Mother and Child

The well-known mother-and-child-theme appeared to "dominate" in nature during the last tour - in this case a female impala & her youngster.



Somewhat ugly but strangely mostly thought of as endearing by people "meeting" warthogs in nature, this was even more so the case with this mother & child.


In actual fact this was the first mother-and-child-combination we observed at the start of the last tour - a female blesbok & its youngster "naturally" found only in the highveld-part of our country.




Another endearing mother-and-child-combination - a female Burchell's zebra & her offspring. . .



. . . which similarly, the other "typical" savannah-animals, giraffes, seem to take "a step further" by appearing to kiss - although in this case it's not a mother-and-child-combination, because the large giraffe (on the right) is a male.

Another look at impalas, who in this case also appear to kiss (especially the couple in the background), whilst in fact it's a "demonstration" of mutual grooming = impalas are the only hoofed animals (in contrast to e.g. primates) that can partake in this survival skill.

Flood Damage

Although we were lucky & able to enter the Kruger National Park during the last tour without much "hazzle", the damage caused by the recent floods (Jan 2012) was particularly "frightening" when crossing the high-level bridge across the Sabie River near the Skukuza camp . . .


. . . on closer inspection - the metal of the railing was badly damaged/bent . . .






. . . obviously by the force of the water "rushing" over the bridge - a very "sobering" thought.





Other than taking a photo of the damage left in the wake of the floods, I also snapped this scene to use as a "comparrison" . . .



. . . between a "before & after" scenario - although before I thought of this scene as serene & beautiful & certainly didn't think of "including" the bridge-railing in a photo - check out the "new" water-course on the photo above.


Yet another look at more or less the same "spot" from the bridge - the only "constant" in all 3 photos is the large wild fig tree on the right side of the river.



The most damage caused by floods in parts of the Kruger National Park probably was in February 2000, whilst this is what the Sabie River looked like at the bridge near the Lower Sabie camp on the 25th of Jan last year (in contrast to the above flood-damage-photos taken on 29 Jan this year) . . .

. . . or similar floods at this time of the year at the same bridge IF in the opposite direction (= travelling away from Lower Sabie) - this photo was also taken at more or less the same time (= beginning of the year) 2009, 4 February.