Elephants to the left of us, lions to the right…has to be a Madikwe game drive!

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Elephants to the left of us, lions to the right...has to be a Madikwe game drive!
bath ducks!

I recently had the pleasure of spending five days in the Madikwe game reserve.

I flew in on Federal Air where I was collected by a vehicle from Thakadu, my first camp

My second camp was Tuningi where I found there ducks floating in my hand basin!

But this Blog is about the animals both great and small…I go to these camps with no real expectations as this makes my excursions more exciting. As long as I see at least one new animal a day I am a REALLY happy chap.

This trip was no exception as my first “different” sighting was this BRIGHT green chameleon that was crossing the road.OK, so why DID the Chameleon cross the road?

Perhaps it was to get away from this Yellow-billed Ground Hornbill?

 

I was also able to stop for a while and photograph these Red Damsel flies as well a the stunning Blue Dragonfly…sometimes animals with teeth and claws just have to take a back seat!
Madikwe is alive with a variety of birds, some of which had already left for their summer breeding grounds.

 

Although the European Rollers had left, we still found many Lilac breasted and Purple representatives of the species

 

Neither the young Malachite Kingfisher or the Brown Hooded kingfisher seemed to stressed by this Nile Crocodile sunning itself on a bank near one of the camps

Speaking of small ‘critters’…

even the squeamish guests on our vehicle were enthralled by Golden Orb web spiders!

 

The Black Mamba that I saw was too fast for me to get an image, but this Brown Snake eagle sitting on a tree close by did pose…perhaps happy that our vehicle had flushed out a potential meal.

This family group of Vervet monkeys watched as we drove past, undisturbed by our chatter in the vehicle that seemed to be competing with their calls!

But a blog about animals would not really be complete if I did not let you see some of the “Big 5” that we found.

 

 

There are Leopard in Madikwe, but they chose not to reveal themselves on this trip

 

 

But, we were very lucky to find this pack of Wild Dogs that were in hunting mode…

A Crimson breasted Shrike rounded off my visit…next time I hope to find the Yellow mutation…

For more images of the trip, visit: david batzofin photography