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Great to have met Val and Dungy . We will have them as guests on 26 April 2013 in Pretoria before they leave for home again

From the episode, I can see that you and Torticat pulled out all the stops along the capricon loop again . Great array of sightings again .

Must be quite an experience to stay in the hide overnight .

Thanks for sharing

Great experience to have spent the night and the Shipandani Overnight Hide Normana53 and Torticat!

Beautiful picture of the Waterbuck near the parking area. So nice and green!

A pity about the bad weather though! But to have a Hippo grazing so close to you must have been awesome!

Looking forward to more please!

Norman Wow Wow Wow

Must have been a thrilling experience that overnight stay at Shipandani

and great to hear that the much needed rain finally arrived

..To have met other Mites during you stay.

Wow...Mother nature gave you a different experience at the hide... ....but full of surprises and wonder

A gorgeous lioness

Sounds like you had a wonderful walk with Frank and Amos

We spent a night in Sable Hide and it was an amazing and a very different experience. Every sound you hear is

turned up a few decibels

Off to Shingwedzi
We left the hide early and drove around the immediate area for a while waiting until Mopani reception opened so we would drop off our bedding and keys. We stopped for a bit at the Pioneer hide and spotted some lovebirds in the distance.

A busy Pied Kingfisher landed on the rocks in front of the hide and gave us a pose

Once we were done at reception we headed for Shingwedzi.
A slow drive up the H1-6 was nice with lots of sightings and few other cars.
One of the first sightings was an African Paradise Flycatcher with his long tail feathers, sorry no pic.
Kurrichane Thrush, Southern Yellow Billed Hornbill, Yellow Billed Kite, Little swift, Steppe Buzzard, Red Billed Hornbill, an African Cuckoo (first ever for us) and others.


All of this in the first few kilometers!

This trip was a Tortoise bonanza, we saw multiple Tortoises daily!

A few Giraffe between the road and the river

Ellies walking in the riverbed

at one point we were sure we had found the garden of Eden

We arrived at Shingwedzi around noon, and dropped our things off in our Bungalow and headed back out to see what we could find.

Normana

Wow!!! what a lot of wonderful bird sightings you had in such a short space of time.

African Cuckoo... super that you can tick this one off your list.

Ellies are stunning in the riverbed beautiful pic.

Can see why you thought you were in the garden of Eden ....just amazing the scenery with the Giraffe, looks so peaceful.

Just outside the Shingwedzi gate was a large group of Vervets, these two had a tiny baby that they were holding tightly, we weren't even sure if it was alive until it finally moved after 5 minutes or more.

Another awesome drive Normana53 and Torticat! I agree .... the picture with the Giraffes look like Eden! Absolutely beautiful!

Great shot of the two lovebirds! One of my favourite birds! And a great shot of the Pied Kingfisher! The African Cuckoo was a real bonus!

We once saw a Baboon mom carrying her dead baby as far as she went! This could carry on for a few days. It was so sad to watch this. I don't know if Vervets also do that? Fortunately this baby was alive!

Another unbelievable day with stunning sightings .
I agree that the giraffe pic in the riverbead looks like a pic taken of Eden .
Thanks for sharing .

Norman,

Another great episode. Looking forward to seeing what treats Shingwedzi delivered for you.

Daron

Great picture of the giraffe in the riverbed, Normana

Just catching up

I was so interested to read about your experience at Shipandani hide. After my last visit, it has become a must for me. I was even thinking of making it my birthday treat in a couple of years. It sounds marvelous.