At the start of today’s morning game drive we found ourselves in the middle of Thanda’s herd of Cape Buffalo …
… Then we watched a herd of Elephants drinking at a waterhole and …
… at the end tracked down the North Pride of Lions (the images shows a young male at his morning cleaning routine).
Three out of five – a good morning!
What a day – During today’s evening game drive we saw all the Big Five – Lion, Leopard, Elephant, Rhino and Buffalo. The Thanda guests were delighted – and so was I 🙂
Imagine you are a Lion!
You are feeding on a Zebra kill and you had already a lot to eat. So it is a bit hard to move with your full belly. And just as you feel ready for a snooze a herd of Buffalo is crashing the dinner site of your family. They chase all of you around a bit.
You climb a tree and find out that the tree you chose was not high enough.
You growl at the Buffalo and they get even more agitated than they already were.
At the right moment you jump out of the tree and you flee to the next tree.
There you wait until the annoying bulls and cows are gone.
Only then can you re-join your other eight family members (coming down from other trees) to continue the meal and the now well deserved snooze.
Not your best day!
A very special sighting at Thanda Private Game Reserve 🙂
Well, this Thanda Cape Buffalo bull was very keen to mate with one of the cows. But she not was not very willing to oblige 🙂
He chased her all over the place, up a hill, down a hill and even straight through a waterhole. At the end she fended off the unwelcome attention successfully.
Have a good weekend!
Today’s images shows the impact of the very heavy summer rains this season. The grass on the Thanda savanna is so high that even Buffalo are difficult to spot.
At the end of an eventful game drive the herd of Cape Buffalo moved towards a waterhole.
This little Cape Buffalo calf obviously does.
Mud baths are used by many mammals to help them to cool down in Summer, protect them from the sun and deter insects from being too friendly 🙂
This little bull was looking for his mum, hence the puzzled expression on his face. He found her very soon after I took this picture.
Have a good weekend.
Today’s Thanda morning and afternoon game drives were amazing.
We sat for almost an hour in between a herd of Elephants while they were feeding, playing and sparring around the vehicle. We watched Lions on a kill and drinking at a waterhole. We found a White Rhino mum and her calf and we encountered a herd of Buffalo while we were looking for the Rhinos.
I got many good shots today but my favorite picture is of this Cape Buffalo bull running down the road looking for his herd. He was quite far away from the herd at the time and obviously was a bit worried about catching up 🙂
Yesterday evening we spent the sunset time next to our largest waterhole watching Cape Buffalo having their evening drink stop.
A great way to end a game drive with Giraffe, Sun Spider, Cheetah, Wild Dog, Yellow-billed Kite, Leopard Tortoise, Tawny Eagle, Lions and Cape Buffalo.
This Buffalo cow enjoyed her “tick cleaning treatment” given by the Red-billed Oxpeckers. The small birds live in a symbiotic relationship with the large ruminants. The Buffalo provide the ticks and the Oxpeckers the relief.
These Red-billed Oxpeckers take a ride on the back of a Buffalo bull. His tail almost reached the birds when he was swiping it across his back. The bird with the black beak is an Oxpecker chick waiting for some food delivery from the adults 🙂
Have a good Sunday!
Christian Sperka Photography | Custom Luxury Tours 