April 12 - Animals Part 3

We were so fortunate to complete seeing the Big Five. Several people on the ship who have done multiple safaris mentioned that they still had never spotted leopards.  Luck was with us, because we spotted leopards 3 of the days we were there.

Some interesting facts about leopards:

•  No two leopards are alike, as the many possible combinations of spots and rosettes, as well as the number, size and position on the body are so varied and unique.  Each Leopard may be identified by the beautiful pattern on its coat. 

• Various adaptations have enabled the leopard to efficiently climb trees, taking its pry up with it.  This enhances its success rate of hanging onto its food by removing it from the reach of its most tenacious competitors - the lion and hyena.

• A tail which is 3/4 of the length of the body allows it to keep its balance when moving about on the branches of a tree.

We came upon this juvenile male leopard quietly sizing up a Cape Buffalo off to his left.  Our guide said juveniles who are no longer being fed by their mothers have to learn what they can tackle or not to feed themselves.  You can see how his coat creates a great camouflage for him.

When he stood up, still checking it out he shows his beautiful coat, but the Cape Buffalo knew the leopard was not a threat

He looked back as another vehicle arrived

Knowing he was out sized, he headed on down the road, right past me in our vehicle!.  I have to admit, I held my breath until he had past by.  The color on a couple of the pictures is different because I was using the I Pad for videos, but I got this great shot.

This gives a good example of how close he was to the vehicles

We circled around him so the folks on the other side of the vehicles could get some good pictures.  Rick got these with his camera and shows the colors better.

What a face!!

The coloring varied so much depending to the amount of sun or shade

We started following him as he walked right down the road like he was leading a parade. Suddenly he stopped, perked up his ears, and starting slowly walking into a grassy, rocky area.

Each movement was so deliberate as he s-l-o-w-l-y crept forward

He had this large Kudu in his sights.  We waited for 15 minutes, thinking maybe we'd witness his victory, but alas, he gave up and just as quietly walked away.  Our guide told us that he probably did not have to expertise yet to take down something that big by himself yet.

April 12 - Animals Part 2

Continuing with the Big Five, we saw lots of the Cape Buffaloes on our drives; including one behind our suite, but it was at night, so we couldn't get a photo.  Our suite looked out at the Sabi River, and served as a water source for lots of animals.

These guys can pretty much go where they want, and healthy, mature ones like this one need only fear a group of lions. Most other predators can not take it down.

We came across this guy being stalked by a hungry juvenile leopard, however, he didn't seem to be worried

We came across this "Senior Citizen" and his "Senior Buddy" after we had driven down a river bank, crossed the dried
river bed, and up the other side of the river bank.  As we came around a corner, there they were.  Our guide said they had
past their prime, but will stay together for companionship as well as safety.  They were huge!

This is his buddy.  They started walking down the road to the clearing you see ahead on the right, then went into the trees.  Don't you hate when slow drivers stay in the left lane!!! (that's Joe, our spotter, in the front seat)

                                                                         RHINOCEROSES!!!!!

We were so excited when we came across this group of rhinos on our last morning drive.  It completed the Big Five for us.
The other truck had spotted them the day before and we wondered why their driver had not radioed our driver of the location.
We found out that this is the one animal they do not communicate about via radio because of poachers who listen in to radio
transmissions.  Poaching rhinos for their horn is a major problem.  We passed trucks of anti-poaching patrols on our drives.  They looked like military patrols and definately not guys you'd want to aggrevate.

The group had several females, a couple males and this adorable?? little girl who was more curios about us than hungry.

Big differnce in size.  They looked like they were wearing dark gray rubber wet suits

This looks like a face-off, but they were just eating in the same area.

These were black rhinos.  To cool off, they wallow in mud.  Luckily, we missed the previous hot days the area had recently
had.  Our 4 days were pleasantly cool, which allowed us to see more animals later into the day.

"Are you looking at me?"

The sassy little lady moved a little father away from the bushes, turned her back to us, then.......

When you gotta go, you gotta go!!!!!

April 11 - Animals!!!!

Our group was divided between 2 vehicles and the drivers communicated when and where

animals were found.  We received a call about a group of elephants that were close to us, so we

hurried over to see them.  There were 8 adults and one "toddler" eating their way through this

area.

Mother and daughter

Elephants eat what they want.

It takes a lot of food to fill up these guys!

Yield to wide loads

And then they were on their way......

When we first came upon this lion, we thought he was dead!  Our guide explained that he is one

of three brothers who had recently killed a buffalo and they gorge themselves for days, then they laze around until they are hungry again.  We watched him for a long time with 3 other vehicles showing up.  Finally he started making a soft, intermittent growling noise, The he lifted his head and made the same noise a little louder.  Our guide said he was probably calling for one of the brothers.  As the growls increased in volume and intensity, we finally heard an "answer", which peaked our lions interest and he rose, looked around at us and started walking towards the noise.  It turned out that the answer was coming from a female who when she saw her Romeo took a submissive stance and the growling continued.  At last she stood and walked away.  He sniffed around where she had been and began following her into the night.  Could there be a wedding in the future????

King of the Jungle????  We were hoping he was still breathing!

Once he wakes up, our lion starts the growling routine

Looking a little more kingly, he finally gets an answer

Now he's off to make a new friend and looked a lot bigger than when he was laying down.  The funny thing was, he never paid a bit of attention to us. You can see a vehicle tire in the upper corner, so you can see how close we all were.

April 11 - Our safari lodge

The airport was only a 30 minute drive from the entrance to our lodge.

Seeing the picture of the Guardhouse reminded me that the name of the

sister lodge is River Lodge, not Earth Lodge.

Lion Sands is inside the Sabi Sands Reserve and where our lodge was located

The guards greeted us with a different dance each time we passed them

This particular dance included music

He was was quite a character 

And.....pointed us the right way!

We were greeted upon arrival 

Our lodge, Fin Foot, is one of 6 suites that make up Lions Sand Ivory Lodge, and was the closest to the main building.

Come on in!  Each suite had an open foyer, with its own infinity pool, living room on the right and bedroom on the left.

Our living room

Our bedroom with indoor and outdoor showers!

The foyer from the open side

A room with a view!

Our view

What a nice touch!

Part of our wildlife

This little guy sat on the top of this wooden pole in our foyer the whole time we were there.  We named him Marvin

The wildlife got bigger.  They liked to drink water from the trough of the infinity pool

This Nyala found loved to hang around our place

This older Nyala enjoyed munching on our bushes. If you look close, right below the white mark at the top of his face, you will see a large wound from his nostril to just under his eye where he was in a fight and an antler from his opponent  ripped up through his nostril.  It didn't seem to bother him, but it looked really bad.

A female Nyala peeking around the corner

I think this was a small bushbok

One of a million Vervet monkeys that kept us entertained

Well, when a fellow's tired, any place will do.  This was the wall around our outdoor shower!!

This baby was a Peeping Tom, looking through our bathroom windows!!