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| Mom and baby and auntie bushbucks visit each day. |
“Sighting of the Day in the Bush”
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| We’d never seen an all-grey hornbill. |
For some odd reason, this morning upon awakening, it felt like Sunday when in fact, it is Wednesday, a perfect day to head to Kruger. There’s always less traffic mid-week when many holidaymakers have left the area to return to their homes after a long weekend.
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| Occasionally, they groom one another. |
There are no words to describe how much dust enters the house daily. The entire garden area consists of dry, dusty soil with no grass, no shrubs, and no vegetation other than the property’s bush.
Every animal’s activities, from guinea fowls scratching the ground to zebra’s heavy-footed hooves, resulting in layers upon layers of dust covering every floor, counter, and surface on the veranda and inside the house.
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| Our favorite bushbucks come to call each day, standing at the bottom of the steps waiting for pellets, carrots, and apples. |
Yesterday, before she left, Martha cleaned and dusted the entire house. Once again, all the tabletops and surfaces were covered with a visible layer of dust this morning. This is “the bush.” This is what it’s like.
We decided not to have breakfast this morning in order to head out earlier than usual. If we were hungry at some point along the way, we could always stop at the Mug & Bean in Lower Sabie for a bite to eat.
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| The baby has grown considerably over these past few months. On occasion, she’ll rest in the bush with her mom and auntie forage for food. |
As it turned out, we were so preoccupied searching for wildlife that food was the last thing on our minds. Instead, we were interested in what the wildlife was eating, grazing and hunting today.
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| Any ideas on the identity of this bird? |
It proved to be a highly successful day. I’d hoped to post a few of the photos today, but after downloading the few hundreds on my laptop, I realized it would take hours to go through them, picking and choosing which we’d want to post.
Tomorrow is another day, and first thing in the morning, I’ll begin working on the photos before I even start the new post. If all goes well, I should get the latest post uploaded close to our usual time, before noon in this part of the world.
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| The bird feeder is often surrounded by hornbills. |
As we often do together at the end of the day when we set up the veranda for the evening’s festivities, we make a beverage, whether it’s iced tea, wine, or a cocktail, for Tom. Together we review the day’s photos deciding which to keep, which to delete.
I’m especially looking forward to tonight’s photos review when we encountered many notable sightings during our five hours in Kruger National Park. Back “home” by 1400 hours (2:00 pm), there was ample time to do a quick wrap-up of today’s post with some less significant photos than we’ll share tomorrow.
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| Any suggestions on the identity of this bird? |
As soon as we walked in the door, we changed into cooler clothing. The outdoor thermometer currently reads 36C (96.8F). Gee, is winter already over here in South Africa? Luckily, there’s a nice breeze, and we’re pretty comfortable outdoors where we’re situated at the moment.
Once I’m done here, I’ll head indoors to wrap up the prep for tonight’s dinner. I’d already cut the carrots and apples for the visitors, and yesterday we purchased three 40 kg (88 pounds) bags of pellets from Obaro in Komatipoort, which should be enough to get us through until we leave the 16th for our next visa run.
Please check back tomorrow for our memorable day, one we’ve never posted while living in South Africa.
Enjoy your evening!
Photo from one year ago today, August 1, 2017:
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| Cloudy day, water and mountain scene in Las Vegas, Nevada, as we ended 67 days in the USA. For more details, please click here. |