Camera - Action!

I have just returned from another tour with very dear tourists, who got to know our country as actively "inhabited" by a great variety of wild life - so the resulting photos often "incorporated" more than only one animal species: in this case a Helmeted guineafowl next to a "lazy" crocodile.

Since eagles were mainly the "subject" during my 2 previous blog-entries, I was excited to see this one right in the road in the Kruger National Park, although we were deeply sorry to see that its victim was an indigenous Tree squirrel - but which eagle is it? According to its "colouring", perhaps a Snake or a Tawny eagle?

Only when it took off with its prey onto a nearby branch did we see white wing-feathers as well as what suddenly looked more black than brown plumage - certainly not "part" of the above-mentioned eagles.


As I've mentioned before (in another blog-entry) identifying juvenile eagles is rather difficult if an adult isn't close "at hand", because it sometimes takes a few years before juvenile eagles are "adorned" with adult plumage. So this one turned out to be a juvenile Bateleur!!



And as if "on command" we saw an adult Bateleur soon after :)





Life at the Sunset Dam (near the Lower Sabie camp in the Kruger Park) usually is profilic - and that was especially the case during our last visit - some hippos out of the water, many a crocodile & a heron to "round off" the wild-life scene.


Although the weather was cold & cloudy, the wild animals were also "out in great numbers" once we reached the Hluhluwe Game Reserve (in KwaZulu-Natal) - a herd of buffalo in the background, whilst a giraffe & some Burchell's zebra are also in "the frame".

Talking about profilic - so were the blommetjies (= flowers) in the (Little) Karoo - one didn't even have to drive all the way to Namaqualand (= usually the "place to go" to see the desert "coming alive" with flowers) to admire this magical event after optimal winter-rain.

The flowers were truly magnificent & we regularly stopped (with the tour bus) so everybody could have their "fill" of this great phenomena.





Even the Chinese lantern bushes looked "fuller" than I've ever seen them before!?