Hwange Park Day 2 - 18 Nov. 2018

Very big day today for a number of reasons. Photo count was 989, so there are many good photos not in the blog. Just another reason for readers to take a trip to southern Africa.

Coals going into the tin container means toast will soon be ready. I sit out here early in the morning and type a few words in the blog. In the distance are various animals. What a way to start the day.

Leaving camp our guides drove towards a huge dust cloud in the distance.

Male buffalo.

Seen near a waterhole, the national bird of Uganda.

J.C. and Kennedy determining how many lions had walked down the road and where they might be going.

Linda and I agree, it’s not enough anymore to just take a photo of an animal. They must be doing something. Only one foot on the ground in this photo . Not bad, though a little blurred. Sometimes what camera setting is and what is needed isn’t the same.

Elephant thigh bone. And I always thought Linda had long legs.

 

Wildebeest dining on the new grass in a recently burned area.

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.

It is not sleeping.

No more mating battles to be fought. Rest in peace .

What the bottom of an elephant’s foot looks like.

You could say it is the end of a elephant tale in more ways than one. Really Bad Bob.

On the far side of a nearby waterhole is another elephant.

Life and death at a waterhole. Wildebeests in the background, a guard elephant in the foreground and a dead elephant and vultures in the middle.

And on the left side of the waterhole. It is like watching a TV documentary unfold in real life before your eyes.

As we watched several herds of elephants can down to the waterhole. The lack of water, the rainy season should have been here a month ago, has resulted in this being the only waterhole in the immediate area with water. The guides said if it doesn’t rain within the next ten days the waterhole will dry up and the death toll of animals will rise astronomically.

The elephants streamed by on both sides of our vehicle.

The little ones taking a mud bath.

The adults use their trunks to throw mud on themselves. You can see the stream of mud in the air over two of them here.

We took dozens and dozens of photos, along with many minutes of video while watching.

We were so close we could hear them panting in the heat.

The other half of our group.

The reason they were laying around was because they were full. They had killed a buffalo and baby elephant this morning and their belly’s were full.

Belly up!!

The baby elephant is hidden in vegetation in the middle of the photo.

Safari lunchtime.

Like I said at the beginning. A lot happened today.