There's a rhino in my front yard!

  Friday May 20 we were up bright and early (well, early anyway) leaving Crocodile Bridge for Berg-en-Dal, our 3rd Kruger camp.  We have been to B&D twice before and always been lucky enough to get a site on the fence, which is first prize as the scenery is lovely and lots of game goes by. 

It was third time lucky as we found a spot on the far fence with 180 deg views.  Bit of a job getting up there, but thats what 4x4 is for! The bird life was excellent, with two pairs of cardinal woodpeckers tapping away, and two brownhooded kingfishers hunting insects from a tree right at the fence.  Fortunate enough to see one swoop into the grass and come up with a scorpion which was gobbled with relish!

There were many other birds new to me and Cathy was kept busy answering all my questions.

We did a number of game drives and saw an abundance of animals.  We had 3 (yes 3!!!) leopard sightings in one week.  This was especially exciting as in our previous 2 visits we had never seen one. The one in the pic (left) was only spotted because a car was already stopped and she(he?) was gone in less than a minute.

If you enlarge the pic you can see I was lucky enough to get her(him?) looking straight at me.  On Sunday all 3 couples drove up to the picnic site at Afsaal, about an hours drive away, for a skottel breakfast.  On the way we encountered this rhino calf, who was not a bit afraid and was especially fascinated by the Lahana's car (large white object - Mommy sustitute?).  The mother just kept grazing placidly and didn't seem at all worried that Junior was  

in the road.

It was super to see Alan and Mary Carter at Afsaal, as they have been travelling since early March.  The tame bushbuck there pose picturesquely on the little knoll and then come down and do the rounds of the picnic tables looking for handouts.  After breakfast we all trooped off to look at the resident Scops owl in one of the tall trees in the picnic area.  Without Alan's help we would never have
spotted it as they are tiny - only about 15 cm tall and look like
a piece of tree bark. 

Its always hard to decide on the best time of day when camping in the Kruger.  Is it the cool early morning when the coffee is on the go, and the decision as to what to do with the day is up for grabs?  Or is it early evening, when everyone is returning from their game drives and comparing notes, the camp gates are being closed to keep out unwanted visitors, the fires are being lit either for cooking or socialising, and the drinks are being poured?  On the morning of Monday 23rd it was very definitely the early morning, as I put the kettle on and opened the caravan door to find 3 large (I know, they are all large, but up close they are MASSIVE) rhino and 2 elephant just the other side of the fence.  The ellies did not hang about for very long but we watched the rhino for about an hour.  One of the rangers came and joined us, and while I was right at the fence taking the pic (above left) I asked him how rhino proof the fence was, as I was getting a rather beady eye from about 3 metres away.  'Not very' was the reply.  Needless to say I retreated sharpish - not wanting to test that particular theory!     

A wonderful sighting - has to be close to the top of the list for this trip.  An extra treat that evening was the civet cat which ghosted past our campsite on the edge of the lamplight.  We hadn't seen one before, but it vanished into the undergrowth before we could get a better look. 

Yesterday we travelled up to Skukuza, to meet the other travellers and spend 5 nights but more of that next time.