Posts in Category: South Africa
Morning at Marc’s
White-bellied Sunbird, Black Tit, Yellow-breasted Apalis, Citrus Swallowtail, Marc’s Treeehouse Lodge, South Africa
My last full, non-travel, morning in South Africa I was at Marc’s Treehouse Lodge, operated by Viva Safaris. It is on a private Game Reserve west of the Orpen Gate at Kruger National Park. I decided to forego the scheduled activity and just spend the morning wandering around the grounds of the Lodge with my camera to see what I could see. I was very thankful to the staff at Marc’s for letting me do that. I stayed fairly close to the cabins and tents at the Lodge, as Marc’s is an unfenced camp and there is always the chance of the wandering Cape Buffalo or even Leopard on the grounds. I was looking mostly for smaller birds, as that is what I was missing from my African experience and all the game drives in high vehicles. As I mentioned in previous posts, South Africa and Kruger in particular, are well into a major drought, and it is the end of a long dry winter there, so birds were scarce, even in the trees along the river below the camp. I did see Pied Kingfisher and Little Bee-eater, both amazing birds, and that would have made my morning, but it was really the Sunbirds I wanted closer looks at. I was able to photograph the White-bellied Sunbird in the collage above several times that morning, and glimpsed at least two others during my walk…Scarlet-breasted and one of the yellow ones. (I got a record shot of the Scarlet-breasted the next morning before boarding the van for Johannesburg.) I love the Sunbirds…colored like a hummingbird and filling much the same niche…but with size, flight, and song of a finch. The Southern Black Tit was working the trees just at the edge of the sandy bed of the river, and the Yellow-breasted Apalis was in the vegetation around the pool just below the lodge where the giraffes come to drink. The Citrus Swallowtail was basking by the same pool. I was happy to ID this as the Citrus Swallowtail of Southern Africa and not the much more common, and closely related, Lemon Swallowtail, which is a problem butterfly in North Africa…invasive as far east as China and some of the South Pacific Islands, and as far west as Central America. I also photograhed a Red-capped Robin-chat, but was not able to get a really sharp image in the dense thicket it preferred. All in all, a very worthwhile morning.
All shots with the Sony RX10iii, at 600mm equivalent field of view. Program Mode. Processed in Lightroom and assembled in Coolage.
World Rhinoceros Day
Rhinoceros, Kruger National Park
Yesterday, September 22, was World Rhinoceros Day, and I missed it đ So, here, a day late, are my two best shots of Rhinoceros in the wild, taken at Kruger National Park last week. Both are White Rhino. It turns out that “white” is a mistake, an accident based on the fact that the Dutch name was “wide-lipped” which sounded a bit like “white”, and the name for the other South African Rhino was “hooked lipped” which sounded a bit like “black”. So this is, in reality, the Wide-lipped Rhinoceros, so named because its wide lips are adapted for eating grasses at ground level. The Black, or Hook-lipped, Rhinoceros has narrow lips adapted for plucking leaves from standing trees and brush. Grazer vs. Browser. But it is too late for that. They are forever Black and White. Besides these two “wild” Rhinos, I saw lots of Rhinos at Tshukudu Game Reserve, where they specialize in Rhino (Tshakudu means Rhinoceros in the local language). Unfortunately, due to heavy poaching, all the Rhinos at Tshakudu have to be dehorned for their own protection. Poaching is huge problem. Kruger National Park has enough Rhino horn in stock to flood the market for 20 years to come, but each year proposals to release it for sale, and so drive down the prices to levels where poaching will not be so attractive, are defeated. The logic is that they do not want to “expand” the existing market to the point where poaching is the only way to meet the demand after their stocks run out. Others argue that Rhino horn could be “farmed” in a way that would meet the demand and save most wild Rhinos. I am glad it is not a decision I have to make…but it is one that needs making. I can certainly see the logic of putting the poachers out of business. There are signs along the road to Kruger in South Africa, posed on the property of private game reserves, that say “Poachers will be Poached!” and the people at Tshakudu will tell you about running gun battles between their rangers and poachers as recently as the past few months. It is a serious problem, and, when added to habitat loss, is keeping the Rhino at the edge of disaster.
Rhinoceros, Kruger National Park
Sony RX10iii at 1200mm equivalent field of view (2x Clear Image Zoom). Neither Rhino was nearly as close as they look in the images. Program. ISO 100 and ISO 1000. Processed in Lightroom.
Thirst. Elephant.
Elephant, Kruger National Park, South Africa
You can not visit Kruger National Park in South Africa right now without quickly realizing that Kruger is in trouble. 2 years of intense drought has brought water levels in the dams and natural watering holes to record lows. Many once reliable sources of water have dried up entirely. Large sections of Kruger look more like desert than savannah or scrub woodland. And the park is overpopulated with large herbivores…elephants and hippos in particular. The elephants are surviving so far by pushing over trees to get at the edible bark of the roots. In some sections of Kruger there are very few standing trees left, which, of course, further alters the environment: reduces shade, accelerates desertification, and reduces habitat for birds, reptiles, and mammals that depend on the trees. The hippos, who rely only on standing grasses, are simply dying. 30 died the week I was there. The day I left, the park took the unprecedented step of culling 300 hippos and distributing the meat to surrounding villages. Sad as that is, having been there I know that the choice for those hippos was between a quick death and slow lingering death by starvation. And unless the rains come this South African summer, beginning this month and next, the elephants will begin to die too. Elephants need 200-600 pounds of fodder per day to survive…and up to 50 gallons of water. The park does still operate several bore holes with windmills and tanks and pools, and we saw big male elephants standing on the buttresses of the water tanks, tanks as tall as a two story house, and putting their trunks up over the tank walls to drink. The debate is on as to whether in the long run it is a kindness (or ecologically sound practice) to provide supplemental water to a population of elephants that is already considerably over what the land will bear. There are no good solutions, and even if the rains come this season, the park will take generations to recover.
Because water is scarce, the wildlife is concentrated. Herds of elephants come to the dams, off and on all day, to drink and cover their hides in mud. This is a large female, drinking her bathtub full of water for the day.
Sony RX10iii at 247mm equivalent field of view. 1/800th @ ISO 100 @ f4. Processed in Lightroom.
The long range forecast models for South Africa are producing mixed results. Some models predict lower than normal precipitation this summer, some predict higher than normal…some predict a dry spring and a wet fall, and some the reverse. If you are a praying person, and the animals of Kruger matter to you, you might spare a prayer for a wet summer for South Africa…this year and for several years to come.
Lion cub
Lion cub, Kruger National Park, South Africa
We found a medium sized pride of lions basking in the shade near a waterhole in Kruger National Park in South Africa. There were a dozen of what looked like adult females (a few of those might have been young males), and cubs of at least 4 different ages. This was the smallest, seen here having a rub along its mother’s flank as it moved to find a new spot among it’s larger cousins.
Sony RX10iii at 1200mm equivalent field of view (2x Clear Image Zoom). 1/320th @ ISO 100 @ f4. Processed and cropped from the top for effect in Lightroom.