Addo Elephant National Park

 

The Addo Lion Sighting... First Of Many

My 1st Written Addo Adventure

The Addo Elephant National Park, currently home to over 400 Elephants as well as 400 disease free Buffalo. As I entered the Addo Elephant National Park at around 9:30 am on Tuesday the 25th of April 2006, the Bokmakierie bush-shrikes abounding in both presence and voice. I knew it would be a special day.

And that it was. After witnessing a couple of Bokmakierie's adding their contributions to the Addo Elephant National Park's Spekboom thicket near the Woodland's waterhole, I saw 2 Red Hartebeest and about 5 Burchell's Zebra. Then it was off to the Gorah loop section where scattered all over the plains were 5 Denham's Bustards! Quite a rare sighting, but it did not end there. After driving up a hilly stretch of road, past the 2 foraging Yellow Mongoose, a surprise was waiting. 2 Mating African Lions were a few hundred meters off the road. My first African Lion sighting in the Addo Elephant National Park! And it was a mating pair! The male Lion was a dark-maned Kalahari specimen and was in in prime condition just like his female mate.

Obviously not too much after this sighting could beat the Lion viewing. Until later on in the Gorah Loop I stumbled upon a herd of 20+ Cape (African) Buffalo right next to the road and then there was trouble; Stuck in the middle, literally. I was in the middle of 2 breeding herds of African Elephants with young calves and nowhere to go. Luckily they did not take too much notice of me as they walked up the bank, and everything was back to normal! If I was in the Kruger National Park it might of been a different story!

Pale Chanting Goshawk Addo National Park South Africa

Other major sightings I had in the Addo Elephant National Park on this day were...

  • Pale Chanting Goshawk (Picture on your left)

  • Greater Kudu

  • Blue Crane

  • Leopard Tortoise

  • Common Warthog

  • Common Eland

  • Common Fiscal

  • Fiscal Flycatcher

  • Little Grebe

  • Black-Headed Heron

  • Pied Starling

  • Common Ostrich

  • and a lot of other various creatures which included Addo's own Flightless Dung beetle!

  


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