Tag Archives: wildlife

Summer at uMkhuze

uMkhuze Game Reserve, in the iSimangaliso Wetland Park and World Heritage Site, was the third destination of our epic summer 2014 bush holidays. We arrived at uMkhuze’s western gate, Emshopi, on the 18th of December, after an easy 164km drive from Ithala Game Reserve. Our reservation was for three nights in an extremely spacious cottage at Mantuma Rest Camp. When we say “extremely spacious”, we are not lying; you could have held a dance in the lounge!

Mantuma, uMkhuze, December 2014

We’ve already shared with you our experiences at two of uMkhuze’s biggest attractions, the Nsumo Pan and Kumasinga Hide, and in this post we’ll focus on some of the things we saw in the rest of this unique reserve.

Nsumo magic

Zebra reflections at Kumasinga

Of the bat, it has to be said that uMkhuze is one of South Africa’s best known birding destinations. The variety of birds is absolutely staggering, thanks to the diversity of habitats the reserve protects, and we were lucky to add a couple of new “lifers” to our birding tick list.

European Honey Buzzard

Broad-billed rollers

Cattle egret

Purple-crested Turaco

uMkhuze protects a sizable piece of sand forest, a very rare plant community in South Africa. An equally rare little antelope, the suni, lives only within this habitat. We had several sightings of them, but getting even a half-decent photograph of these shy creatures proved very difficult!

A pair of suni in the sand forest

We also had our first sightings of large predators (on this trip) at uMkhuze. Lions were reintroduced to the reserve a year ago, and we were thrilled to find two females during a guided night drive. On our last afternoon at uMkhuze, we found a very shy spotted hyena lurking in the bush.

Lions at uMkhuze (18122014)

Spot the spotted hyena!

uMkhuze protects large populations of other well-known African mammals and they certainly were not shy to show themselves!

There seemed to be impala lambs around every corner at uMkhuze

Plains zebras

White rhinoceros

Don’t mess with a black rhino

Blue wildebeest

Grey duiker

Radio-controlled warthogs

uMkhuze has its fair share of creepy-crawlies too!

Colourful spider

Red Toad at home outside our cottage

Common Tropical House Gecko outside the bathroom window

I’ve already mentioned what a diverse reserve uMkhuze is, and there’s no better place to see this than from the top of the observation tower just a few kilometers south of Mantuma Rest Camp.

Atop the observation tower

A view towards the Lebombos

Acacia flowers

There’s beautiful specimens of the fever tree at uMkhuze

uMkhuze really is a gem in the crown of South Africa’s wild places, and we always enjoy visiting here. Leaving through the Ophansi Gate on uMkhuze’s eastern boundary we felt like we should have stayed a bit longer still, thankfully we could console ourselves by thinking about the great destinations that were still waiting for us on our summer trip to the bush!

Driving through the riverine forest at Ophansi Gate

Driving into the riverine forest at Ophansi Gate

Scale

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The Elephant Hall in Letaba Rest Camp, in the Kruger National Park, allows a deeper appreciation of just how big the African elephant really is…

Inside Letaba’s Elephant Hall

Lifesize statue outside Letaba’s Elephant Hall

Inside Letaba’s Elephant Hall

“Scale” is the theme for this week’s WordPress Photo Challenge

In the pound seats at Kumasinga

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The fantastic Kumasinga Hide is one of the uMkhuze Game Reserve‘s major attractions. The hide is built in the middle of a natural-looking waterhole and offers uninterrupted views and excellent photographic opportunities right around. During our visit to uMkhuze in December 2014 we spent several hours every day at the hide, enthralled by the spectacle of literally hundreds of animals and birds making their way to the water to slake their thirst in the oppressive summer heat.

Best to look over your shoulder every now and then while walking to the hide!

uMkhuze’s Kumasinga Hide

Spectator

Even beneath the hide there’s action!

Rush hour at Kumasinga

Nervous impala

Nyalas are very common patrons at Kumasinga

Nyala bulls coming for a drink

Nyalas are very common patrons at Kumasinga

Nyalas drinking

Red-billed quelea

Fork-tailed drongo dropping in for a drink

Emerald-spotted wood dove

Warthog spa treatment

Blue wildebeests slaking their thirst

Zebr and wildebeest sharing the waterhole

Thirsty zebra

New to the waterhole

Zebra reflections

Marsh Terrapins basking in the sun

We have lots more to share from our uMkhuze visit, so please join us again next week!

The magic of Nsumo Pan

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uMkhuze Game Reserve, in the iSimangaliso Wetland Park, has a lot to offer any nature lover, no matter where their interests lie. One of the reserve’s biggest drawcards is the Nsumo Pan, a large body of water fed by the Mkuzi River. Nsumo is home to breeding pink-backed and great white pelicans, hippos and crocodiles, among the huge variety of birds and animals that live along its reed and fever-tree lined shores. The reserve authorities have made it really easy to enjoy Nsumo’s magic: a tar road skirts a part of its northern banks, there are two bird-viewing platforms at the water’s edge and a beautiful picnic site with clean ablutions and braai (barbeque) facilities.

The vast expanse of Nsumo Pan

Goliath heron

Pink-backed Pelican at dawn

Pink-backed Pelican in flight

Hippos at rest in Nsumo Pan

Hippo highway leading from the water

Crocodile lurking in the water

the road along Nsumo Pan

One of the bird-viewing hides at Nsumo

Nsumo picnic site

Nsumo magic

We have lots more to share in upcoming posts about our December visit to uMkhuze Game Reserve 😀

Summer at Ithala

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There’s just something so very special about Ithala Game Reserve that causes us to return year after year. Maybe it is the spectacular scenery or the amazingly diverse wildlife. Maybe it’s the friendly, hospitable staff members that makes us feel so welcome. Whatever the reason (and we suppose it has to be the entire package), there was no way we couldn’t include Ithala in the itinerary of our “summer in the bush” December holidays.

