The next day we were up early for breakfast and then a trip into the Kruger Park. In my opinion, Kruger Park is one of the worlds greatest national parks. The number of visitors is carefully controlled so that you don't have too many people on the roads. In the pictures below you will see a sampling of the hundreds of pictures we (the group) took of the many animals we saw that day. In fact, we saw four out of the big five. The big five are the lion (Panthera leo), the leopard Panthera pardus, the African elephant (Loxodonta africana), the rhino (either of the two species that can be found in Africa, Ceratotherium simum (White Rhino) and Diceros bicornis (the Black Rhino), and lastly the Cape Buffalo (Synceras caffer). On our first day in the park we managed to see all but the leopard, although the lions we saw were quite distant and hard to see. I won't include a lion picture here because we got up close and personal with lions on our third day at Tremisana.
After getting to the park and viewing animals for a while we were taken to a picnic area where our guides cooked breakfast for us. However, considering that it was close to noon it was more like brunch. There are several of these little picnic areas scattered around the park and they are the only places other than the few "towns" where you are allowed to get out of your vehicle. There were two cute little kids there and of course everyone had to take pictures of them.
We also saw a white rhino but it was quite a distance from us and in heavy brush and I don't have a good picture. By the way, as an aside, the white rhino is not named for its color. It may be that the name is a mistranslation from the Afrikaans work "wyd" which meant "wide". The white rhino is a grazing animal and has a wide mouth. An alternative name is the square-lipped rhino. The white rhino is fairly common and is not considered endangered, but the black rhino is very rare and is considered critically endangered.
In addition to four of the big five we saw a large variety of other animals and birds. I found the fish eagle to be particularly interesting. It looks a great deal like an American bald eagle and they are closely related species.
 |
 |
 |
I'm not sure what these birds were but they looked a bit like pheasants. |
 |
 |
Note the two little birds. |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 As we were leaving the park we saw the two elephants, still at a standoff over the water hole |
. Barb has a nice long lens and got this picture of a rhino sleeping - is there a second rhino behing the first? |
 |
