Peter Clements stayed with us in late February/early March this year, for a total of 8 nights. Peter’s just sent in some of his best shots of his stay with us. And I have to say: they are some stunning shots!

The first photo is the male lion on our own reserve. He is now about three years old, and though he’s really massive already, he is still getting bigger. He is a cross with a Cape lion, so they tend to get very large! Stunning shot by Peter, what a beautiful animal!

We have quite a few cheetahs on the reserve, but they are notoriously hard to find, and, as anywhere in Africa, seeing them is a real privilege, and quite rare. We do see them regularly, which is a blessing, but again, Peter’s shots are sublime. We found them resting in a river bed, which is perfect to take a clear photo. Cheetahs count amongst the most endangered species in Africa, as they ned a lot of space, and they have a lot of competition from stronger predators too (such as the lion and the leopard), so they are struggling. Luckily our cheetahs are having cubs, and being successful at raising them, so that’s something we are obviously delighted about.

Also a couple of shorts from an elephant and a rhino as photographed when Peter was on a day trip with us to the Kruger Park. Very nice indeed.

Last a photo of Peter, Peter’s wife and Pierre, our ranger, out on an African safari on our 36,000 acre game reserve. Good times …

Many thanks to Peter for these beautiful shots, and for sharing them with us! 🙂

Jesse has been lucky again when out spotting animals for our guests. Him and the guests saw a super rare ground hornbill just a couple of days ago. This species is in grave danger of extinction, and it is a huge privilege and pleasure to have a resident (and breeding family) of ground hornbills on our reserve. We see them quite regularly, so for keen birders that are keen on spotting one of the ratest birds in the world, this is a real delicatesse sighting!

The Ground HornBill, more accurately called the “Southern Ground Hornbill”, is rare for a number of reasons: it has an exceedingly slow reproduction rate (they spend up to 4 years rearing one chickonly ), and they only reach maturity at the age of 6-7, but still do not breed at that age typically, as a pair requires help of 1-2 other birds raring one chick. It has also been observed that no ground hornbill is able to rear a chick without having gone itself through this “learning” process by helping rearing another couple’s chick (typically their own parents’), so the entire social fabric is extremely fragile.Despite most African cultures seeing it as a complete taboo to kill a ground hornbill, this cultural effect has weakened due to the modernisation of the continent, putting futher pressure on this rare species.

In South Africa this species is listed as “critically endangered”! We are proud that our reserve serves as sanctuary to this species, and that our resident ground hornbill is successfully raising chicks, and we hope that their numbers will continue to grow here.

See a photo of the ground hornbill below, as Jesse took it two days ago.

Also a photo of a WaterBuck, which are quite common on our reserve due to the many water holes and lakes. This couple is having a little summer “us time”, which is always nice to see. Water bucks are famous for running into water holes when there is danger, seeking refuge in this manner.

Also a lovely herd of zebra was spotted, as well as hundreds of wildebeest, which are doing very well on the reserve and provide many hunting opportunities for the many predators that are to be found on our reserve.

 

We had a large group of 18 guests from the America over at the lodge until today (8 of them stayed at the nearby Khaya Ndlovu Lodge, and we fetched them every morning to go on safari with us). Jesse went to the Kruger Park for half a day during their stay, and they were quite lucky! They saw buffalos, elephants and even the rare hyena. Not bad for a half day trip, and what a treat!

See below the photos that Jesse took in the park. What beautiful animals. I have personally never seen a hyena in the wild, so I am, frankly, quite jealous. I should head out more on safari myself, and I have vowed to do that next time I am at the lodge.

We have quite a few hyenas on our reserve as well, especially on the Blauwbank portion of the reserve, and with us going there more often we will start seeing them more regularly over there as well.

The guests had a great time, and they saw pretty much all Big 5, and tons more. 18 guests at the same time was a challenge, and the team got a round of applause when they checked out. It was a real team effort! Well done!

Bernard

 

 

We have many zebras on our 36,000 acre private game reserve, and while they are not part of the “Big 5” group (which is a very silly and archaic way of compartmentalising the wealth of African fauna), there are not many animals such as the zebra that are as well known and as typical for African wildlife. They are extremely strong, sturdy, and yet elegant and beautiful animals. It is fascinating to see a large herd of zebras running along their “friends”, the wildebeest, when on the run from danger.

Please see below a mother lovingly caring for her young calf, on our Moditlo Private Game Reserve. Very cute.

Here some information on zebras and their most unique features, the stripes:

It was often believed that zebras were white animals with black stripes, as zebras often have white underbellies. New evidence shows that the animal’s background color is in fact black and the white stripes and bellies are the additional feature. So what caused the appearance of the stripes? What is their use?

The stripes are usually vertically located on the head, neck, forequarters, and main body, with horizontal stripes at the rear and on the legs of the zebra.

The more traditional explanations relate to camouflage.

1. The vertical striping may help the zebra melt into the patterns of long grass by replicating its shape. Also, even at moderate distances, the striking striping merges to a visual grey, and as most predators are mostly color blind, this gives them an edge.

2. The stripes probably help to confuse predators by a thing called “motion dazzle”— by virtues of a group of zebras standing or moving fast together appear as one large mass of moving stripes, making it harder for a lion or other predator to identify a specific target, which they need to do to go for a kill.

