If you don’t rush and drive slowly, you’ll see some lovely little spots in Kruger National Park. 

This is the road we took:

You will see the photo is the same as the one I’ve been using all along as my Kruger icon image above! 

A quiet spot to enjoy:

At one point alongside the road we saw this quiet unobtrusive scene and stopped to observe it more closely. 

The park was mostly dry that time of year, but in this spot it was a little greener. I suppose the spot been greener is what attracted us to it.  

The greenness was due I think, to the little tiny stream running through it and causing a peaceful marshland environment. 

My husband loves bird watching. So out came his binoculars and sure as nuts, there was birds foraging there. They were unconcerned with our car parked so close. 

Funny birds:

 

These two birds are called Hadeda ibises. Pronounced hardy-dars.  

You can see one is doing his thing, digging away with its long thin beck, looking perhaps for a tiny morsel. I often wonder what it must be like to have a long thin nose to look past to see my food. And heavy too! 

While the other, has ruffled up its feathers. You can’t see its long narrow beck because its head is turned away from us. 

These Hadedas are quite common in South Africa. And often you’ll find them in your city garden, peacefully digging their funny long becks into soft ground, searching here and there…perhaps for grubs! 

We think them quite droll, because of their noisy raucous ‘Ha! Ha-a-a… ha-ha-a-a…’ call.  I love to call them Laardi-dars. But there isn’t anything fancy about them! 

They are big brown birds (about 76cm in height) and roost high in tall trees. They love to hang out somewhere close to water if they can… softer soil there. So I don’t suppose they live in dry desert regions. 

Then we came across a helmeted Guinea fowl:

 

These birds are also common in South Africa, but usually move about in flocks and found in grassland (bushveld) and farmland areas.  

They are seed eaters and just like domestic fowls they will run after a moth or small cricket and eat it too. Towards evening they make their way to where there is water, to drink their full after a hot dry day. 

The guinea fowl is quite a shy bird. So it was lucky I got a photo of it.  If they are found out in the open, they scurry away as fast as the can, for cover in thick tall grass or dense undergrowth. 

The guinea fowl charm:

The way they first fuss and dither when you come upon them, then dart, scurry and fly off in a hurry. It can be annoying because you wanted to check them out, but that silly dodging antics of theirs has a somewhat comical charm. 

At one time it was a craze to have a Guinea fowl painting in your house. I presume the reason being because of their stark decorative appearance, of white spotted blue-black bodies and their bright red and blue unusual-shaped heads, that so appeals to people.  

Next week’s Kruger blog:

An oil painting of the Sabie River, where hippos usually wallow in.