Blue Cape, White Waters & Red Dunes

[michael-ibk]

Since we only arrived in the afternoon, we didn´t have too much time for our first drive here, the park closes already at 18:00 am (opening at 07:00 am) in winter, and everybody has to be in camp then. So we only had a quick glimpse of the park, about two hours, and used the Nossob road up North for the first few wateholes.

The river, of course, is long gone, and only rarely - and shortly - has water, the last time in 1989. But that water from times long past is enough to render the old riverbeds much more fertile than the adjoining dunes, so trees do still survive here.



Many of the trees are used by Sociable Weavers for their impressive colonies, which come in all shapes:





The Kalahari is Gemsbok land. Like the Springbok, as non water-dependent animals they are perfectly adapted to this demanding environment. A truly regal antelope - one of my favourites.

I had wondered how relaxed they would be around vehicles. Very. This is Mara-like, they don´t care about their human visitors at all most of the time.



Same with Springbok. On the main road you will never drive too long without seeing one of these two species.

The third main herbivore is the Red Hartebeest. We saw two of them this afternoon, and found out this is actually not that common. For whatever reason not many of them are found South in the two valleys, and in the Auob river bed in general - they were much more common farther North in the Nossob valley and in the dunes.

And the fourth one - Wildebeest.

Wildebeest, unlike their "friends" above, have to drink regularly, so they would perish without the man-made waterholes since their ancient migration routes have long been cut off.

[michael-ibk]

A few birds from the first afternoon:



Southern Pale Chanting Goshawk. Super-common, one of the birds you quickly stop stopping for. "Kalahari Chicken", some people call them.



This Martial Eagle was nesting right next to the road. Its partner was unfortunatley never in sight, and the only angle from where it could be seen was straight into the sun.

Some smaller stuff:



Cape Sparrow



Female



I can only assume this is the young one - typical bored teenager expression.



Chestnut-Vented Tit-Babbler

 

 

Desert Cisticola - which I can only safely say because this is the only Cisticola species occurring in KTP.



Scaly-Feathered Finch - I really like their German name "Schnurrbärtchen" (=Little Mustache)

[michael-ibk]

We stayed another night at Twee Rivieren, so the next day was our chance to explore this area of the park more thoroughly. Again, we stayed in the Nossob valley and drove up North early in the morning (which is right after opening times, but of course 07:00 is not early by most safari standards. :-))

A Goshawk was battling something here, probably a snake? But we would never see who or what was his opponent. Maybe he just did it for show.

 

A Black-Backed Jackal enjoying the first sunshine rays after the cold night.

 

 

I wondered how trees keep up with the weight of these colonies. As a matter of fact, sometimes they don´t, Dantes told us, trees can crash down because of Sociable Weaver "cities".

 

Then Dantes found us something very cool hidden deep inside a tree - something I never would have seen in a million years. We had trouble finding it even after Dantes told us exactly where it was - a Spotted Eagle Owl.

 

[michael-ibk]

Originally we had worried quite a bit if we would manage to find Meerkats - one of @@AndMic ´s favourite and "Nr. 1 wishlist for this trip" animals. Which is by no means a given, as Dantes also told us. But a lot of pressure was off since we had had such a good sighting in Cammspannen - and that one would remain our best. But the Meerkats seemed to like us also here in KTP - we would see them a couple of times this day. All of them kept a good distance to the road, though.

Gabar Goshawk - Pale Chanting´s little cousin. This one fled into the tree because two Drongos agressively mobbed him.

 

Kori Bustard - very, very common, seen several times every day.

 

The Nossob riverbed. The "valley" is not very wide here, only a few 100 m.

 

Baby Meerkat - a bonus sighting.

 

 

I started complaing though - it certainly was unfair that Meerkats were all over the place and no Brown Hyena yet, my "most wanted".

[michael-ibk]

A typical Kgalagadi scene:

 

 

As nice as it was seeing the animals in such a relaxed state it also meant they were feeling totally safe. Good for them, but - this also meant a lack of Big Cats. And let´s face it, ultimately we all want and need to see "big bad" predators on safari. Close. In good light. Hunting. On a kill. Or at least with cubs, I´m not very demanding.

 

This would prove to be not too easy, we had to put in long hours for our sightings, and also had some definite down time. The Kalahari can test one´s patience. It is a good thing I am a very patient man. (And an even better thing that few of you know me personally, and therefore do not know that I´m lying through my teeth, uh, keyboard now. )

 

But always smaller stuff around to entertain - Ground Squirrels may not be as popular as Meerkats, but they are great fun to watch:

And then we did have our first predator sighting - Cheetah, two of them!

 

Relaxing on the dunes, sunbathing. Unfortunately no way to get close to them. If the animals do not choose to get close to the road there´s no way to get closer to them. But that was ok - Cheetah, always a great and special sighting.

 

Edited June 28, 2016 by michael-ibk

[xelas]

What a close-up of the owl's magical eyes!! Well done @@michael-ibk . I do disagree with you that you need a guide to spot an owl. We have done it, and I am sure you would be also done it ... if not having Dantes !

