Our next two nights in Kruger were deeper into the park at the South Sabie Rest Camp. Kruger is easy for self-drive game viewing, so we took a slow ride north on the Nhlowa route near the eastern edge of the park, scanning for wildlife on the way. A tower of giraffes (1) was easy to see browsing on the trees, surrounded by a dazzle of zebra (2). These animals commonly graze together, with the long-view vision of the giraffes and the keen hearing of the zebra helping to keep both safe from predators in an example of informal inter-species cooperation.
Further north (and as the sun rose higher in the sky), large game were less visible, but birds remained active. A booted eagle landed in a nearby tree, and seemed (to me) to be struggling with a piece of grass in his mouth; my friend noticed it was actually the tail of a small critter the eagle was swallowing. Leaving your car is possible at a small blind about halfway between the camps, where we watched birds busily tending to their nests.
The sunset (3) game drive leaving Lower Sable was in a larger game drive truck which was full. I sat next to a young couple in the last row of the truck. Judging by the accents, she was clearly American and he South African. She was a dancer on a cruise ship and he was the ship's photographer.
A multi-generational herd of elephants was crossing behind us, and the elephant eyed the safari truck warily to protect the young elephants in the group. After sunset, we saw bush babies (tiny simian creatures) and a genet, a member of the cat family, slightly bigger than a house cat.
(1) As potential prey, newborn giraffes can run within a hour of birth. Many of the potential prey animals share a similarly short period of vulnerability before the animals can run from predators.
(2) "Tower" is the collective noun for a group of stationary giraffes, with "journey" used when the giraffes are in motion. A "dazzle" is a group of zebra.
(3) The animals are generally more active at sunrise and sunset, resting during the mid-day heat.
Giraffe and zebra grazing together
Dung beetle
Elephants passing behind us
Genet on the prowl after dark
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