Kapama Game Reserve!!

/ Ed Armstrong
Today seemed to be a day for giraffes! After riding the train all night, we had a continental breakfast at 5 am and we loaded in a bus at 5:30 am. We arrived at the Kapama Game Reserve and were able to watch the sun come up as we entered the park. Throughout our time, we encountered different groups of giraffes! These guys seemed as interested in watching us as we were in watching them!

These giraffes seemed quite happy to slowly cross the road and enjoy the morning!

I enjoyed watching this guy move between trees has he munched on his breakfast!!

I think we surprised this beautiful female impala!

I think this bird is a white capped shrike.

Right after I took the previous photo, he flapped his wings and flew away!

These are the types of trucks we rode in as we went all over the reserve. The seat up on the front bumper seemed pretty exciting!!

This is not a great photo, but you can see in the distance that there is a hippopotamus moving across the lake! I was excited to see one put his head up out of the water!!

I am not certain, but I think this is a grey go-away-bird. I like the hair on the top of his head!!

This guy was with another group of giraffes! He seemed very happy to poise for us as we took his photo!!

I really liked the horns on this male impala!!

A very special surprise is that we came across this cape buffalo!! They are known to immediately charge perceived threats. Thankfully, he largely ignored us after peering through these branches.

Cape buffalos have such interesting horns!!

The bright blue bird is a starling, but I am not sure of the name of the yellow billed bird. I thought they were nice to watch!

There were quite a few starlings in the trees. Their blue feathers were quite bright!

These two male impalas were deciding if they wanted to challenge each other. The one on the left kept putting his head down to move forward with his horns!

They were dancing back and forth trying to decide if they wanted to fight.

The one on the left was ready to get serious!!

We kept encountering different groups of giraffes as we drove through the preserve! They were magnificent!!

The giraffe skin was interesting to see!!

They seemed quite curious about us watching them!!

It was amazing to drive right up next to them!!

This is a horrible photo, but if you use your imagination and look in the center of the photo, you can just barely see the face of a rhinoceros!!

This is an African wild dog. They are a very endangered species!! Each of the animals has a unique design on their coat. We saw this fellow in the Hoedspruit Endangered Species Centre.

This female cheetah was quite interested in looking at us!! We watched her in the Hoedspruit Endangered Species Centre.

She showed us that she had very sharp teeth!!

This is another female cheetah that was interested in seeing us!!

This is a male cheetah checking out the scene. He looks very sleek and fast!!