The ABC of the KNP.

[nan]

love, love... Gymnogene
and all this bumps

[Lisbeth]

The Graceful Gymnogene pic is Gorgeous

The Grey elephants are definitely my favourite Gregarious Group

[Flutterby]

Good Golly! A Gymnogene!! I have yet to find one in Kruger!

Just love the little vervet...too cute!

[Richprins]

Garramba!

What Gorgeous pics!

#Gymnogeneforlife

[Pumbaa]

It is always a pleasure for us when spotting a gymnogene, Michele

and that vervet shot is brilliant

[Lisbeth]

"BUMP!"

[Michele Nel]

:) ..believe it or not I am working on another episode..now that I am home from NZ...:)

[Lisbeth]

[nan]

and not a lot of time.... only 2 weeks to pack again the camera

[Michele Nel]

H is for Hornbills, Hamerkops, Happy Hyenas, Hippo’s and Horrible Photos.

Hornbills..have to be the most Humourous birds out. They can keep me entertained for hours especially the ones that tend to hang around the camps. They do tend to get a bit over friendly though and some of them will even join you at the table while eating. We do tend to chase them ....well mostly we do. :) Happily on this trip we were lucky enough to see 5 different species of Hornbills.


Southern Yellow-billed Hornbill

Red-billed Hornbill

African Grey Hornbill

I was especially happy to find a Crowned Hornbill - not only did we find one but we found one that was a right show-off and was happy to pose for photos. This sighting took place on our very last drive out of the park…..but a lifer for me.

Crowned Hornbill

I was also very happy with all our Southern Ground Hornbill sightings….we saw quite a few juveniles which was a first for me as well.

Southern Ground Hornbill catching lunch.

Unfortunately the Trumpeter Hornbill eluded us on this trip.

Another bird I was chasing was the Hamerkop. We saw a few but mostly far away, or it took flight before I could photograph it. Finally I managed to get a photo of one on a night drive from Skukuza - but it definitely falls into the category of Horrible Photos. But all’s I need for Birds Captured is a photo to prove that I have seen it…this one was good enough for that.

Hamerkop

From Horrible photos of Hamerkops to Horrible photos of Happy Hyenas. We didn’t see many Hyenas on our trip…as a matter of fact only two.
The first one we saw running along the road one morning….clearly feeling happy with himself judging by the grin on his face. Took one look at us and disappeared into the bush.



Our second sighting of a hyena was on the night drive …..
I cannot remember which waterhole we were at but this one was having a lovely cooling down session after the heat of the day….definitely a Happy Hyena but definitely a Horrible photo



As for Hippos…well Hippos don’t really excite me. Mostly they are just humongous blobs of lard that spend their entire day just blobbing together in the water and at the most all you can get is a photograph of humongous blob of lard…oh sometimes you manage to photograph an eye or two.



I know it is not all about the photographs ..I can quite happily just sit and watch many kinds of animals without photographing them but hippos really have perfected the art of blobbing and after a photo or two the novelty of watching blobbing hippos wears off a bit. I never have quite managed to capture that classic hippo yawning shot that many folk have…one day is one day ….but in the meantime I have to be happy with my Horrible Photos of a Hippo’s eye. Having said all of that I did feel very sorry for those poor hippos last November. Kruger was dry…sadly lacking water and to see 2-3 hippos scrunched up in a man made waterhole was pitiful. Not sure why I didn’t photograph that ?????