3. The stripes may serve as identification help for one another. But this is pure theory, as no proof has showed that zebras indeed recognise each other by virtue of their striping. But what is true that every zebra has a unique striping pattern, like a human’s fingerprint pattern.

4. Recent research shows that the stripes

are very effective in repelling flies^. A 2012 experiment conducted in Hungary proved that zebra-striped models were nearly minimally attractive to tabanid horseflies. These flies are attracted to linearly polarized light, but black and white stripes disrupt this attractive pattern. So the theory goes that by the process of “elimination” (Darwin-type selection process) random zebras (originally all black) who happened to be born with stripier appearance would have a longer life expectancy as they are more left alone by blood-sucking  flies, and then they would pass on these genes to their offspring, perpetuating the pattern.

And, of course: the zebra with its distinctive stripes gave birth to the term “zebra crossing”. All the way over from Africa … 😉

 

 

Text: Bernard

 

Justin was with guest for a day trip to the Kruger Park yesterday, and took a few stunning photos there!

The emperor moth was sitting right outside on the main deck of the Vuyani Safari Lodge. What a stunning-looking insect indeed!

The buffalos are looking even grumpier in the rain than they usually do anyway. The rainy season this year, thank God, has turned out to be wet again, which is great for nature and wildlife. We usually get 500-600mm of rain in an average year, but this year it has been more than that, so the dry season will not be too difficult to get through this year. All lakes are completely filled up, so there is plenty of water reserves to get through the 5 dry months of the year. The dry months last from May through to October.

Justine’s photos of a group of giraffes on our Moditlo Private Game Reserve taken yesterday, may be proof as to why in English they are called a “journey of giraffes”.

The photo of the dead Leadwood is sadly the very last one taken! It was destroyed yesterday in the storm. This imposing leadwood had been hit by lighting years ago and died as a consequence. It was standing next to the first river bridge, near the entrance gate, and it was always a stunning sight when entering the reserve. A lot of vultures always sat on it. But it sadly is gone now. Time for a new tree to grow now, that’s the cycle of life.

Enjoy the photos!

At about 5:15 Rina got the first phone call from Rex, our night’s watchman, to inform us that the lions are at the main gate! We radioed Pierre, our legendary ranger, and told him of this very cool event and he went straight there. The guests did see them but not the best of sightings as they went into the bush at that time.

A couple of minutes later Rex phoned the lodge and told Gerard (our chef) that the lions are lying in the road and he cannot pass them to come to work. Gerard was busy cooking up a storm so asked Rina to go fetch him… Rina then saw the male and 1 female and it was good, really good seeing them again. Incredible how good looking these creatures are. She didn’t want to leave and sat there for a bit with Rex in the Hilux (that’s a Toyota car 😉 ) and then the male decided he had seen enough of them for that day and followed his lovely lady into the bush after teasing her a bit first.

See the photos below that Rina took. Very nice.

Here we got one of our camouflage experts at the Vuyani Safari Lodge.

A juvenile Flap-necked Chameleon currently thumb sized. This little fellow will grow up to 35cm in length, up to 14inches. Like every kind of chameleons they can change their colours in varieties of brown green and yellow for this particular kind recognizable by the pale stripe on their flank.
Interesting fact is that a chameleon has 360 degree vision and can focus and direct both eyes independently, also once they lock onto a prey their tongue can shoot out at a speed of 21km/h.

Hard to spot in the bush, yet our ranges always manage to pick them out at the wonder of many a guest :).

Check out this little man having a mud bath.

He is a Warthog and as you may know from the classic Disney character Pumba from the Lion King these guys love mud, like any pig really. Not only does it cool them off in the summer heat and helps them regulate their body temperature but afterwards you will often see a warthog vigorously rub themselves on tree trunks or rocks to rid themselves of parasites that have been caked in the mud, which makes warthogs fervent adepts of exfoliation.

This particular warthog is a male southern warthog (Phacochoerus africanus sundevallii), you can tell he is a young fellow by the size of his tusks.

Warthogs owe their name to a set of warts under their eyes which serve as fat reserves and also as defenses for the male warthogs when they fight over a lady… pig.

This particular fellow is a male and this is visible because males have a distinctive extra set of warts further down on their snout closer to their tusks.
Males usually grow larger then the females and their tusks tend to grow larger too, even if some female warthogs will display an impressive set of ivory,

The tusks are actually 2 sets of canines which grow outward similar to an elephant, the lower canines are constantly grinding along the upper set of tusks and become razor sharp and are a very dangerous weapon and many a predator has had a close shave.

Warthogs are not aggressive animals though, Vuyani Safari Lodge has actually got its own little permanent resident warthog named George who will happily and peacefully graze no less then a foot away from the deck.

Some funny facts about these guys. You will often see them go on their front knees to graze when the grass is low. And, the little piglets look like tiny remote controlled cars when they run behind their mum with their tails raised high.

The Rangers at the Vuyani Safari Lodge will be able to tell you a lot more fun facts about these guys as we have quite a few about and you are sure to run into one for certain, just don’t run over them, we like our warthogs :).