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Hi FGJJN,
Back in the day when Tshokwane only had a kiosk I asked the guy there what happened to the dead elephant on the corner of H1-2 and H10. His reply was that elephant killed it! Ellie was walking just the other side toilet block, Satara end of picnic site! So close he could have popped his trunk through the window!!
Regards Janice

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Lots really. Difficult to choose.

Being charged by a male lion, came slowly round a blind corner on the road to Mingerhout dam,
lions mating in the road, he resented being disturbed and stopped low growl, mane raised
and charge about 30 metres. I think his nose was against the bull bar of the landy, he then walked back to his lady, pride restored and they moved to the side of the road and continued.

On the road to Phalaborwa gate the tar one, a martial eagle taking a vervet, straight out of a tree.

Discovering how really. really long an elephants eyelashes are, when one decided to investigate the landy (I think) when he/she sneaked up from behind when i was watching vultures in a tree on the
river road between Letaba and Olifants.

A hyena kill of an injured buffalo close to Mopani camp.

A large tawny eagle taking a new born impala lamb and then being too exhausted to carry it sitting
guarding the kill by spreading its wings over it, while it recovered enough to take the kill to a tree.

These were not all in one trip of course.

Hi all,

Just back from 16 nights in KNP which was our 6th visit and every time there has been 'wow' events.
This time:
2 Genets on our patio at Berg en dal. We resisted the temptation to feed them but it was lovely to see them so close.
On the S83 near Skukuza 2 huge male lions walking towards us on the road. We just pulled to one side and they passed by with hardly a look. I could have reached out the window and stroked them!!
In the Matembeni Hide watching a magnificent Fish Eagle land on the rock in front of us and then he swooped into the water and carried off a large fish. Amazing!
The joy of seeing herds of 25 or more elis going to and from the Letaba River.
Right in front of the Letaba restaurant, 4 very large crocs took a baby hippo off the bank and tore it apart. NOT a nice sight but I have never seen (in real life - only on tv) crocs doing their 'thing' of twisting and rolling to dismember their prey.
And not for everyone, my SO (Peregrine Falcon) going hunting for scorpions in Letaba camp after dark and finding a huge one in a crack in a tree!!

I am hoping to finally suss out how to do a trip report and post photos of the above some time soon.


Regards,
DASSEIDELIGHT

My biggest 'woohoo' sighting was not in Kruger but in Addo, where I saw a red hartebeest being born.

Otherwise my serval in a tree on the H10 takes the cake.

The 4 big animal kills are hardly woohoo because I was so entranced I couldn't take photos or anything, just watched. (Lion, cheetah & wild dog x2).

Lions on a kill at Tshok, last time gave an adrenalin rush, because they were 25 metres away with no fence!

Wild dog kill up against the fence at Berg-en-Dal

Mauxie, what 'n sighting!!!! Have traveled that dusty road 10000 times and no leopard, as a matter of fact.... NO CATS!!!

I don’t know if it was our best sighting ever but it was quite interesting. March 2003 midday Leeupan… lions “can you believe it” at the waterhole. The lions were doing what lions do best sleeping…. Along comes Mr Elephant and drank some water right in front of the lions. Waiting in the background to come on stage was 2 buffalos. The cow had an injured leg and the handsome dugged boy was protecting her. They were standing with their hind legs in a “gwarriebos”. As Mr elephant finished drinking he walk right at the buffalos and as if irritated sprayed the last of the water from his trunk! At the same time the lions started the ambush… moving into position for attack. The elephant kept on walking right threw the gwarriebos were the buffalos were standing. He and flushed them from the bush and the fight was on. The lions went for the injured buffalo and at that time every thing was in slowmo… the bull kept between the lions and the cow and charged them and they re-grouped and started stalking the buffalos again. This went on for quit some time. The 4 lions could not catch the injured cow and we watched until they left the area. The two buffalos followed by the 4 lions. What happened later we do not know, maybe the lions caught the cow that night, who knows. Its like watching a move and it stops just at the climax.
Sorry I can post the photos, it was in the days of the film cameras, and my scanner is broken….

My fav moment....good old duke Taken: 2008:08:27 09:21:03

2 days before he broke his 2nd tusk.

i believe these were the last photos taken of duke with 1 tusk

Hi Everyone

Just back in Heidiland after 2 glorious weeks in the Park - had a great time (except for one or two organizational hick-ups - and of course Lake Panic being closed for longer than scheduled)

Experienced many many great highlight - just going to take some time to sift through the 20'000 odd photos (120 Gb!!) my SO and I took back home with us.

Some of the "big" sightings we had were:

Ground Hornbill catching and munching on a Brown House Snake
Bateleur with scrub hare
Saddle Bill Stork catching and swallowing a large barbel
Lion chasing zebra (no blood!)
Hornbill catching and eating scorpion
Pied Kingfisher catching and eating a kurper
Ratel!
Sables
Numerous lion / buffalo kills ho...hum...
4 or 5 really great Martial Eagle sightings
All the close up Bateleur sightings
........... and many many more

Once the work is complete, I'll publish some of the better ones

Till then

Fanki

My "whoow” sighting was what I still call my best morning in Kruger ever

17/09/2009 at 06h15 I find a small pride of lions (2 adult females and 3 cubs) lying on the s36 very relaxed , one even was doing her nails (using a tree) , we then drove south towards Lugmag dam. At 06h41 we came across two young male rhinos in the road both very relaxed and in no hurry at all. About 100 meters passed the rhinos we found a young hyena resting just off the road , it popped its head up as we approached but again didn't take off , by now we are referring to our car as the 'valium landy' ..

