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Continuing on from the same day’s “Lion Magnet” thread:

”Gerroff”
The splodge bottom left is in fact the wing mirror of the Combi – I deliberately left it in.

The breeding female was at this stage lying underneath the Combi fast asleep, just her head showing and front end.

Sleeping Queen

Close enough

Honeymooners



Playtime

Ruff & Tumble

Lion Pair









Proud Pitman

Dreaming Drefoss

The other pride male/brother to Pitman.

Eventually all the pride sought shade under trees and we went along to drop Gavin off at his stricken Isuzu as the mechanics were on their way up from Twee Rivieren and were due to arrive and meet Gavin around 11 am. Someone had amusingly written in the dust of the rear window “Cheetah” with an arrow pointing towards the dunes – and someone else had added below it “Gotcha” ! I wonder who broke park rules about getting out of a vehicle to do that! Notice the yellow ribbon still intact on the car roof !



While dropping Gavin off, a Police vehicle drove up with 2 cops who belligerently demanded to know why we were out of our vehicle – although the suspension was apparent they were not happy with our explanation and proceeded to lecture on “disrespecting the law” and park rules. However they agreed to check at camp.
Shortly after, the TR ranger and mechanic arrived with the spare part and started their repair in the road. The cops did later see us and were appeased having confirmed the predicament with the camp staff.

We arrived back at camp seeing little else.

... to be continued.

On our afternoon drive the Lion pair were still lying in the shade of the trees where we left them. I omitted to mention before that despite being only two days since the porcupine kill, when all of the pride were covered in quills, not one quill was seen to remain in any of them.

We watched a Gemsbok being violently chased up the riverbed by a rival, when he eventually stopped he was gasping for breath.

Hot Chase

Breathless

Giraffes high up on the dunes gave us a display of sliding down and kicking the rich red sand up as they did. I have never seen a sand-surfing Giraffe before !

Long Shadows

Sand Surfer

Hedge Hopper

High Brow-ser

The bat-eared foxes were seen again near to camp on our return.

Bat-eared Fox

A curious Jackal watched us as the sun sank into the dunes, giving us an array changing hues.

Curious Jackal

Jackal Portrait

The evening clouds again made the sunset spectacular.



Mata Mata Sunset

Yours truly

Me – image taken by Bucky with my camera.


That evening we had a late Braai, joined by Gavin & Debbie. We managed to demolish 1½ bottles of Amarula between us, a “drop” of wine and a few cold ones !
We had a good natter and great laugh this evening, enjoying the company of our new “yellow ribbon” friends.

Debbie : - I hope you found your lipstick !

During our stay at Mata Mata, we met Oom Piet (Heymans) on one of his frequent KTP visits. He had a “Safari” nurse in attendance with him. He is getting on in years now and his wife’s insistence that he did not travel alone. Despite having written a book about the KTP Lions, in particular the life of a female named “Oumus” and having studied the lions there extensively, he did not see ONE lion during his stay at Mata Mata – bet he wished he had been travelling with us ! LOL
I purchased his book and he very graciously signed it for me with a personal message.
ps. I believe that after our tremendous sightings the pride did go off into the dunes, so maybe we were just lucky !

The Eagle Owl visited our camp waterhole again tonight. We heard a Scops Owl and two Pearl Spotted Owls calling to each other during the night.

… note for Bucky, I am having a small pause to give you chance to add your pics up to this stage! - Next episode will be Friday 9th.

Suej all I can say is that is was a real privilage meeting up with you guys, and we are both deeply indebted for all the assistance you gave us whilst the Jap #@!%*%$# was stuck out at Dalkieth!
We had a great time with you guys and in hindsight had better sightings than we would have had we made it to Nossob on the Tuesday as planned
BTW I think your picss are Amazing!!

9th May – Friday

I awoke early at 5.30am when the camp generator and lights started up. I looked out of my tent flap to see a spotted hyena at the waterhole, walking towards the fence in front of my tent. I watched as it walked down the fence line and out of sight. I think I then dozed off again.

We got up later and left camp for a drive at 7.30 am. Today was warm, sunny and cloudy and very humid.

There was not so much to see this morning. The usual buck, Ostrich, Black-breasted snake Eagle, 2 x Martial Eagles, Burchells Sandgrouse, Namaqua Sandgrouse, Namaquah Dove, Shaft-Tailed Wydah, Red Headed Finch – flocks of these, Tawny Eagle, and a cute mouse in the tree above my tent !

