Tag Archive for 'kingfisher'

I had a pretty cool day chilling out with my dogs at Khayeni pan.

They were lying in this morning, still at the site from their kill last night, and about an hour after sunrise moved east about half a kilometre to Khayeni pan where they spent the day.
With them sleeping, I took advantage of the early morning dew filming little dew drops in all sorts of places. Some hanging like jewels from thorns, some forming large drops on top of leaves. Spider webs with droplets dangling like pearls on a necklace. All shine so sparkly adorning the bushveld with its own jewellery at that time of morning. Of course it doesn’t last as the sun soon burns it all off.

With the dogs all lazying around the pan, other animals wanting to come and drink were so prevented, just by the fact that the dogs were there. Not that they could do anything to the giraffe and zebra.

A pair of Mosque Swallows were collecting mud from the dogs wallow to build their nest. A Woodland Kingfisher was catching grasshoppers landing in the water. At times he’d also dive into the water and back to a branch to preen himself. Flocks of quelea fed in the surrounding area, their wing beats being a constant drone all around.

Eventually towards sunset Puzzles got the pack on the move. She headed north, then Jiggy took over heading east, marked on the road and turned south. Here the pups played with a herd of wildebeest chasing each other around.

Jiggy and Puzzles weren’t interested in those games and now headed west. They’d done a full circle and headed back past Khayeni.
The pups had now lost their parents and seemed to be wandering around aimlessly. I picked up Jiggy at sunset a long way west with a young impala kill. He fed himself really well and left. Presumably to fetch the kids.
It was now dark, so pointless me hanging around, and I headed home.