Author: bushsnob

Spot the beast 86

We spotted this beast during our journey through the Mphongolo Loop (S56). In fact, it was found by my wife Mabel and I am still trying to understand how she did it. As they say in this part of the world, she has a “trained eye” and never ceases to surprise me.

This is what she saw and I promise that it was still much further away from us than what the picture shows! She assures me that she is able to see a tail movement or the flicking of an ear! It took me a while to find it!

The picture below may be of help before I reveal it…

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If you still have not managed, that is the spotted beast spotted!

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The young leopard was enjoying its life and we managed to watch it on our own for about an hour before another car joined us. An almost impossible feat in the Kruger National Park.

I think that of all our leopard sightings, I can claim credit for one. It was a male leopard that was lying sunning itself a couple of metres from the car and on my side of the road.

The above sighting was so nice that my next post will be a slide show of the pictures we took. I hope you will enjoy them.

Curious night visitor

Most camps in Zimbabwe are unfenced or, if fenced, the wires are missing, allowing most animals to go through.

Usually, while camping, we place a camera trap to know what goes around camp after sunset. I have posted some of the results earlier (https://bushsnob.com/2022/09/24/night-visitors/ and https://bushsnob.com/2017/10/25/night-visitor/).

We try to place the camera pointing at a used wildlife path that nocturnal animals are likely to use, usually on the way to the water.

Probably because they smell different, camera traps attract attention from some of the passing animals as it happened in this occasion.

We were camping at the Masuma dam picnic site, one of our favourite places in the Hwange National Park where a new fence had just been placed in an effort to separate campers from large mammals. So, as usual, before midnight, we retired to bed after placing our camera pointing at a path that followed the fence towards the dam. “That should be a good spot.” I remember commenting with my son. It was…

In the early hours of the morning, apart from the usual hyena calls, a lion started to roar nearby, a futile effort to compete with the louder noise the elephants were making at the water edge closer to the camp.

The following morning we went to collect the camera and it was not there! We searched for it until we found it a few metres away from its original place. The strap had been chewed and the protective carcass was cracked! We collected the pieces and, anxious to look at its memory card, we returned to camp.

It took a bit of study to understand what had taken place. (The first 4 pictures are stills from the short videos taken by the camera).

First sign. Dust that indicates that an animal walks past.

The camera being moved.

Camera still in movement and the culprit appears briefly.

The camera is dropped on the floor and lies pointing towards the fence.

Although the camera was on the ground by now, the unmistakingly shape of a lion flank can be seen. The animal moves from top to bottom.

Finally, we recovered the camera. Luckily, we managed to recover the memory card and reconstruct the events that had taken place.

We have camped in this same spot for several years without nocturnal incident showing once again that tents are safe.

Spot the beast(s) 85

Our favourite drive while in the northern Kruger National Park is the Mphongolo Loop (S56) that goes between Shingwedzi Rest Camp and Babalala Picnic Site It is about 30 km and, as its name indicates, follows the Mphongolo River, a major tributary of the Shingwedzi.

The road passes through various habitats where different wildlife can be found. In some places the river does not have any surface water (although it may still run under the sand) while in others, particularly when the terrain becomes hillier, water accumulates in waterholes that attract good amount of wildlife.

Below is what we found in one of these river bends that I believe was the Ribye waterhole.

A picture of the view:

We stopped the car and watched, enjoying the moment. After a while, we noted that we have missed some other beasts that were also present, apart from the crocodiles…

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The above picture should help…

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However, the following will leave no doubts…

At some stage, while entertained watching the action in the water edge closer to us, a movement caught our eyes in the rocks further away. We saw a flash of pink and realized that the rocks were in fact a pod of hippo. They had been there all the time, lying quietly enjoying the sunshine and too lazy to move to the point that their exposed bodies were dry!

Vegetarian crocodiles

Sometimes there is such proximity between crocodiles and possible prey that makes me think that some members of the species do not eat meat!. Here are a couple of examples:

Perhaps the crocodile knew that stork meat tastes awful?

But there are other examples where crocs have ignored other potential prey.

Buffalo-crocodile interaction

I am sure buffalo meat is good for crocs but probably they were too full to bother them that day.

Poaching scar

The waterhole at Punda María Rest Camp, in the Kruger National Park, is a great way of enjoying a sundowner while watching the elephant activities and, with luck other night animals as well.

Among many elephants, one appeared to have a kink in its trunk.

Unsure of the reason, we waited for a long while until it got closer and we could have agood look at it.

It was clear to us that unfortunately the animal had been sneared and luckily for it, although injured, it managed to break free before more severe, probably lethal damage was done.

Although when sucking in water it leaked some, judging by the size of the animal, it had adjusted to its injury and managed to live a fairly normal life.

However, the sight was a grim reminder of the horrors of poaching.

What on earth!? (34) – Impundulu

The impundulu (a Zulu word), known in Zimbabwe as Kondo (a Shona word) is one of the best-known lightning birds in Zulu mythology. This bird is no other than the hamerkop or hammerkop (Scopus umbretta) (1).