 

And the riverbed changed its colours to more Kalahari ones; while green is nice red is nicer!

Edited June 28, 2016 by xelas

[michael-ibk]

Oh, absolutely, we did see several quite easily - and often others will tell you. But this one was so well concealed that I never would have noticed it driving by.

[xyz99]

What a feast for the eye....loving it all, but the Gemsbook portrait, the owl and the jackal are my favorites. Not necessarily in this order

[michael-ibk]

Thanks, @@xyz99 !

[michael-ibk]

After the Cheetahs had disappeared we drove up the Dune road between the two valleys and were waiting for quite a while in the hope that they maybe would show up eventually. But no luck, apparently they preferred a good siesta somewhere away from the road. Understandable, it was already about 11:00 am, and it was getting warm.

So we had a brunch (lots of, remember, 5 kg! :-)) at Dikbaardskolk, one of the (few) resting places with toilet facilites in the park. Afterwards we headed back again - quite a long way, we had gone more than 100 km in the morning. (The speed limit is 50 km/h, and we were mostly going slower than that.)

We stopped at one of the waterholes (the experts will probably know its name?) which looked quite different from the other ones - not a small puddle embedded in stones, but quite natural-looking - a small oasis in the Kalahari.





Quite an irregular sight seeing Gemsbok drink standing on green grass - not a picture one associates with the Kalahari! Dantes told us they prefer salty water, so they show up much more at waterholes with a high concentration of that.



Very surprised to see a Hammerkop here!



Lots of Red-Headed Finches were around, always coming and going to the water.



The Males were quite striking. They had to take care, because they were being hunted!



Lanner Falcons were dashing through time and time again - but without ever catching anything. Dantes thought they were still a bit clumsy, not experienced enough to actually make a kill here - but they were learning. As they failed, so did I mostly in my attempts to catch them in flight - they are very, very fast indeed!

Edited June 29, 2016 by michael-ibk

[michael-ibk]

It was pretty quiet now - most animals are having siesta time, birds are no longer that active at this time of the day.

 

Southern Grey-Headed Sparrow

 

 

A Bateleur mother was giving her child flying lessons - I got dizzy watching their aerial acrobatics.

 

 

Two Secretary Birds looking for prey.

 

Down South we took the Dune road to the Auob valley because we had been told that a pride of lions had been sighted there.

 

 

 

Several Ostriches were seen on the way - apparently they like the dunes here. They are also very common in the river valleys.

 

 

 

Korhaans also showed up pretty regulary. Other than that, the dune roads are pretty quiet, we did not see anything of note there. We scanned the area from a viewpoint but the lions were gone - or just sleeping in the high grass, and thereby totally invisible. When we finally got back to camp it was almost 03:00 pm.

 

[SafariChick]

@@michael-ibk the owl was really cool! And glad you got to see meerkats again for @@AndMic (and the baby!!) - and cheetah!

[michael-ibk]

We had decided to do a sunset drive with one of the park rangers. As in Augrabies, these things really are very good value - about ZAR 250 per person (approx., sorry, forgot the exact sum, that´s about USD 16,--), and they go from 17:00 till about 20:00. Open proper safari car, another strong argument for me to do this. It´s a good chance to look for some of the nocturnal animals - and of course I was hoping for some good stuff. Andreas had had all of his Meerkats, so surely it was my turn for a Brown Hyena.

Unlike Augrabies, this was fully booked, we had to share the car with 7 others - which is to be expected here, as mentioned before Twee Rivieren is a huge camp. So I accepted that the guide (who was actually quite good) would have to cater to very different kinds of tourists, the tourist who gets to see African wildlife for the very first time, and the crazy bunch of people most of us on Safaritalk are. I accepted it, but I confess it was not easy for me.



"This is a Wildebeest. It. eats. grass. It. is. an. antelope."
"We are in the Kalahari. It is. not. a. desert."

Patience, Michael, patience!

We stopped every 50 m, for every flower, for every tree, for every bush, for every bird, for $§/(%="/%) everything!

"This is a melon. Animals eat it for fluid."
"The Nossob is a river but it never flows"
"This is a tree. It. has. leaves."
"This. is. a. bird. It. flies."

Ok, he did not really say the last two things. But almost. It was 18:00 now, and I was harder and harder tempted to tell the poor guy to shut the ?$§)%() up and go on and find some cool animals instead of bragging on and on about every plant for five minutes. Luckily I did not, kept on smiling politely, and it was probably only that remarkable restraint why the Safari god had mercy on me and showed his gracious side.

The sun went down.



And excatly in the neutral tone of voice our guide presented stuff like Sociable Weavers or Springbok he casually said: "Look to the right, there´s a Cheetah mother with four cubs."



:) :)



The light was all but gone now, and it was pretty hard to take photos in a car filled with nine over-excited people who were all jumping up and down in their excitement trying to get a good look. But of course, this was definitely the sighting of the day!



There´s nothing more adorable than Cheetah cubs, especially when they still have their "Honey Badger look".



