Kruger National Park & African Pics

Early last Friday morning, Juli, Dy, Bethany, Uncle Jerry and I hopped in the kombi and headed for Kruger National Park. We left the house a little after 5am, when the sun was just about to peak over the distant mountain ranges. It wasn’t light enough to read, so I drifted off to sleep during the two hours it took to get to the park.

Once inside the park, we met several ladies driving away from a watering hole. They said that there were a few elephants back there, but that they were very aggressive. So we headed towards the watering hole:) We saw about eighteen elephants playing beside and in the small pond, but when we climbed up in to a hide nearby, we realized that there were many more elephants (and they didn’t bother us at all).

Although Kruger is 20,000 square km (about the size of New Jersey), you aren’t allowed out of your vehicle except for certain places where you can get out at your own risk. It’s probably because of all the lions and leopards roaming about, not to mention the wildebeast, cape buffalo, and rhinos (which are said to be the most dangerous of the big five). We didn’t see any rhinos or leopards that day, but here’s a list of what we did see:

~22 vultures

~53 elephants

~MANY impala (I stopped counting after eight large herds)

~1 rock dossie (the Bible calls it a conie)

~9 giraffes

~ 25 cape buffalo

~ 6 hippos

~1 martial eagle

~11 water bucks

~Over 90 wildebeasts

~47 zebras

~20 Chacma baboons

~3 horn bills, one with a snake in it’s mouth!

~14 warthogs

~4 common reedbucks

~1 male lion

~ 8 kudu

~Lots of franklins

~1 bateleur( hawk-like)

~3 vervet monkeys

~1 red tail hawk

~4 maribou storks

~2 turtles

~5 glossy ivis

...as we`ll as many smaller birds and insects including the Lilac-Breasted Roller, African Hoopoe, Cape Glossy Starling, and the Giant Kingfisher.

The land was typically a marula/knob-thorn open tree savanna with delagoa thorn thickets, except for the riverine areas which had larger trees such as the Ebony Jackal-berry and the River Acacia.

My aunt let me borrow her binoculars for the day, and I had a fun time using them out the backseat window of the kombi and yelling “STOP!!!!!!!!” whenever I saw an animal. My favorites were the zebra and the impala, which are both common but still very beautiful animals. The impala’s horns can grow up to 50cm long (20in), and normally will be found in herds of about a hundred, which we definitly saw while we were there. Zebras graze with the impala or wildebeast so they can have more protection from predators. The zebra is also protected from enemies by grouping together so that the enemy is confused by their stripes and can’t pick out single zebras.

Well, that’s all on Kruger for now. Hope you enjoy the pics!