Rhino at Sunrise, Three Cheetah Stalking

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Geo: -24.9854, 31.6018


Got up and out the gate.

First we see a hyena and then another and then two rhino as the sun is rising. Then we come upon the hyena den with at least nine hyenas around and there were two mother hyena nursing. There was a great deal of caterwauling going on as well.

King of the Hill

Then we saw what looked like rhino playing king of the hill with one rhino on top of a hump with three other down around this hump. There was a tour bus looking at them and am not sure if they were the first to see this or not!

Went to the Shitlhave dam to check things out and saw some birds and then went back to check out things near where we had first seen our cheetah (getting possessive of that cheetah you see!) We did not see anything on the cheetah hump but based on safari vehicles all looking intently to the left, we saw not one, two but three cheetahs moving through the grass.

Cheetahs on the prowl

To make sure Robert was in a position to take pictures, quickly whipped the car around and then had to back up as the cheetahs were moving. By turning around, it put the driver on the correct side of the road and would not have to move when another car approached you head on. Quite often there will be a traffic jam of people trying to look at the animal. If your car is in the correct lane, you do not have to give way. The safari vehicles and Laura were jockeying for position and it is amazing how easy this car was to continue to back down the road and even watch the cheetah as they moved.

One of the cheetahs stopped and climbed up on a rock and we were able to sit and watch it for around 30 minutes. This episode began at 7:15 a.m. so you can see what getting up early can reward you.The cheetah began to move again and once again the dance of the safari vehicles and our car slowly backing down the road. We watched them until they finally lay down again.

We stayed there for awhile to see if they would get up and move again but they did not. Several
safari vehicles had gotten the word over their radio but had arrived at the scene too late. Asked us where the animals were but they were not able to make any sightings.

Back to camp for the rest of morning and on the evening drive we were rewarded with an African spoonbill and a nyala but for the most part it was quite quiet.

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Photos

Beautiful White Rhinoceros
playing "king of the mountain" we presume