On Friday afternoon and Saturday morning I went for three drives to the iSimangaliso Wetland Park (on both sides of the Lake St.Lucia estuary, called the Eastern Shores and the Western Shores).
Thanda Safari offers guests a midday excursion for a Hippo and Croc cruise on the Lake and I often take guests for a multi-day-stay to this incredibly diverse National Park. But this time I went all by myself for a bit of time off and some relaxing birding and photography. And I had quite a lot of of very good mammal sightings as well.
This is a short slide show with 24 pictures which I took during the three drives. Enjoy the pictures from this great place!
In case you are interested:
Accommodation:
I overnighted again at Serene Estate Boutique Guest House (my favourite place in St.Lucia). This is where I usually stay with my guests. And on occasion I also use another of my portfolio places called Makakatana Bay Lodge (The only – and very beautiful – 5 star lodge inside the wetland park).
Sightings:
These were the pictures/sighting/species in the slide show (in order of appearance):
Hippopotamus and African Jacana
Yellow-throated Longclaw
Waterbuck
Black-headed Heron
Hippopotamus
Reed Cormorant
Waterbuck and Cattle Egret
African Cuckoo-Hawk
Cape Buffalo
Collared Pratincole
Spotted Hyena
Lesser Masked Weaver
Spotted Hyena
Reed Cormorant
Bushbuck
Brown-hooded Kingfisher
South Africa Giraffe
African Pygmy Kingfisher
Burchell‘s Zebra
Little Egret
Rufous-bellied Heron
Malachite Kingfisher
White-backed Duck
Purple Heron
I also saw (observed, but no good quality images): Saddle-billed Stork, Egyptian Goose, Spur-winged Goose, Yellow-billed Duck, Great Egret, Squacco Heron, Red-capped Robin-chat, Red-billed Oxpeckers, Trumpeter Hornbill, African Wood Owl, Red-breasted Swallow, African Stonechat, Southern Fiscal, Fork-tailed Drongo, White-faced Whistling Duck, Crested Gunieafowl, Crested Francolin, Burchell’s Coucal, Ring-necked Dove, Common Moorhen, Black Crake, Little Grebe, Wattled Lapwing, African Darter, White-breasted Cormorant, Hadeda Ibis, Hammerkop, Speckled Mousebird, African Hoopoe, Dark-capped Bulbul, Southern Boubou, Pied Crow, Rattling Cisticola, Kurrichane Thrush, …
Technical data:
All pictures were taken with one of the following three camera/lens combinations: Canon R6/Canon EF70-200 L f/2.8 – Canon R6/Canon EF500 L f/4.0 – Canon R6/Canon RF800 f/11
Just a few minutes ago I stopped at a Thanda Safari waterhole on my way home and I encounter our oldest Lioness with her new cubs having an evening drink. As cute as it gets! Enjoy your evening.
… is what this Cheetah male would have been thinking if he were human.
One often sees animals limping and usually assumes a dire injury inflicted by predators during a hunt, broken bones, or a gruesome infection from a wound.
But a lot of times, it is just a thorn, of which there are plenty lying around, which get stuck somewhere in the underside of the feet.
And having no fingers does not help. It can take a long while to get the offending piece out, usually by vigorous tongue-licking, as shown in this picture.
With visible relief, he followed his brother across the savanna after his paw was thorn-free again.
There also a few more images from this sighting below. Have a good week!
Technical data: Canon R6 with EF lens f2.8/70-200mm | ISO 6400 | 1/750sec | f2.8 | ev+0 | 200mm | WB 6500K | AV Mode
This afternoon, I returned to Thanda House driving along the reserve fence. This large Giraffe bull did not want to step out of my way as he was ‘air-sparring’ with another bull on the neighboring game reserve. Normally, bulls stand next to one another as they spar or fight by hitting one another, swinging their massive heads.
As these two could not get together, they were swinging at the air! (short video below) I took this eye-level shot as I passed him while he stepped back towards the fence.
[Taken from my Suzuki Jimny with an Apple iPhone 14 Pro Max using the 24mm main camera at Thanda Safari]
Using a very long lens (800mm) from quite a distance away, the shooting angle becomes very shallow, even though I was about a meter (3 feet) above the eye level of the two young males. It is not always possible to get at eye level or below, so a bit of distance helps to get close to a good shooting angle.
Technical data: Canon R6 with RF lens f/11 800mm | ISO 5000 | 1/500sec | EV +0 | WB 6500K | AV Mode | Crop to 80% of the original image
at the edge of an open savanna area just after the sun had set.
While we took pictures of the beautiful orange backlight clouds my tracker Bheki shouted at us to get into the vehicle.
As I turned around a large grey ghost (also called Elephant) was standing about 20 meters away from us. He had appeared Houdini-fashion out of the nearly tree-line without making any sounds.
My guest, who had enjoyed an Amarula on ice just before the unplanned arrival, adhered to my instructions to move slowly but steadily to the vehicle and climbed on.
Bheki had only time to get onto his tracker seat when the large bull arrived at the back of the vehicle, where my coolerbox and hotbox sat in the open back gate.
Our drink stop snacks, cans, glasses, and the Amarula bottle were still on the foldable table on the front of the vehicle.
Bheki grabbed the bottle and I started driving forwards very carefully away from our visitor, without spilling anything from the table.
The Elephant did not follow but chose to continue his walk up the road towards a nearby water hole.
We packed up all our equipment and agreed that we just had a very special adventure!
It was amazing to see how the Elephant’s behavior changed once we were no longer on foot but back on the vehicle. It was another clear demonstration for the difference between the instinctual hostile attitude of Elephants to humans on foot and the learned acceptance of humans as part of a safari vehicle (or any other human-made structure).
The collage shows a picture taken by my guest of the Elli behind us and my picture of Bheki holding the Amarula bottle while we were driving away!
Christian Sperka Photography | Custom Luxury Tours 