Thursday, March 15 – Morning

The turf war continued on Thursday morning as this bull wildebeest tried to keep the other herd from drinking at the waterhole.

I found their bellowing to be strange. I joked that they should learn to bellow from an American bull. An American bull bellows loud and long and the sound moves up. A wildebeest’s bellow is short and the sound goes down.

The two herds were restless as the bulls bellowed and ran after each other. I watched the zebra as it slowly – step by step – moved toward the waterhole. Not sure if it was going to get in trouble. However, the wildebeest bulls were not interested in the zebra and left her alone. (I do love drama and atmosphere with my morning coffee.)

The sun quietly rose in the east despite the war in this meadow. The sun does that.

I left this scene with reluctance – knowing it was our last morning in Africa. I didn’t want to forget the sights, sounds and scents.

Inside, as the others were finishing their breakfast toast and cereal, I captured a few pictures of some beautifully engraved bedroom doors in our lodge.

The only African bird I can find with this coloring is an African Kingfisher. The beak doesn’t look right, but that may because it is facing my camera.

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Then we were on our last drive in Kruger – as we exited the park. It took us about two-and-a-half hours, so we had a bit of time to adjust to leaving this beautiful place.

Mongoose. This picture got blurry because it was right in front of our van, but I wanted to document that we saw one this close.

Two Swainson’s francolin hens out for an early morning walk.

It was a beautiful, calm morning.

Someone asked Phil how often he comes to Kruger. He said about fifteen times a year. We never got the idea that this gets old for him. He loves watching birds and animals.

We saw a lot of impala and herds of elephants.

I will try not to bore you with too many repeats of animals and birds that I already photographed.

Lilac-breasted roller

A beautiful kudu

Snake Eagle

Sometimes meadows looked like the Garden of Eden with a wide variety of animals.

There must have been an elephant parade going on as there were herds of elephants everywhere.

One thing I learned on this trip is that the female elephants have nipples under their front legs – instead of their back legs like most animals. You can see a nipple just next to her left trunk.

It was a bit amusing to try to capture an elephants nipples. 🙂 I felt like I was invading their privacy.

There is a good view of one.

Another one

I would have liked to see this little one nursing, but it was too busy keeping after the herd.

Phil thought it was about a month old.

Okay, so we got to see an elephant nursing. It was so large that it had to lie down to nurse 🙂 We all thought that it was time for this one to be weaned.

Tawny or Snake Eagle and probably a starling of some species.

White-backed vulture

I know you have seen plenty of impala pictures, but I enjoyed the next one. 🙂

It definitely has its eyes on something.

Leopard tortoise

Another one

Baboon

Our last animal sighting in Kruger

Our exit gate

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Tomorrow – my last post on Africa: Our flights home.