Springbok in the Sky

mirrored Doves

Gemsbok Bull
Blue Wildebeest

Wildebeest on the run

Burchells Sand Grouse

Burchells Sandgrouse

tourist view

Wildebeest drinking

Wildebeest “twins”

Namaqua Dove

cavorting Wildebeest

female Red-headed Finch

Shaft-tailed Wydah

Yellow Canary

We also saw the crazy Springbok racing around at tops speed and pronking, but I did not manage a decent pronking pic; I am certain Bucky did though?

Funny Face

Springbok flight

The dash

After a lazy lunch we went out again on our afternoon drive at 3.30pm. Again, less to see as the clouds became heavy and looked stormy, the game was not showing.
We got a few Gemsbok and and running Springbok. Last September in the park I never saw any snakes and was beginning to think that none *really* existed in the par – I wanted to see these snakes. This afternoon I was to see my first big fat Puff Adder crossing the road !

Puff Adder

We saw the “now famous” Gemsbok with absolutely no antlers ! He looked more like a donkey. On processing the images I notice he also appears to have lost his right eye, must have had a royal battle ! We arrived back in camp at 5.45 pm.

”donkey” Gemsbok

The Hyena came back to the camp waterhole while we were cooking our evening meal. A Pearl Spotted Owlet sat in a tree in camp on a low branch giving us an excellent sighting but flew off when we went to get the cameras ! The V. Eagle Owl was again sitting in the tree next to the hide. The Hyena returned again at 9.30 pm and Hyena and jackal could be heard calling further in the river bed during the night, as well as Lions roaring in the distance. Guess what? - NO LION today !

It rained again tonight !

10th May -Saturday

As Bucky says I awoke at 4.45 am thinking it was an hour later as the camp lights were on ! I woke the others up duh ! (It really was a mistake!) We packed up and broke camp by 7.30 am and I really hope we did not disturb too many other campers because of me getting the time wrong.
We wdrove back to Twee Rivieren today to spend 3 nights there before going onto Nossob, given us chance to relax for a few nights in a chalet. I dare say it gave some a chance to catch up with phone calls too

Mata Mata – packed and ready to go

Texasboer sipping coffee before we depart for TR. Notice the “Lion Magnet” behind TB’s baccy.

We saw the usual buck, again Meerkat to my delight, Kori Bustard, Martial Eagle, Vulture pruning itself in a tree, Pale Chanting Goshawk.

Martial Eagle
Apologies, this image is heavily cropped.

Grey-backed Vulture

Bird & Beest

Pale Chanting Goshawk

Where we had previously seen the Mother Hyena with cubs, we watched a pair of Jackals around her den, eating a carcass that she had left behind. We guessed she must have moved dens. I believe Bucky got pics of this?

Giraffe high on the dunes once more.

Giraffe

dune Giraffe

Springbok

A family of meerkat, this time closer to the road, hiding under the shade of a bush, but in poor light.

Meerkat (Suricate) family

Sentry duty

Meerkat look-outs

There were rivelets of water in the riverbed near Twee Rivieren, hence more game.

We arrived at TR around 1.30pm and again had Chalet 12.

After unpacking we left for an afternoon drive at 4pm. Drove out on Nossob Road. Close to camp on the river side, near dunes we saw a male Leopard in a clump of blue grass. We watched for about 5 minutes as he walked over the ridge and disappeared, too far for any decent pics. We drove on for about 20 minutes and then turned back to the waterhole. At the first WH near camp there was a Black-winged stilt and a Three-banded plover – don’t they know this is the desert??

Mid-day today had been hot with the day ending warm and pleasant.

Will give Bucky chance to add pics here before writing the iinstalment for 11th May.

11th May – Sunday

We were out the gate this morning smack on 7am. Our intention was to drive back along the Nossob Road to find the male Leopard from the night before, but thanks to a large double trailer fuel tanker leaving camp just after us, *racing* past us doing about 60mph, almost forcing us off the road and leaving a HUGE, high cloud of dust for miles in front, we reasoned that everything would by now have been scared off into the dunes and we decided to abandon our plans, turn back and take the dune road.

