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Gwendolyn summed it up...

Stunning footage, Katydownunder!!

WOW Fantastic videos!! I am sure you had a lot of laundry to do after that Lioness came so close to the fence

The male is huge

Thanks so much for sharing your special sighting

Thank you all for your great commnts

@ JenB
Thank you

@ Suej
The male was indeed handsome.

@Kamadejo
We thought as well that the cubs were too small to eat on the Hartie, but we got a surprise here...

@ Caracal
Indeed no end to the wonder of that place

@ anna-marie
Thank you

@ Lionspoon


@ Jen
Thanx!

@ Pumbaa
Thanx Pumbaa, but I think in February it will be our time again to be green, when your Wild Dog magnet works again in Kruger

@ Nina!
Yes, we were very happy that we had that fence..

@ BB
That's why we already booked the next trip

@ wanderw
Yes, poor lone Hartie, we knew him/her as well...

@ Ollie
Indeed an experience we will never forget..
I love to have the combination of the videos and the pics. That adds so much more.
You can bet that we made a little jump when the roaring started for the first time,right beside our hut
Well I use a Nikon D300 with a 80-400mm VR Nikon lens, FRancolin took the videos with a Canon Legria HFM 306 camcorder and we had a good torch a LED Lenser XP21, which was brilliant.

@ picnic


@ PS
Will keep my fingers crossed for you..

@ Pikasso

Yes this is one of my faves as well and the other one is the pic when the Lioness looks into the rising sun and you are able to see her beautiful eyes.

@ Jumbo
...
Yes that definitely mad up for last year...
We thought a lot about you guys that night..

@ Kgalagadi Guru
Thank you!
We are sure that this experience will always stay in our minds.
Well and you already know what sighting is still ahead

@ Gwen


@ Eagle Eyes
Thank you!

They were all quite big, but very good looking Lions

@ anne-marie
And it's a sighting near the end of our trip that I am referring to

Katy, think it has all already been said, so I will just add my thanks for sharing such a once in a lifetime experience with us.

PLEASE post the other sightings pics

Well I am going to post them,.... but in the trip report....
So I think you have to be patient for a while

@ Kathy,

I know where you stay and will hunt you down if you dont post the pics, you have no idea how lucky you were in having a sighting like that and to get pics of it as well it very almost equals a Pangolin sighting IF not better.

Hope to see the trip report soon

Ok,ok Jannie...
The trip report already started...
But lets have a look what the x-mas weekend might bring

Thank you

Well that special sigting that Jannie is talking about was near Urikaruus.
Maybe you know that we like Hyenas very much.
So we checked the den near Urikaruus very often , as we were eager to see the little black Hyena.
But we were not really lucky.
During our 3 nights stay in the beginning of our trip, we only saw them once up on the hill and too far away for nice pics.
So we hoped for the second stay on that trip, at least we had 4 nights.....
But still no luck
Every now and then we were able to spot an ear, or the head of one of the adults.On one occasion the little one lying very low on the ground in the entrance of den.
So I decided that the last chance would be on our last morning at Urikaruus.
I left the camp at 5.30am and slowly made my way to the direction of the den.
It was a beautiful morning.
The full moon was still up in the sky and a big herd of Springboks was grazing in the riverbed. What a peaceful sight ...

Then as I came closer to the den I was thriled to see one of the sub-adults on the hill.

Larger View

Maybe I was finally lucky

As I stopped at the den I could not belive my eyes.
The Hyenas had made a kill. Somewhere in the dunes or in the riverbed. You could clearly see that one of them ( judging by the tracks ) had dragged that unfortunate animal across the road and up the hill towards the den.
Now Mum and the little one were busy with the carcass.
But something was strange I thought.
The colour of the carcasses fur.....
So I turned the car around to have a better look at what they were having there.
And I was flabbergasted ........

What was it??????????????????????????