We reach Lugmag dam and find a lone male kudu on an island about 30 meters from the bank and he does not look well at all, he is standing motionless on this island with its head down. We then spot 4 lions (3 females and a young male ) watching this male but from the bank , one female manages to finds her way on to the island and begins stalking the kudu (the other 3 lions could figure out how to cross the water ) . The Kudu just sits down behind a tree and the lion strikes, the kudu did not even put up a fight. All the commotion has awaken the local hippo population and one hippo walks out on to the bank and strides up to the tree (lion and dead kudu on other side ) it sniffs the kudu backs away , yawns and then walks back to the water.

In the meantime, one lion is on the far side of the dam, the other two are off to our right out of sight (all still trying to work out how to get to the meal).

Then a huge herd of Elephants arrives on the far side of the dam to drink (42 in total) just then to our right the other two lions chase two buffalos into shallow water and across to the other side of the dam. The elephants hear the commotion take off at a serious run and disappear over the dam wall.
Meanwhile one lion jumps onto the back of the buffalo but falls off and is then chased off by the other buffalo. We then decided to move our vehicle to try get a better view of the lion with the kudu. As we watch the lion enjoying its kudu meal , across the dam we spot a lone Sable antelope that has popped down for a drink.

Just when we think we’ve seen it all, we notice a lone baby elephant wanders in towards the dam (same direction the herd arrived from) we spot one female lion approaching head on towards the elephant. We expect the worst but at about 10 meters away, the lion moves away it stops parallel to the baby, looks at the elephant then just walks away, leaving the elephant to clamber over the dam wall in pursuit of its herd.

All this happened between 06h15 and 09h52 in the morning. All this is on photographs but not sure if I can load 19 photos on this site.

Wow Richman it almost sounds like a scene from a Disney movie.

I have one or two moments that stands out:

1) At BnD while lighting my braai fire a leopard strolled along the fence and laid down on the rocky outcrop about 20 m from our bungalow. It stayed there for about an hour before silently disappearing.

2) At Croc Bridge earlier this year I woke up early (still faily dark) and while standing on the porch two massive mail lions made their way right up to the fence in front of the bungalow. All three of us were quite nervous and after a minute or two they turned around and headed towards the river.

Well our sighting of a kill not involve a lion or any quadruped in fact but nonetheless it was a kill. At Nsemani Pond, we watched a fish eagle dive down into the undergrowth and grab a bird in its talons and then fly off to an open area and eat its prey. This was the only complete kill sequence that we've seen in Kruger and we were able to take a few photographs of the event.

We also had quite a few.

Our first visit to kruger we saw a Leopard killing an Impala in the middle of the road on the S25 {This is my personal whooow moment in kruger}

We once managed to see a Cheetah killing an Impala at Transport Dam.

Spotted a leopard about 5m from road 400m from skukuza gate, he sat under a small bush {You can imagine the traffic jam that we caused } Cars were struggling to get in & out of camp.

Hyenas were sleeping right next to the Afsaal Picnic area in a little ditch.

3 male lions killing a Buffalo on the S36 between Orpen and Satara.

In 2006 we saw 4 seperate Lion Prides in one morning between 'Salitjie Road' and Lower Sabie camp.

Over the years we really had brilliant luck. But every moment in kruger is special!

I went to KNP (or any game park for that matter) for the first time in 2009, so my first "woohoo" moment was probably the first Impala and Zebra we saw!

We came within about 2 m of 2 Rhino grazing happily on the side of the road and I was amazed at their sheer size!

I have since been back 3 times and each time I see something special, but I must say that my recent trip at the beginning of the month probably yielded some of my best "WooooooW" sightings.

We stayed at Tamboti and the weather was, to say the least, shocking, but early on the Wednesday morning, I opted to go out while the rest of the family slowly got out of bed and showered ( and no, that was not the wow sighting!! ) and I made my way along the H7 towards Satara. There was not much going on, so I headed back to camp and just as I got to the turnoff, I saw what I though was a BBJ. I was so excited to see as I approached that it was actually a pack of 13 wild dogs. This is one of the things on my wish list. They had evidently been chasing the BBJ that were there as well and the Hyena which was also in the area.



We then moved to Pkop for a couple of days, with my hubby, daughter and her boyfriend leaving on the Friday evening to fly home and back to the UK, leaving my older daughter and myself in the park until the Sunday. On the Saturday morning, we decided to go down towards LS as there was a lot of activity in that area and as we got the the crossroads near Skukuza, we spotted a couple of cars and the car in front of us did a U-turn and said "Lions", so we dutifully followed......there were 2 male lion visible, walking very slowly through the bush and as I glanced down the road, I spotted a couple of buffalo and realised that they were hunting. I moved past the cars watching the lions and pulled up next to the buffs. We didn't have to wait long when all h*ll broke loose and the buff came crashing through the bush just in front of the car, the 1 lion ran down next to the car and they cornered the 1 buff! As it tried to turn and run, it lost its footing on the tar and the 1 lion was on its back in a flash! Any rodeo rider would have been proud of the way the buff bucked and lion hung on for dear life! As much as I said that I NEVER wanted to see a lion kill, I couldn't move away. Unfortunately the picture was taken through the windscreen, so is not very good, but it is still a photo!
There were actually 3 males, with 2 of them doing most of the work and it took them over 15 minutes to finally bring the buff down and kill it. There was none of the guts and gore that I expected, but I did feel really sorry for the buff.



On the same evening we saw a lion go for a calling cheetah where he managed to "ankle tap" it, but the cheetah got away and the following morning, the same calling cheetah had a run in with a leopard, but again managed to survive. He was almost teasing the leopard to come and chase him!

Not sure how we are going to top what we have seen so far, but we will hope for something more each time.

Rookie these sightings will be hard to beat but that is what is so nice about KNP. It delivers something different every time.

Rookie... so different sightings
one seems to be pacific
and the other... wow a little bit terrific
nice sightings