Feb 9, 2015, Monday, nature walk and evening game drive, Mjejane Lodge,Kruger

We were off early again, this time without a full breakfast.  JB took us on a walk in the area between the two electric fences which are supposed to be free of the Big Five dangerous animals.  He told us that there are the Small Five:  the Rhino beetle, the leopard turtle we saw yesterday, the ant lion who eats ants as they crawl over his hideaway, the red billed buffalo weaver bird which we saw their big nests yesterday and the elephant shrew.

Wild stock rose with blister beetle

We encountered many golden orb web spiders.  They have very strong webs which are very effective, even keeping out elephants.  We saw the knob acacia with lots of knobs on its trunk, and the thorn acacia which you don't want to brush against. We saw some weeping wattle which has soft leaves you use for toilet paper in the bush.  Unfortunately it wasn't available at the times I did need it.   A huge cactus with a trunk like a tree is called a euphorbia.  The Marola tree gives plum like yellow fruit which makes very good liqueur and jam.  Elephants and baboons love it.  I photographed a beautiful yellow flower with a blister beetle on it.  It is a wild stock rose, or hibiscus.

The Big Six trees:  Knob thorn, photo above, lead wood, seen on Imapalila Island, silver cluster, apple leaf, marola which makes a specialty liqueur, and mopana.  The easy four are the baobob, umbrella thorn, fever tree and lalla palm.  I don't know if I got the spelling correct. JB speaks with a Zimbabwe Shona accent (of course).  His knowledge of Africa is amazing: animals, plants, trees, insects, birds, history, geography, culture, you name it, he can give a full lecture on any topic.  

The highlight of the walk was watching a dung beetle move around its huge ball of eggs which can sometimes be as large as a tennis ball,  trying to find a good place to bury it.  The male beetle does the rolling and burying.  We are not allowed to drive over elephant dung so we don't hurt the dung beetles.  They take care of 80% of the animal dung!  And they work quickly and efficiently.  They love their work.

We also learned how to recognize different animal footprints and scat.  Giraffe scat looks about the size and shape of moose, but very black.  The others on our group could not believe they make jewelry out of Alaskan moose nuggets.

We saw a few more birds, a crested grey lory which is also know as the go away bird.  Not very popular with hunters because it warns the animals to go away; another eagle, the short tailed and a crested barbet.

One new animal was the water buck hiding in the bushes.  Our group is very talkative and I imagine we act like a go away bird.  There were definitly giraffe in the vicinity as well as baboon.

We came back to a hearty breakfast.  

The evening game drive was in the park.  Nothing particularly new to see.  However, I enjoyed our sundowner by a large pond where hippos lived, and some interesting birds and  rhinos.