Ithala’s only 197km from Chelmsford Nature Reserve, and we arrived in the morning of the 15th of December under heavily laden skies. In fact, we’d see very little sunshine during our three night stay in comfortable Ntshondwe, Ithala’s award-winning resort.

Ntshondwe, Ithala, December 2014

The reserve has a good network of all-weather gravel roads, and the rain did not interfere with our game-viewing to any large degree, although we weren’t able to enjoy quite as many picnics as we had hoped to. While we didn’t have any sightings of the predators that roam Ithala’s diverse habitats (mostly at night) on this trip, the numerous herds of large herbivores were a sight to behold.

Grey duiker

Kudu

White rhinoceros

Juvenile giraffe

Kudu

Impala lambs

Red Hartebeest

Tsessebe in Ithala Game Reserve

Tsessebe Bull

Blue wildebeest

Steenbok

Plains zebras

Eland

Kudu

Mountain Reedbuck

Waterbuck posteriors

Kudu cow

Ithala 15122014

The elephants at Ithala are shy and seldomly seen, so we count ourselves very lucky to have had two sightings of them on this trip. One sighting was of a big herd near Ngubhu Picnic Site, moving along a drainage line some distance away. The second sighting however was a thrilling affair as we happened upon two young bulls right in the road, near gate closing time, around a bend between the Ngulumbeni Loop and camp. One of the bulls hightailed it deep into the bush as soon as we appeared around the corner, but his companion decided to give us a good show for quite a while, not prepared to relinquish his spot on the road to let us pass.

Whenever there was a break in the rain, we’d undertake short walks around Ntshondwe, enjoying the opportunity to get closer to some of Ithala’s smaller and more delicate inhabitants.

Eastern Olive Toad

Tiny Raucous Toad

Millipede

Sickle Bush flowers

(Unidentified) Emperor Moth

Barberton Girdled Lizard

CMR Blister Beetles

Dassie

Shy bushbuck ewe

Ntshondwe walkway

Dung beetle with his bounty

Ithala in summer is a bird-watcher’s delight, and even us, relatively novice “twitchers”, managed to seek out and identify a wide variety of the reserve’s feathered denizens, despite the mostly inclement weather.

Rufous-naped Lark

Blue crane

Black-winged Kite

Hamerkop

Steppe Buzzard

Reed cormorant

Black-winged Kite

Black-bellied bustard

We’ve no idea how this domestic goose made it into the reserve!

Ostrich male swallowing something large

Before leaving Ithala for uMkhuze Game Reserve, we took a short, final early morning drive towards the gate and Onverwacht Loop, and were rewarded for our effort by a herd of giraffe moving serenely along the horizon, dark clouds and the sun struggling to break through providing a dramatic background to the scene.

Giraffes on the horizon

Reason enough to return to Ithala? Absolutely! Not that we need an excuse, this place has had us under its spell for so long we won’t be able to stay away.

Express Yourself

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What is this white rhino trying to tell us?

White rhinoceros

“Express yourself” is the theme for this week’s WordPress Photo Challenge

Fight for dominance

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We were fortunate to witness these two plains zebras settling a dispute at Ithala Game Reserve, during our recent summer visit there. They were so close to our vehicle we almost felt every bite and kick they dealt one another…

Ithala fight for dominance

The Oribi

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Ourebia ourebi

The long-legged oribi (oorbietjie in Afrikaans) is a small antelope, and one of the most special wildlife sightings you could hope for in South Africa.

They stand only between 50 and 65cm high at the shoulder, and weigh around 14kg. Only the males carry the sharp little horns that average between 10 and 13cm long.

These dainty antelope have very specific habitat requirements, preferring grasslands and floodplains with just the correct mix of short (for grazing) and long (for hiding) patches of grass. They also have very specific preferences as to the type of short grasses they feed on and, while they often occur near water, do not appear to drink very regularly, if at all.

Oribis are the most social of the smaller antelope species; the most commonly encountered grouping being a single territorial ram with up to four adult ewes and their lambs.

Oribi grazing next to the Kamberg Road

Oribi rams are territorial, and the family groups are extremely reluctant to leave their home ranges, even when being pursued (they prefer sprinting short distances to hide in long grass). For this reason, they suffer more than most dwarf antelope from predation and poaching. In South Africa, most lambs are born in the summer months of November and December and remain hidden for up to 4 months before they join their mother’s family group. They have a natural lifespan of 8 to 13 years.

Today, the oribi is one of South Africa’s most endangered mammals, although in many other parts of Africa they are still quite numerous. Their favoured grassland habitat is prime for farming and thus getting ever scarcer and more fragmented, while illegal hunting with dogs is a further risk to their continued survival. Nevertheless, a substantial portion of the population still occurs on private land, and the Oribi Working Group’s annual census is an important tool to establish population sizes and trends.

South Africa’s biggest single population of oribi occurs in the Chelmsford Nature Reserve in Kwazulu-Natal Province. Chelmsford was the first destination on our recent summer holidays in the bush, and we’ll soon share more about our latest visit there with you.

Magnificence embodied

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This must surely rank as one of the most special wildlife encounters we’ve ever had.

We came across this beautiful black rhino cow and her two younger companions (at least one, maybe both, her calves) in December in one of the game reserves we visited on our summer trip to the bush. It was an overcast evening, with the little available light fading fast and perfectly accentuating the cow’s aggressive temperament, so characteristic of the species.

Long may she reign over her piece of African wilderness.

(click on any of the images to view them in a bigger format gallery)