The Bird Count Continues

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Geo: -24.7435, 26.2573

This morning the team met at our lodge at 7am to continue bird counting. They started the day by walking around the lodge. While they were doing this, I slept in - it was too cold to get up just to walk around the lodge.

We left the lodge at about 8am. The guides had a route in mind. As we drove along we came across a crash of white rhinos - which are always special to see. Just off the main road it was reported on the radio earlier on, that the coalition of 4 cheetahs were resting under a tree. These cheetahs were released into the park a few months ago and this was the first time that I have seen them. We were just a few metres from them. The cheetahs are all males and they had recently killed and were happily laying about in the shade digesting their kill.

We then saw some giraffes and I finally spotted and identified a bird before anyone else - a Kori Bustard. These are large birds, which sometimes fly. We continued driving around for another hour and then we left the park and went to the general dealer to buy some supplies for the afternoon barbecue.

At this stage there was only about two hours left, so we rushed about here and there, trying different parts of the reserve for new species. We arrived at the meeting place 20 minutes early, so we sat at the waterhole and watched the elephants and impalas drink.

At 2pm we were at the meeting spot and the other three vehicles appeared. The guides were very competitive, no-one was saying how many birds they saw. The results were handed to Paul as he organised the competition. Unfortunately our score of 111 was not enough to win, the winning team scored 129. In the end it was a fun 24 hours, to be repeated again in summer when the bird count will be much higher.

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Photos

01 Close
Two white rhinos staying close together.

02 Rhinos
Three special and endangered animals - white rhinos.

03 Brown Bird
A brown bird - some type of cisticola.

04 Resting
A coalition of cheetahs resting.

05 Heads Up
Three of the cheetahs have raised their heads to look around.

06 Digesting
They had recently killed and were now digesting their meal by laying about.

07 Giraffe
A young giraffe looking at us.

08 Large One
One of the larger birds in the reserve - a Kori Bustard.

09 Drinking
Three impalas drinking at the waterhole.

10 Elephant
One of the large elephants drinking water.

11 Drinking
Some of the elephants drinking at the waterhole.

12 Hole in the Ear
This elephant has a big hole in its right ear - I wonder how it came about.