Namibia

Our morning game drive continued…

We tracked Cheetah and found…

…this miracle boy. His leg was broken but successful surgery has put him back in wild-life. He lives freely, able to hunt and feed himself!

Here he is with another male Cheetah.

Here is a yellow Weaver bird…

…and this I believe is a White-backed vulture…

…and these are Ground squirrels.

It was getting late but our driver thought there was time for one more tracking…

We surprised one big male lion, walking in front of us as we came driving.

This lion was “Shadow”, an old and very big lion. He would usually be with his pride in another part of this huge game reserve but…

…since a few days he had been here – with his brother “Golden”. They have their own prides in different parts of Erindi. “Golden” was however hurt in a recent fight with another male lion and…

…now “Shadow” has been with his brother for a few days to see him recover. Isn’t that a sweet story!?

Early Friday morning and off for more animal sightings…

First this handsome Water Buck bull…

…and then this Crimson-breasted Shrike, in Namibia known as “the German flag”. Namibia was a German colony over a hundred years ago and this bird, with the colors from the old German flag, used to be the national bird of Namibia. 

The African Wild Dog was once numerous in Namibia but is today an endangered specie. 

They are living and hunting in packs, able to run at high speed for a very long time and known to hunt antelopes to exhaustion.

I wouldn’t like to meet a pack of Wild Dogs while on foot…

The beautiful Springbok…

…kites in a tree (Yellow-billed kite? – Yes, Erik agrees in comment below!)…

…and another rare animal. The black rhino is critically endangered but Namibia has one of the largest black rhino populations in the world. Unfortunately poaching is today becoming a huge problem even in Namibia.

This Rhino is called “Lippy” but he can’t understand why…

Black Wildebeest (Brindled Gnu)…

…and who will help me identify this bird? (Erik’s comment below says it is probably a Taita falcon”)

Two Oryx (national animal of Namibia) crossing the road…

…a Marabou Stork…

…and finally two Black Wildebeest (White-tailed Gnu).

More photos from this morning game drive in the next post!

We were up in the car, heading out in that vast game reserve…

Did you see the elephant at the end of the clip? Here he is again:

An old bull, very calmly passing in front of us.

A male Steenbok…

…and Abdim’s Stork.

Now it was time to see if we could track something else. Lots of animals at Erindi are wearing collars with transmitters. This makes it possible to track them.

Young (about 10 months old) male lion. This pride consisted of three female grown-ups and about seven cubs.

Happy with our fantastic lion sighting we stopped for the traditional sun-downers.

Nothing quite like an African sunset.

A final sighting of a group of Impala. Here is a mother with her two calves.

Last Thursday we left Windhoek driving north, following the tarred B1 for 130 km. 

Turning left there was another 40 km of gravel/sand to the gates of Erindi Game Reserve, a reserve that covers more than 70 000 h!

As you enter you see this sign, warning for wild animals of different species. And on the 25 km to the lodge that day and returning the next, we saw for example:

Baboons…

Warthogs…

Giraffes…

Blue Wildebeests (Brindled Gnus)…

…and Elephants. By the way, can you spot the giraffe..?

Arriving to the “Old Traders Lodge” we just made it to a quick lunch. The restaurant is situated next to…

…a waterhole/lake…

…with Hippos…

…and Crocodiles and any other game coming for a drink.

Walking around in the lodge you can also spot smaller animals. Above a lizard – there are more than a 100 different lizard species in Namibia, maybe this is a Wedge-snouted desert lizard?

This might be a Yellow Blister Beetle…

…and here a …yellow bird…

…Red-billed Francolin, and…

…as we came to our room and opened the curtains and doors to our outdoor sitting area an elephant approached the waterhole…

…and this is so Namibian. Two and a half hours drive from the capitol city you are in another world!

As the elephant had its drink we saw that we had a short time to spend before the game drive and it was…

…pool time!