South Africa 2017

Lovely, sunny morning with a warm wind. 3am starts are proving too much for me, so I lay in till 05:30 and lack terminal exhaustion from lack of sleep.  Can't get early to bed as afternoon drives often don't end till after 8pm, then there's dinner to be cooked and eaten. We have seen lions, cheetah, wild dogs, elephant, lots of antelope, lots of birds (berd nerd page to come), tagged more pictures of white backed vultures than is good for me, set up and removed camera traps on culled giraffe, checked out the lionesses in the boma, due to be released any time now, used pints of factor 50 and bug spray and not been attacked by mozzies (though ants are a different matter). Have a few pics:  Lioness showing the cats in the boma who's boss  Wildebeest  Tawny eagle  Nyala mum and calf  The best animals on Planet Earth  Hippo trail  African view - Nsumo Pan  Leopard tortoise  Not a leopard tortoise  ...

The last thing I expected in the middle of the bush was a bloody cold! So, we spent yesterday fruitlessly hunting for the dogs. Nuffin'. Nary a dog to be seen, heard or beeped*. Not much else either, to be honest, though the impala are dropping lambs like rain. No photos of them so far, but there's plenty of time. Oh, and there might have been a herd of elephants. And an occasional unicorn. Today was a teeny bit different:  Year old cheetah cub  Mum  Adult male cheetah - different location And, finally, the dogs!

Oh, good - migraine. And I can't find my dark glasses, so stuck in camp till it passed (which was about lunchtime). Arrived on Monday to no Bushweb, but my own, unshared room! There are 3 of us: an American, an Argentinian and me, English. Plus Ben the monitor. 3 years ago, my friend Sina left a message on the blackboard. Guess what I found when I arrived: It's bin abitot. And the local ants have taken a liking to my ankles, despite liberal application of bug spray. Socks shall be deployed. At some point before I leave, we'll be collaring a lioness. I promise pics. I  just hope it isn't the one who charged us yesterday. (It's OK; she's safely in the boma awaiting release. No danger.) Mostly we've seen general antelope stuff but I missed cheetah on a kill this morning whilst trying to sleep off the migraine. We also caught a glimpse of 4 of the 5 dogs last night but they were in thick bush, so no photos yet. I'll post birds on the upcoming...

So, today,  I have mostly been a #1 class idiot. I am perfectly well aware that wind + sun+ water = sunburn. Sunglasses required if you want to look at my face. (Don't.) Lake Jozini (which is a dam*) looking for hippo: tick, crocs: tick, birds various: tick. *Dam: nothing to do with electricity or an actual dam. It is simply an artificial source of water, man-made. No specific size is required. Dam: see above Pan: a natural area of water, often made by mammals enlarging an originally small waterhole (also a natural thing). So here is a selection of pix for your delectation, none of which involve me successfully impersonating a beetroot: Hippo pod with small baby. Fish eagle - iconic South African bird. I have pix of the three we saw but there shall be a dedicated bird page for bird nerds in due course. Great egret Juvenile brown snake eagle. Sorry about the cable :-( 

Finally rocked up at The Ghost Mountain Inn at about 21:20 last night having travelled from Birmingham via Vienna (unscheduled diversion), Dubai Copthorne Airport Hotel (unscheduled layover as a result of aforementioned Austrian diversion), Durban - 24 hours late and a drive through pouring rain: unscheduled. It is now around 6am and I really should be asleep, but I have greeted this morning's rain and liberated a small frog from my bedroom. I suspect it may have been a rain frog. Only other identifiable wildlife to date is a giant African land snail, which I do have a picture of. It certainly looks considerably happier than I did last night. And, to be fair, the view from my room's OK: The rain did stop eventually. A full, windy day's drive in uMkhuze yielded: Big 5 - 0 Little 5 - 1 Ugly 5 - 2 And quite a lot of birds. White backed vultures - 1 (or more) of The Ugly 5 A giraffe bull showing off his ossicones An impala ram posing for the camera. He w...