These little ones were about two months old, we were told.

We lost them for a while, but then to our delight they showed up again, close to the road - and the family crossed.



Mum first, very cautiously, checking, looking for danger (though never our way, she was ignoring us).



And the cubs followed, tiny little cuteness bundles.



And one was curious enough to give us a good look.



And then they were gone.



Thank you Cheetahs, and thank you dear guide to whom I apologise because of course we would not have been here at this time at this place had you not gone on in length about everything. You are the best!

[michael-ibk]

After the Cheetahs it was proper "night drive" time. The guide used a good spotlight, and handed out one to one of the guests on the left. And the drive turned out to be pretty productive, lots of Springhares of course ...

 

 

... Cape and Scrub Hares (though it was explained to me several times how to tell them apart I have already forgotten again.)

 

 

A Wild Cat, a Genet, and quite a lot of Owls, including my first ever Barn Owl. As mentioned before, taking photos was pretty difficult under these conditions, and I will just call these shots "artsy".

 

 

We saw at least five Spotted Eagle Owls.

 

 

But the highlight came towards the end, at the last waterhole before getting back to camp. We were watching a few Springhares, when our always absolutely unagitated guide politely asked if we wanted to move on because he had just seen a Hyena and maybe we could try to get closer?

 

"Hyena? I don´t like Hyenas." That was not me.

"Hyena? BROWN Hyena? Seriously?! - GoGOGO, now, fast, immediately!" That was me.

 

All my good manners were forgotten, but fortunately the others somehow seemed to get that this was, for whatever weird reasons, a big deal for me, so they suddenly found it exciting too and agreed to chase after it. (Not that I would have tolerated objections anyway. )

 

And Brown Hyena indeed it was. It ran, and we did not see it for long, but what a very cool end of this night drive.

 

 

 

Not a piece of modern art - my first ever Brown Hyena!

[michael-ibk]

So we had a brunch ... at Dikbaardskolk, one of the (few) resting places with toilet facilites in the park. Afterwards we headed back again - quite a long way, we had gone more than 100 km in the morning.

 

I was told by well-informed sources I have been talking nonsense. We did not have brunch at Dikbaardskolk but at Melkvlei - about 50 km from Twee Rivieren.

Edited June 29, 2016 by michael-ibk

[Panthera Pardus]

@@michael-ibk have been following and really enjoying this trip with you. Some wonderful sightings. Love that honey badger look

[penolva]

Corinne with her new cubs, wow. Saw her with her previous litter in 2014. I just hope the new family are around in September.

[dlo]

That is a great night drive! Would love to see brown hyena some day.

[Towlersonsafari]

Hurrah @@michael-ibk patience and good manners rewarded! I do really love the san parks night drives-they really are such good value even in the most trying of circumstances! and @dio i am sure we have both agreed that our wives know best so you know what you have to do-arrange to go to the KTP immediately !

[xelas]

That was one very productive night game drive, @@michael-ibk !. If only you would have a Nikon camera, with its fabulous dynamic range .

As for that natural-looking waterhole, I assume it is the one near Kij Kij waterhole, where you can park on a small hill above the pool, and is popular with photographers for BIF (falcons hunting)??

[Patty]

What a funny and productive night drive

[Safaridude]

michael-ibk

 

Kgalagadi rocks, and you are making it come alive in this TR.

[CaroleE]

@@michael-ibk

 

The dunes are majestic, what a colour! Meerkats and getting so close, wow. Spotted Eagle Owl shots are great. The socialable weaver nests are huge...I thought Hamerkop nests were big when compared to the size of the bird but those weaver nests are something else.

The cheetah and more cheetah including cubs and a brown hyena. This is just getting sickingly* good. Then add in your (and the secret lurker's) beautiful photography ....nope, not getting jealous at all

 

.....but - this also meant a lack of Big Cats. And let´s face it, ultimately we all want and need to see "big bad" predators on safari. Close. In good light. Hunting. On a kill. Or at least with cubs, I´m not very demanding.

 

Appears we have similar non demanding standards on safari

 

* I may have just made up a new word there!

 

P.S. Thanks for the welcome back wishes. Kenya was marvellous: beautiful landscapes and parks (Meru....wow!!!); top notch wildlife; great camps and with some interesting and interested, well informed and funny people.

Edited July 1, 2016 by CaroleE

[SafariChick]

Love the description of the night drive and your initial reactions to the guide! But wow, did that drive pay off - what adorable cheetah cubs - and your hyena - yay!!

[PeterHG]

@@michael-ibk

I came upon this excellent report rather late ( holiday, just France and Spain, nothing interesting...), but I've been reading it with great interest. Both for your beautiful photographs and your captivating stories! Love the Verreaux Eagle series and your vivid description of the Kgalagadi night drive. Well, and the Owl, Meerkats, Cheeta, Bontebok, Brown Hyena and so on....

Hadn't really given De Hoop any thoughts, but you make it sound ( and look) very attractive! Thanks for sharing all these images and experiences!