If you are out there shooting, things will happen for you. If you’re not out there, you’ll only hear about it. - Jay Maisel

This is a topic of discussion that I have always stressed, whether chatting with my guests when they contemplate taking a morning off, or my peers when we’re not hosting anyone. The beauty about operating in an area that shares unfenced boundaries with the vast expanse of the Kruger National Park is that every day is completely different from the next in the sense that one never really knows what they will encounter. I absolutely love that! The element of surprise is what keeps things fresh for us even though we will be out there on a daily basis, but if you want to witness all that nature has to offer you have to get out there at every opportunity otherwise you’ll just hear the stories around the campfire. I hope you enjoy this week’s selection of wildlife in monochrome...

Driving along a road not well travelled, we had the pleasure of bumping into a small bachelor herd of elephants being led by this massive old bull.

Maxabeni is always a favourite for us to show our guests due to his size, power and presence and on this occasion we were quite fortunate to find him at the site of a kill so we were guaranteed some quality time with him.

We have several ‘resident’ troops of baboons within the range of our reserve, but one is not always guaranteed to find them. On this particular day we rounded a corner and there they were...

With water reserves fairly scarce at present, we have been almost guaranteed to find herds of elephants moving about the area and with that, lots of opportunities to spend time observing interactions between members of the groups.

It’s not always the larger animals that grab our attention while out in the bush...the smaller creatures also offer us entertainment and I am always pleased to find groups of dwarf mongoose to sit with.

A rare find in our area and always a treat for me. The Southern Reedbuck is a shy antelope with very specific needs from their environment and so there are only a few places where one can find them.

We bumped into the Warthog Wallow female on our way home, just lying up a tree and watching a herd of impala nearby. It’s funny because we were searching all morning for a leopard, following up on tracks that led us nowhere and after we had given up for the morning, we were blessed with this fortunate encounter.

The Charleston male lions are an impressive pair and we are so fortunate to have had them trying to assimilate into the Southern Pride as this means very regular sightings of them and now that they are mating with the females, they will most surely take over the area.

This sighting of a European Nightjar was a first for me and very unexpected. Thankfully I was hosting photographic guests which allowed me the opportunity to get down on the ground level to photograph this beauty.

The White Dam female in some harsh backlighting created from the other vehicle in the sighting. Again quite a fortunate sighting in that she was found with a kill close at hand so we could play around with some different lighting techniques with the knowledge that she wasn’t about to go anywhere in a hurry.

Blog by Mike Palmer (Bush Lodge Ranger)