The morning game drive at Kwandwe involves a 6am wake-up call, for a 6:45ish departure. Morning temperatures are cool, with reasonably clear skies. We are lucky to see a young black-backed jackal using one of the unpaved roads – he seems unperturbed by the vehicle (an open Land Cruiser jeep), and makes it clear that he will use the road to go about his business.
Shortly afterward, a small herd of Red Hartebeast is visible from the road. In rapid succession, we see a small herd of zebra, a giraffe, and a small troop of baboons. Jami, the guide, is interested in insects and spiders, so we stop for a look at this pretty female spider, in an amazing massive web that looks like it was woven on a loom.
Not entirely sure what the white trees are behind the African spoonbills and Little Egret, but it works well with the reflections!
It’s a great morning for game watching – we then see Kudu, Oryx and some ostriches in quick succession, and then the big guy known as T1 – an ageing bull elephant with broken and worn tusks. He is relaxed and unphased by our presence.
His presence is making a nearby white rhino nervous and she keeps a careful eye on our vehicle and the the bull elephant.
Kwandwe has it’s own small airstrip, complete with patrolling male giraffe.
The local warthogs are quite skittish and tend to bolt as soon as they see a vehicle…This pale chanting goshawk strikes a one-legged pose.
We encounter so many interesting animals, insects and rhino middens (dung heaps) that the game drive takes more than 3 hours. The afternoon game drive starts at around 4pm, so between a late breakfast and lunch, there is time for some bird watching from the comfortable of a chair on the porch of my cabin. This is a speckled mousebird, which kindly posed on a nearby thorny bush.
And this handsome guy is a golden-breasted bunting.
The afternoon game drive kicks off with a cape buffalo sighting on one of the roads – hard to miss them really as they are in the middle of the road – a bull and his cows. I can’t help it – they look like cows in viking helmets. This is Jami the ranger and Digby the tracker – Jami is explaining the finer points of the Cape Buffalo, Digby is looking for the next game sighting!
We see some more white rhinos in the distance, and way off in the distance, a black rhino with her calf.
From the main road, we see this jackal catching the last rays of sun…unlike the young jackal this morning, he is disturbed by the vehicle and moves off quickly. Some more giraffes, and after hours this morning and this afternoon looking for them – two cheetah brothers amble in front of the vehicle and recline infront of a nearby tree, scent-marking it first. The light is terrible by this point, and it is dark in a couple of minutes. The shot below was pushing the limits of the Canon 7D at ISO3200, hand held at 400m at 1/125, completely breaking the inverse rule that says that the slowest shutter speed should have been no slower than 1/400 of a second, and more likely 1/640 of a second given the crop factor of the camera body. Just as well I have steady hands still! All up, a great first day of game sightings at Kwandwe!