Why this rather inconspicuous bird had been given this status escapes my understanding. However, it is believed that it is able to summon thunder and lightning with its wings and talons.

The (for me) greatest wildlife film maker Alan Root made a documentary that he called “The legend of the lightning bird, Hamerkop, the king of all African birds” (2) and I always wondered about the name he used. Now I know.

Despite being a medium sized bird, unique member of the family Scopidae and a relative of pelicans, they are well known for building several very large nests during the year. This is an enormous task for a bird of this size as each nest can weigh up to 50kg and it takes over one month to build!

During one of the drives near the Olifants river we came across a really humongous nest, larger than any other hamerkop nest we have seen before. In doubt we consulted one of the rangers at Letaba Rest camp who assured us that it was indeed built by the impundulu and that it was the largest he had seen.

(1) Other lightning birds include the ground hornbill and the secretary bird.

(2) See: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ijA_oYfr99U&ab_channel=ShacharGelbart (maybe include it in the post?)

What on earth?! (33) – Small mystery

While having lunch at one of the more remote camps at Kruger National Park (if such a thing exists!), we detected some strange behaviour by the servers. Every now and then they appeared to be taken pictures at a spot on the roof of the restaurant.

Discreet approaches to the area (with the excuse of visiting the toilet) failed to reveal any apparent valid reason for that interest!

We debated a few possibilities such as creatures appearing and disappearing allowing a few seconds for a picture and, the most likely though not less weird that there was a “signal spot” for the credit card machine. We confirmed the latter when our time came to pay the bill and our waitress inserted our credit card in the machine and went to take another picture!

We have seen this strange behaviour of the telephone signal in several places, a tree, a spot on the road or even an empty container positioned on a tree or gate where the telephone should be inserted to download or send messages. Trying to get a signal a few centimetres away will not work so you need to join the queue!

What on earth!? (32) – Baboons!!!

The worst problem while camping or staying at lodges in southern Africa are not the lions or the elephants but the vervet monkeys and the baboons.

The Kruger National Park has taken a number of measures to protect the visitors including leaflets and extra locks in the doors as well as reinforced rubbish bins.

Some of these measures work but some do not.

The problem is getting more serious as baboons, apart from raid your car, tent or bungalow looking for food they increasingly use their brute force to open doors, fridges and “animal-proof” dust bins!

What on earth!? 31 – Butterfly corner

There is a very old garden umbrella at a corner of our patio. Nothing special to us. However, although our patio offers different possible habitats (shader, more humid, sunnier, etc.) it seems to be special to butterflies that congregate only there.

The Garden Commodore or Garden Inspector (Precis archesia) a common butterfly exhibits aggregation behaviour, believed to obey to seasonal changes and survival. They tend to overwinter in large groups during the cooler winter months (April to August), apparently to conserve heat (I am not sure how they do this). In our case, the numbers perched on the umbrella vary between 6 and 12 and they are the dry season type.

They like enclosed, dark, or shielded environments to cluster together and they are seen aggregating inside houses behind curtains or tucked away inside garden tool sheds.

Dry season form.

The temperature they experience during they pupal stage determines which colour pattern and wing shape the butterflies will have. The colours are so different as to make you think that they are different species.

The wet season variation is shown below. The picture credit is of Diego Delso, delso.photo, License CC BY-S

What on earth!? (30) 

I remember these “lorry-buses” as a common feature in Zimbabwe in the 90´s. A heavy-duty tractor unit (horse) pulling a large passenger coach as a trailer.

I always found them an interesting vehicle and I managed to get a bad picture of one the other day, before they disappear forever!

Checking on their origin and history, these buses were born in the 1920´s in Europe and North America to economize on the cost of moving people based on the principle that it was cheaper to pull rather than carry a weight! They became very popular during WWII as factories were making military vehicles and truck “horses” (tractors) were available. To this, passenger “boxes” were attached. Below is an example of a similar vehicle used by the Royal Air Force at the time (Royal Air Force official photographer, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons).

Before being adopted in Zimbabwe, the idea was widely used in South Africa as early as the 1950´s and then it came to Zimbabwe in the 1980´s. They were used to transport migrants to major cities and the state-run Zimbabwe Omnibus Company (ZUPCO) moved thousands of workers daily from townships to industrial areas.

Three main features secured their long-term use: (i) the possibility of replacing only the truck (horse) in case of breakdown by unhitching the passenger trailer and attaching it to another one or even a commercial truck; (ii) their resisteance to some of the rough roads and; (iii) being a practical and low cost answer to vehicle shortages.

Note after publication: I have just learnt from WordPress that this post unlocked an achievement as being a Palindrome Post!!!

I did not know what this was but it applies also to text such as Was it a car or a cat I saw? that can be read forward or backward. I give you a reference as it is interesting. https://www.merriam-webster.com/wordplay/fun-palindromes-list