Makalali

I saw this lizard by the truck and took his image...but what type it is, I have no idea.

Bateleur

 This is an immature Red-billed Oxpecker. When he's older his bill will turn red.

Steenbok

If you ever find yourself in the African bush and happen to see this...it's time you make some quick excape plans...

...because of the "Big 5" (leopard, lion, cape buffalo, rhinoceros, and elephant), Cape Buffalo are responsible for more deaths and/or serious injury than all the others.

Yellow-billed Hornbills showing a display that basically is saying to other hornbills..."Listen bub, this is my tree so don't try to come and sit here". 

 

...and my Favorite of the Week:

I took this image of this 3' Boomslang as he was climbing through the trees. At first we thought it was a Black Mamba...but decided that it was indeed a Boomslang...the most venomous snake in South Africa.  As I'm sure you can imagine, we gave it a wide berth.

So that's it for this week's blog. Did you find an image-or-two that you liked? It's hard for me to imagine that I'm down to my final week in South Africa...I guess it's that old adage, "...how time flies when you're having a good time". Until next time, be safe and take plenty of images.