A committee of Vultures – Lappet-faced, White-headed and White-backed – assembling for their afternoon meeting near Crocodile Bridge in the Kruger National Park.
*”Committee” is the collective noun for a group of vultures just sitting around.*
A committee of Vultures – Lappet-faced, White-headed and White-backed – assembling for their afternoon meeting near Crocodile Bridge in the Kruger National Park
This adult Impala ram was followed quite dutifully by his much younger companions, who seemed to hang on his every word like real celebrity groupies would. Seen in September near Crocodile Bridge in the Kruger National Park.
This adult Impala ram was followed quite dutifully by his much younger companions, who seemed to hang on his every word like real celebrity groupies would.
This group of Plains Zebra, seen in September between Crocodile Bridge and Lower Sabie in the Kruger National Park, illustrates perfectly just how well those black-and-white stripes are at breaking the individual animals’ outlines, making it much more difficult for a predator to single out a target.
This group of Plains Zebra, seen in September between Crocodile Bridge and Lower Sabie in the Kruger National Park, illustrates perfectly just how well those black-and-white stripes are at breaking the individual animals’ outlines, making it much more difficult for a predator to single out a target.
The 22nd of September marked the ninth World Rhino Day. We were in the Kruger National Park on the day, appreciating and enjoying the opportunity to see these wondrous creatures in real life in their natural habitat.
Sadly, the scourge of rhino poaching is still very real and present, with South Africa losing a total of 769 rhinos in 2018. While this is an encouraging decline of 25% from the numbers lost in 2017, the war has by no means been won yet. In the first six months of this year, we’ve already lost 318 more rhinos, 190 of which from the Kruger National Park. We continue to rally behind our rangers looking after these animals day and night, placing their lives on the line to ensure the survival of these animals so future generations may also experience the wonder of seeing the grey behemoths walking Africa’s savannas.
We also recently had the opportunity to visit a rehabilitation centre where rhinos injured or orphaned through poaching activities are cared for. It was a sobering experience to say the least; seeing with our own eyes the horrors inflicted on these beings by humankind, and the lengths their caregivers will go to to try and save them.
But we are back now, fresh from another jaunt in the Kruger National Park. It almost goes without saying that there are lots and lots of photos to share and stories to tell over the next few weeks, so let us start off with a little gallery of pictures taken by Joubert to get you all excited for what is to come.
Today is Joubert’s 10th birthday.
Marilize and I thank God for creating Joubert for us and us for him. What more could we need? What a blessing it’s been to watch this bright and beautiful little boy grow up to share our appreciation and deep love for South Africa’s wild places.
Looking back at some photos of him enjoying the great outdoors brings a smile to my face and joy to my heart. Has ten years really flown by so quickly!?
Happy Birthday, Joubert!
Well, if you ask us what makes the Kruger National Park “THE KRUGER”, our answer wouldn’t be the prolific game or birdlife, awesome as that might be. To us, what makes the Kruger National Park special is the wide variety of habitats and scenery where all this life finds a niche to flourish. At almost 20,000km² in size, the Kruger National Park is bigger than some countries, and naturally a piece of land that enormous would encompass many different landscapes and habitats; in fact there are pronounced differences in the scenery as one travels from south to north through Kruger’s 350km length.
This first gallery of images were taken during my solo visit at the end of May to Pretoriuskop and Skukuza in the south of the Park.
The north of Kruger has a quite different character to the southern parts. Here, the Mopane and Baobab trees dominate the landscape, by virtue of their numbers and size, respectively.
This gallery of images were taken during our visit from 15 to 24 June to the northern reaches of the Park (based at Shingwedzi Rest Camp)
When talking about “game-viewing”, most people immediately have images of Africa’s iconic Big Five flashing through their minds. And of course our recent trips to the Kruger National Park did not disappoint at all when it came to these most charismatic of African mammals, as well as many other furry creatures great and small.
This first gallery of pictures were taken during my solo trip to the southern part of the Kruger Park between 30 May and 2 June 2019.
There’s also much interest in the Kruger’s invertebrates (including a bounty of beautiful butterflies), fish, amphibians and reptiles, many of which are difficult to see elsewhere in South Africa.
Returning to Kruger two weeks later, this time to Shingwedzi in the north of the Park, proved just as fruitful with memorable encounters not only with predators and rare antelope, but also a menagerie of other mammalian species.
With over 500 species recorded, the Kruger National Park deserves its reputation as one of South Africa’s finest bird-watching destinations through and through. We’ve already shown you the cute little Spurfowl chicks that strutted all over the Park during our visits in May and June this year, but there was so much more feathered variety to point our lenses at that it surely deserves a dedicated post!
This first gallery of images were taken in the south of the Park on my solo trip to Pretoriuskop and Skukuza – all in all I ticked 110 species in the 4 days I spent south of the Sabie River.
Two weeks later, this time with Marilize and Joubert alongside, we headed to the north of the Kruger Park, basing ourselves at our favourite Shingwedzi for 9 nights, during which time we recorded 99 species of birds.
DeWetsWild 