THIS IS A VERY BIG CRITICISM – whilst visitors obviously need fuel at Nossob to fill up, to allow such huge tankers to speed through the park as soon as gates open is in the very least thoughtless of the park management, dangerous to both visitors AND animals and as this driver was obviously racing to get to Nossob and back in one day, there should be strict rules to insist that drivers stop overnight to force them to drive more safely and considerately ! Texasboer was travelling behind us and we watched the tanker force him right into the soft sand on a bend to get past him ! I hope that someone takes heed before a serious accident ensues ! Why do the park management think we go to the park and are eager to get out as gates open? – it’s not for the pleasure of driving on those dreadful roads !

Right, moan over, I will continue.

We proceeded along the riverbed , saw a little Steenbok .

Steenbok

Just before Monro saw a single male lion half way up the dunes, lying down washing his feet. He began roaring loudly before getting up and walking down in front of us, crossing into the riverbed, roaring again whilst urinating and kicking up dust with his rear feet/ He then continued to the waterhole to drink before continuing on up the riverbed.

Sleepy roar
Ooooomph!

* I am sure Bucky will want to add one of his pics here, !

The Dunemaster

Watering

Waiting

I recognised the lion as the same guy Penni and I had seen in almost the same place last September, and he gave us almost a copycat display of that sighting

Kicking up a fuss

While we were watching him drinking a Jackal back in the ridge beyond was standing still and giving a very vocal predator warning. It seemed strange it was creating so much about this lion at such a distance. Bucky noticed what he assumed to be another jackal right on top of the ridge, above the noisy one. It was then that TB drove alongside and asked us if we had seen the Leopard ! We checked again with bino’s and sure enough the ears on the ridge was a leopard – no wonder the Jackal was making such a tremendous din ! We have since learned this to be the jackal’s “leopard warning” bark.

At this point we abandoned our idea of following the lion and waited patiently for the leopard to move off. After about 20 minutes she started to move along the ridge back towards TR, checking little caves and rocks, and marking along the way. We followed her as she walked the ridge for about 2 km.

Rock sniffer

Then, to our delight, she walked down into the riverbed, crossed the road in front of us and walked towards a camelthorn tree on the roadside to our right.

beautiful female Leopard

She swiftly leaped into the tree, scaring of a PCG and aimed her attention on a sleeping V. Eagle Owl. The owl flew off and just as fast as she had climbed up, she descended and walked off over the dunes . There was no other vehicle but our two ! What a sighting !!

Leopard in Tree !

Tree raider

Leap


After this we continued into the dunes. …
to be continued…

11th May continued. – Bucky has beaten me to most of it this time, hehe.

Very few small creatures to be seen in the longer grass. We took pics of interesting vegetation, dunes, Tsamma melons and Gemsbok cucumber.

partially eaten Tsamma Melon

Creepers
The cucumbers grow off these creepers that cover the dunes.

dune flowers

more flowers

animal tracks on dunes Notice the snake track too !

A few more delightful Steenboks hiding in the long grass.

Steenbok buck

Steenbok in grass

We had lunch at Melk Vlei (I think?) before stating back to TR. On the way back we saw Ostrich dust-bathing, a delightful pair of Bee-eaters again, a stunning Pride Male lion at Kij-Kij high up on the dunes. We waited as long as possible for him to come down before having to head back to camp.

Melk Vlei picnic stop

Melk Vlei

Melk Vlei

Melk Vlei

The Gemsbok in the dunes seemed a lot more skittish than those in the riverbed.

Dune Gemsbok

Dune “turkeys”

Little Bee-eaters

Ground Agama?

Ostrich dust bath

High dune dude

Just before TR we saw a Spotted Eagle Owl in a tree.

Spotted Eagle Owl

Other sightings, 7 Black-headed herons, the usual other birds and buck, PGC with a juvenile on the ground.

detail maybe but these are swallow-tailed bea-eaters me thinks!

OK back on with the report again.

12th May – Monday

We were out of camp from TR at 7 am again today. We drove towards Mata Mata Road as there had been Cheetah with cub sightings the previous day. We did not find her, but again saw a male lion walking along the dune side. We followed him in beautiful first light as he walked towards the sun, mainly with his eyes closed ! He crossed over and up beside the riverbed .

Majestic

On the move

Powerful

By now several other vehicles had caught up with us and they started to scramble around. One man, travelling as a passenger climbed out of his window and stood on the window sill, leaning right across the roof to get photo’s ! His name was Jurgen, from Germany !! It was suggested he got back in his vehicle, we did not see him do this again so hopefully he realised his error and for this reason I will not post this on the gallery of shame.

