Abdim’s Storks Descend in Thousands: Video
Published by Wildcaster 1 year, 11 months ago Tags: adventure, africa, animal kingdom, birding, birding african birds, blogumentary, bush knowledge, conservation, documentary, drought, ecotraining, education, experience, flickr, GLTP, gonarezhou, Great Limpopo Transfrontier Park, hippo, lions, malilangwe, mashable, narrowcasting, Open Content Alliance, ornithology, pamushana, peace parks, photos, podcasting, polls, predators, teach, video, water birds, wildcasting, wildlife, wildlife documentary, youtube, zimbabwe.Hot hot hot!
And getting very dry for this time of year. Apparently we’re about 200mm below our average for this time of year and that’s quite something when we only average 560mm and the rainy season only lasts a couple more months.
There is apparently a cyclone off the Mozambique coast, which is moving towards land and this will possibly bring rain in about a week. Generally these cyclones don’t hit the coast in a big way and we’re still further inland so they don’t normally cause us any damage. Although in 2000, the big one that hit us in South Africa also hit here causing substantial floods.
The lions were out of it at dawn as temperatures kept rising. And even when 2 impala blundered upon they only woke when they were already running away in fright.
I got a call from the game scouts that storks were landing in their thousands in the Runde river in the far south of the property. I raced down there (being careful on the gas as there isn’t any available at present) and sure enough, where I had filmed the hippos the other day, 2000 or more Abdim’s Storks were descending and landing in the riverbed to drink and bathe and then sun themselves.
And the ever present enormous crocodiles that live there were patrolling the shore waiting for any unsuspecting bird.
Access to the river was nice and open, but that was a ways up from the Storks and I wanted to get up close. This meant climbing through thick undergrowth on the banks of the river. Then down a well eroded hippo path and into the water giving me just the slightest window on the storks.
Bad place for me to be especially when at that very moment I was filming a croc approaching the storks.
I could always kick myself for getting into these situations, but only after the fact. I think the drive to get the image is like a drug to me and I tend to brush these issues aside. Maybe I’ll eventually get wiser with age.
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Wow, worth waiting for! The spoonbills were a bit outnumbered and I am sure that croc would have liked to had a bite to eat. Thanks Kim
Toni-Ann
Houston, TX
That was breathtaking, spectacular and much appreciated. Have never heard of the large numbers of that stork before.
That is awsome!!!!!
Can’t believe that you can get such large numbers of stork together!!
Most spectacular was when they took off, covering the sky with black dots all over.
TX
Jurgen
Just want to leave a note:
If you look at the wonders of nature, you can definately see God’s hand, and if he cares for the smallest worm, and gives the animals food, why wouldent he do the same for you!!
We must just trust in God and have Faith!!!!!!!!
The storks were spectacular. The Runde seems to be flowing at quite a good rate considering the lack of rain in the area. Especially noticeable during the croc sequence.
Awesome! can just picture Kim-Dundee getting involved with the thrill of the chase!
Really liked the pull-focus from birds to croc!
Of course well edited again.
Beautiful!
Not complaining at all but what did that sound like? It must have been extremly load? Did you see the croc try and catch a stork?
Not complaining at all but what did that sound like? It must have been extremly loud? Did you see the croc try and catch a stork?
Ian. The water here in the Runde is a huge pool. I think what makes it look like it’s flowing is the waves caused by the wind.
Hey Kitcat. No Dundee stuff here. Just being doff.
Paige. The birds were silent. Only when flying in some of them came in diving and they sounded like jets coming in. Otherwise the whole scene was really quiet except for the wind.
Im very surprised I figured it would be so loud one couldnt think! WOW
For those interested I just saw that National Geographic will be airing Pedators at War Friday early evening (depending on where you live) and Hyenas at War very early on Sat morning. And a show called Be the Creature-Hyenas
Just a little plug for the man behind the camera
Thank Kim
Cheers
This is spectacular, Kim. Where have these birds come from? K.
kim
just out of interest, i’ve ever once before come across the name of wolhuter : the ranger who survived a fearsome lion attack in kruger many year’s back. a famous story. i won’t go so far as to ask you if he is any relation (that’s your private domain !) but i am wondering
as to the storks : very fine
only slight comment i would make : the music to me didn’t enhance the experience.
best regards from paris where the nearest storks are far away !
Kathy. These birds came from eggs of course.
They are intra-African migrants spending their summers down in southern Africa following the rains feeding on the flushes of insects, mainly grasshoppers. They congregate at the water in the heat of the day and later in the afternoon fly out again to feeding grounds.
Michael. Yes Harry Wolhuter was my grandfather. And i too was fortunate to grow up in Kruger.
The birds make no sound at all as they gather on the sand banks. And just the ambient sound i couldn’t capture because of the wind noise. The video sounded really empty with no sound and we felt the music helped it somewhat. But normally I would prefer to put on the natural sounds.
thanks kim, delighted to learn of that connection; i have seen the skin of that lion in skukuza museum. by the way i began a blog a few days ago and had already put your site into it as a “favourite link”. in a forthcoming post, i would quite like the idea of showing the skukuza photo and referring to this little episode. would you have any objection to that ?
michael
Hi Michael. Sure go ahead and do that. Please just be sure to have all the facts right. Cheers Kim
I would have loved to see a clip of these birds with all the noise that they make! But, this is wonderful to watch! WOW
Surprisingly they didn’t make any sound.