The Rain she has come

Wow. The first proper summer rains have arrived at Pafuri. 100mm has fallen out of the sky in the last 24 hours, which is plenty considering that the usual annual rainfall is only around 350mm. Receiving almost one third of your annual rain in just one day means one of two things: either you live in a seriously dry place or you have had a shedload of rain coming down in a very short space of time.

For us it's both actually. Pafuri is the driest region of Kruger and it has been raining non-stop for 2 days solid now, and it certainly doesnt look like easing up any time soon. It is great though, soon soon, very soon everything will be green green green. The trees and their leaves and the grass........and the insects and the birds and the animalia. Ahh the place will come alive!

Just a couple of days ago, we spotted the first impala lambs of the season. Two tiny little youngsters bouncing around after their mothers. I'm sure that after these rains a flood of new impalas will enter the world. Some will be welcomingly snaffled by the predators, but many more will grow up and join the other 130,000 odd impalas in what is the largest herbivore population in the park.

On a birding note - it is starting to kick off madly! The Woodland Kingfishers arrived back and were first noticed on the 12 November, and are now everywhere and their calls are ever present. A real charateristic sound of summer, you know the, TRPPPPPPPP TRRRRRRRRRRRRRRrrrrrrrrrrr.....
The cuckoos are becomingly more vocal, with Red-chested, Diederik, Levaillants, Jacobin & Klaas's all been seen so far. I notched up a good lifer with the addition of a Bohm's Spinetail to my list with the help of 1 Frank Mabasa - the local Pafuri Picnic Site birding guru. This dude is quite famous in birding circles - he's based permanently at the picnic site and has an impressive collection of something like 250 species just seen around the picnic area. I was actually after a Black-throated Wattle Eye, but will settle for the Spinetail instead. The best news is I think Andria has been converted to a 'serious' twitcher! We'll be needing to get her some binos asap.

It's been pretty quiet around the lodge since we have been back, with only 4 guests staying here over the last week. A young Swiss couple, who we got on nicely with kindly offered us an invitation to go snowboarding near Geneva with them. Other than that, 2 ol Germans just rocked up without a reservation and lingered about for 2 nights. The lady was clearly enjoying the luxury after her unpleasant Mozambiquan journey stating that 'she vill never go baack zehr'

Sightings have been decent in the few drives done since our return from leave. Watched a beautiful big male leopard run across the road right in front of us on a night drive, saw 3 white rhinos chilling near Lanner Gorge and as usual have seen plenty of buff all over the place. The most special for me have been the elephants. They are my favourite animal, and always stir up some sort of emotion amongst people when viewed at short distances from the vehicle. The first encounter I had since the charging ellie episode 2 weeks ago, took place on my second drive back at Pafuri. I had wondered how I would feel about getting up close to one again and how I would deal with it. Anyway it went well. The 2 Swiss guests and I were parked next to a pan focused on some yellow billed storks when I noticed 2 big bull elephants standing 30m away drinking from a water trough. I drove forward to get a better look and turned off. The one chap closest to us was drinking away happily, but seemed to take objection to my interpretation of elephant feeding behaviour when he spun around wildly and unexpectedly ran a few meters towards us displaying his massive bulk to us. I reprimanded him by saying ' OK BOY' in my sternest voice which seemed to stop him in his tracks, to my relief and very much so to the two Swissies relief.

I love elephants. The only animal that can get your pulse racing even when you're in a car. Every elephant I've seen since the 'incident' has seemed to look at me funny. I think they know.... Could that be possible??

Andria's dedication to her comrades training is amazing. Every day she continues to pound away on that treadmill totally focused on being ready for the big day. She is definitely doing it now, as her application was successful. 6 months to go....

Will write again when I have some more interesting news. That may be a while if the rain she keeps on fallin....

Cheers for now.

Pierre