Shame

We decided to leave the lion and proceed further to try and find the cheetah without luck. We stopped at Melk Vlei picnic spot, took a short dune ride then turned back to camp. Just before the park gates we saw a tiny tortoise crossing the road and watched as he clambered over corregations and stones, getting cast on top of a larger stone, with his legs flailing ! Bucky rescued him and popped him into the veldt before anyone could run over him.

Small tortoise

We ventured back out at 3.30pm, this time along the Nossob road but saw nothing. We watched for a while at a waterhole and saw a lanner falcon take a pigeon in flight, no pics – but watch this space later ….! A couple of Secretary birds entertained us for a while, we then started to drive back. Our best sighting of the afternoon were a pair of Pygmy Falcons in a tree next to the road. The female appeared to be eating a large insect.

Pygmy Falcon pair
female Pygmy Falcon

Back at camp we started to pack up for our departure to Nossob the next day.

Just a few Twee Rivieren shots:

Twee Rivieren

Twee Rivieren Chalet

Twee Rivieren

… to be continued

13th May – Tuesday

Packed up and left camp by 7am on the way to Nossob. We saw a squirrel family awaking from their burrow and waiting for the sun to warm them up.

Squirrel family

Just past the squirrels, a Jackal awoke and stretched lazily.

stretching Jackal

We came across a Kori Bustard dust-bathing. I am not even going to mention how Bucky tricked me into missing it flying, but no doubt he will post that image !

Kori Bustard

A tawny Eagle looked down on us from it’s perch in a dead tree.

Tawny Eagle

We then passed 4 juvenile male lions in the shade of bushes between Kij Kij and Melk Vlei, obviously recently ousted from their pride. They were not too happy to share time with us.

juvenile male

something funny?

have you heard this one? ...

young male

When we arrived at Melk Vlei and had a brief stop, there was new lion spore everywhere, especially around the ablutions, and the canvas screen windows in the ladies block were ripped out – with lion spore all around the window gap ! We guessed these delinquents to be the 4 juvenile males we had seen a few minutes earlier.

Ripped canvas window

Bucky showing the damage

Lion spore around ablutions

Texasboer finds something interesting

Fresh prints at picnic site


We watched a Jackal toying with some old bones at Kij Kij and Ostriches dust-bathing and chasing each other around.

Shake your booty !

Ostrich dance

Crazy Ostrich

The road was now horrendous, and Bucky was trying to teach me Afrikaans (or French?) I think.

We stopped at Dickbaardskolk for a break and braai where there were several disgusting Armoured Ground Crickets roaming around and eating each other – yuck !

lunch stop

Canibals !

Armoured Ground Cricket

The road corrugations got worse towards Nossob, far worse than last September. Because of these it made it imperative to travel toward the top of the speed limit to prevent the vehicle from shaking to bits, but we rounded a bend to see two 4x4’s speeding so fast that the lead vehicle almost lost control on the bend and came snaking towards us before regaining control – a very hairy moment ! It was all too fast to even take reg. numbers. Something must be done about the state of the roads and/or speeding drivers.

We arrived at Nossob around 3pm and set up camp quickly as we had booked a night drive which left at 5pm. The night drive guide (Francois) spoke to the group in Afrikaans as I was the only Brit so it was a bit strange for me to sit through an obviously interesting narrative without understanding hardly a word. Others did translate the more interesting bits for me. We did not see much on the drive. The best sighting was a tiny gecko which Francois caught, and a Cape Eagle Owl.

baby Barking Gecko

What was most interesting was to hear about the problems with the Eland last September. Apparently there are around 5-6000 Eland in the park ! They usually stay in the dunes feeding off Melons and such, but because of the lack of those last year, they came to the waterholes and drank the salty water, which itself became contaminated with Wildebeest fouling the waterholes, causing toxins to build up in the Eland and due to their low condition they then died in large numbers.

Last year the total rainfall in the park from January-September was only 1.5ml. This year, just from January to May, the rainfall was already 450ml . The entire park was rich in vegetation. Nossob looked like wheat fields. Even in a vehicle high off the ground, it was hard to see over the grasses in many places. The sour grass was so tall it hid all but the tallest of animals. Sometimes, Gemsbok by the roadside were only visible by their horns.

We retired to our tents tired and weary that night, but it was not long before the African night sounds took over. As usual at Nossob the Jackals raided camp after lights out, upending the still non-animal proof rubbish bins around the camp. I cannot help but wonder why it is so difficult for SanParks to make all the bins jackal proof.

