KNP Letaba

The road now took us to Letaba Rest Camp. Letaba means river of sand, a fitting name.

The day we arrived was the hottest we have experienced since we have been on the road (40 degrees according to the camp info board) and the first thing that assaulted your senses was the sound of Cicadas. There are thousands of them in the campsite and the noise is deafening with each one trying to out-perform its neighbour! It literally reverberates in your head. The noise continued throughout our stay, day and night, although it got a bit more bearable during the night.

By the way, if you were wondering why on earth we would come to Kruger in summer, the answer is simple: birds. There are so many birds we have never personally seen because they are summer migrants and until now we have avoided summer months in the Park. The number of new birds we have added to our list and the fresh green of the veld and trees have been ample reward.

The park has had a fair amount of rain and we were thrilled to see a number of ‘Foam Nest Frog’ nests. These frogs have developed a specialized egg-laying strategy: they climb into trees overhanging water and create a ball of froth around the eggs as they are laid. The foam insulates the eggs and protects them from predation. The tadpoles develop in the foam and then fall directly into the water below.

Much to our delight our first late afternoon drive produced this scrub hare. They are nocturnal animals so it was literally a ‘take-two’ before we realised that he was even posing for a photo.

The next morning we stopped and waited for a chameleon to cross the road at his excruciatingly slow and halting pace. We only moved on once he was safely under cover of foliage.

We stopped at a low water bridge to check for any interesting happenings (fish mainly, as I am sure you know by now…) and immediately a group of terrapins surfaced. They all swam towards us to investigate the intruder. It was most amusing looking down at all these curious, wise little faces staring up at us. (There were also fish, of course!)

From the beginning we set about identifying trees that grab our attention. Today’s tree was the Mopane Pomegranate. Besides being very beautiful it is also has a lovely sweet fragrance.

A very special sighting was a Red-crested Korhaan performing his territorial call. This time we were able to capture his call as he was posing very close to us beside the road. Roger posted a video of the full sequence on Facebook so go and check it out. Even more amazing was witnessing another Korhaan’s display flight just minutes afterwards. We saw what looked like a Guinea Fowl flying low across the road. He suddenly pitched upwards to at least 20 metres, flipped over backwards, folded his wings and plummeted. Just before impact he recovered miraculously and calmly flew off into the bush!!! Stunned, it took us a few seconds to realise what we had just witnessed. Wow…

According to André van Zyl of ANT (Africa Nature Training) summer hasn’t arrived until you hear the Woodlands Kingfisher call. Two days ago we heard it at Letaba and went out searching.