Following on from my last Kruger blog, it was time to leave Sirheni in the north of Kruger, and head to our next port of call, Letaba rest camp, which wasn’t too far away, so we took a slow drive down the dirt roads to see what we could find. First sighting was a large pride of lions, not far from Sirheni, resting in a dried up river bed at dawn. The minute we pulled up the vehicle, they scattered and were extremely skittish which is not normal for Kruger. They are not normally this worried about vehicles. We counted 13 lions, 7 of which were cubs. We think the mothers were just on high alert, coupled with the fact that we are in the north, and there are a lot less cars, so they were less used to seeing vehicles.
The theme seemed to be cubs, and as we past Shingwedzi, we saw this female Cheetah across the river with her 4 grown up cubs. Another outstanding animal to see, considering there are only 120 cheetah in the whole park. Other sightings of note along the S50 from Shingwedzi, were a pair of African Hawk Eagle nest building, 2 young hippos fighting, and a male and female lion resting in the shade.
4 Young Cheetah learning from their mother.
We checked into Letaba Restcamp and then did a sunset drive in our own vehicle around the local loops. We saw a large herd of elephants, in which 2 young bulls were play fighting, practicing for when they leave the herd.
Young bull elephants play fighting with intent
Crested Barbet
Sunrise at Letaba
We got back to basecamp but we were then booked onto a night drive organised by SANparks, with interesting sightings including this Verreaux’s Eagle-owl perching in a dried up river bed.
Verreaux’s Eagle-owl near Letaba
But actually, the best sighting of the night drive was when we got back to our rooms. This beauty of Thick-tailed bushbaby at point blank range, trying to pretend he was minding his own business. We turned the lights off and allowed him to escape into the night.
Thick-tailed Galago
The next morning we were on a morning walk with the armed guides from Letaba. These are really interesting activities as they take you out into the middle of the bush and walk deep into the wild to see what we find. Obviously this is big five country so they are armed just in case anything really bad happens but they rarely have to use their weapons. I have done countless walks and come across all sorts of stuff in the past including charging rhino. But this walk was very much about the small interpretations such as animals tracks and dung. Then whilst having lunch we were trying to ID a distant martial eagle, then 2 lions ran out from the tree underneath it after hearing our voices. It makes it all the more interesting when you are a foot and more vulnerable.
Baby giraffe
We only had a short stay at Letaba, and in the morning we headed south, with a quick half our stop on the Balule bridge over the Olifants river to see if we would be lucky enough to catch a glimpse of a Pel’s fishing owl. No such luck, but we did have some nice close views of Pied Kingfisher, Water thick-knee, Wire-tailed Swallow, and Green-backed Heron.
We carried on down the S90 and weirdly enough we saw some armed rangers, near a small river crossing. They pointed in the direction of some lions that had just ran off. But more interesting to me was the fact that I saw some rangers in the exact same spot at the same time last year. But even more bizarre, there was a Verreaux’s Eagle-owl behind them, in the exact same tree as I saw them last year when I saw the other rangers. It was like deja vu!. But clearly the owls roost there all the time and the rangers must patrol this route all the time.
Verreaux’s Eagle-owl
Moving further south, we came across another conundrum. This young hyena with a full Kudu kill, with no other predators around. I really don’t think this hyena killed the Kudu, as it was really shy and timid. There is also no way this small hyena would scare off a lion or leopard, and it was bizarre how no other hyenas were around with so much fresh meat. Maybe a roadkill? I will never know, but one thing is for sure, there would have been some drama later in the day over the meat, but sadly, we didn’t have time to hang around.
Pushing south now towards Lower Sabie, we had plenty more plains game, more distant lions, Black-chested and Brown Snake-eagles, Yellow-bellied Greenbul, Black-shouldered Kites and this weird looking melanistic Mourning Dove at Tshokwane Picnic site.
Melanistic Mourning Dove
Yellow-bellied Greenbul
Zebra Foal
Big Bull Elephant