After the Jackal raid, a screech owl made it’s presence known and around 2.15 am the Lions began their telegraph calling, with the most amazing vibrating roars. It sounded as though they were at the camp waterhole at one stage. This continued on and off for about 2 hours. At around 3.30 am I was wide awake and had to visit the ablutions, some distance away – only on the way back did I ask myself the sense in that call of nature !

We woke up later than usual the following morning.

OK I will carry on without the Buckster !

14th May – Wednesday

Late up today and out camp at 7.20am. We had heard about a Cheetah with young cubs near to Cubitjie Quap and Lions with young cubs at Marie Se Draai after catching up again with Gavin & Wannabenerd, and Delboysafa who we met when travelling up from TR, so set off to try and find the Cheetah. Near to Cubitjie Quap we came across a lioness limping along the road, sporting a badly injured rear leg. She was obviously not in the mood to be followed so we left her alone to go on her way. We were later informed she had been bitten on her hip by a puff adder several months earlier and had only managed to survive so far because the pride had young cubs so were not moving too far. Now that the cubs were more mobile she was starting to get left behind.

We did not see the Cheetah and decided to return to camp.
We were back out of camp at 2.30pm and drove as far as Polentswa waterhole.

Another Gemsbok with a seriously deformed horn covering most of it’s face.



Large herds of Red Hartebeest in this area.

grazing Red Hartebeest

The road north of Kwang was even worse. We did battle on but grass and broken waterholes made good sightings hopeless. At Polentswa we saw our first Bateleur of the trip so far, an adult and juvenile. We then turned back to camp, deciding, as others in camp had done before, that this would be our only venture north of Kwang due to the very bad state of the roads.

Sightings on the way back, Bateleur (3), Tawny Eagle, Martial Eagle, Black-breasted snake eagle, Black-shouldered Kite, and a strange orange lizard – I hope someone can ID for us?

Black-shouldered Kite

Black-breasted Snake Eagle launch

Black-breasted Snake Eagle take-off

sub-adult Bateleur

flying Bateleur

spotted desert lizard

Common Ground Agama

Wildebeest and fighting Gemsbok, Springbok, Jackal

Battling Gemsbok

Gemsbok fight

We enjoyed warm Rossterkoek for tea with Strawberry jam – yum !

That night, I was awoken again at 2.30am by a Jackal standing right next to my tent, crunching chicken bones in my ear before standing and howling for several minutes !

unfortunately i haven't been able to read the whole report yet... but so far it is great! Thanks to both of you... the photos are also really stunning!!

Suej your Orange lizard is a Spotted Desert Lizard (Meroles suborbitalis).

And your Barking Gecko is actaully a Common Ground Agama (Agama aculeata aculeata)

15th May – Thursday

This morning we set out smack on 7am and drove to Marie Se Draai. We arrived to see the very young lion cubs (about 3 months old) with their slightly older cousins in the riverbed waiting for their mother’s to return. The light was very bad for photo’s with sun streaming straight towards us on our position which was higher up than the riverbed/waterhole. The cubs
soon took shade in the bushes and a fallen tree beside the road, making it even more difficult to cope with the high contrasts. That and the car jostling amongst visitors meant we only got a few shots.

I will post what I have but I *know* Bucky got better pics, he was at with limited access amongst the other vehicles he was at a slightly better angle in the front .

Early morning cubs

slightly older cousins

cubs attacking cousin

Minder

welcome back Mom

backlit cubs

mischief

Too cute

Two cubs or tree

demure

I am NOT your Mommy!

We stayed briefly and then drove back to camp and out on the North road to try and see the so far elusive Cheetah, but we had apparently missed them by about half an hour.

Texasboer left us today to drive back to TR, nice to have shared the trip with you TB !

Again we saw many raptors and at last I saw my very first Cape Cobra as it hurriedly crossed the road and disappeared in the long grass before we hardly had chance to stop and poke the cameras out. Just managed the tail end ! OK I now believe snakes do exist in the KTP !

Cape Cobra

Yeahh Bucky, that's the ticket !

Glad you posted the flying Kori Bustard.

The last pic, as someone already pointed out to me on ODP, is in fact a juvenile Black-breasted, not a Martial as the Martials have covering all the way down their legs.



I have made a not so brilliant stitch of that take-off.