We were up to go out as the gates opened this morning. The plan was to head north to Mestel Dam for our morning coffee and rusks and then do the loop south again back towards Pretoriuskop and then do the Fayi Loop to the south of the camp and then back to camp for breakfast. It was again overcast in the morning and so birding was sparse (birds like the sun in the morning). Game was also sparse and we didn’t really see much on the north loop. On the southern loop, we did have the best sighting of the day and that was a herd of Sable Antelope. They are quite rare – there are 280 of them in the whole of the Kruger Park. We saw a herd of 14 which means we managed to see 5% of the population of the KNP. They are quite majestic. We had the added benefit of them being right on the side of the road and were quite relaxed. We did experience our, now seemingly usually problem, of an elephant bull in the middle of the road and planning on not going anywhere. It meant we had to turn around and find another route back to camp.
We spent the rest of the day in the camp and did some birding in camp adding quite a few birds to our trip list (and B & S added some to the life lists). The clouds burnt off and it warmed up considerably (getting to around 32 C). We headed out again for an evening drive at 4:30pm. We did the Fayi Loop again and unfortunately for the first 30 minutes or so we saw no game at all. We did manage to see some birds and got B to his 200th lifer on the drive. We also saw an excellent sighting of a Little Sparrowhawk right next to the road and then we saw the herd of Sable Antelope again. Not often (if ever) that I can claim to have see such a rare animal twice in one day!
Unfortunately it was a no predator day but the rare sighting of Sable Antelope and B reaching 200 lifers made up for it. We are on 101 birds for the trip so far. My aim was at least 150 so that looks hopeful. Some of the migrants seem to be back – for instance we have seen European Bee-Eaters but then we haven’t some others eg. European Rollers.
We had a braai again for dinner. We would have done it anyway but we would have been forced to do so because loadshedding was from 5-7:30pm. It was a lovely evening with hardly an wind at all and the temperature is currently 24 C (at 9:30pm).
Until tomorrow (with hopefully better predator sightings)
P, H, S & B