Guardsman

Rhinos live in home ranges that sometimes overlap with each other. Feeding grounds, water holes and wallows may be shared. The black rhino is usually solitary. The white rhino tends to be much more gregarious. Rhinos are also rather ill-tempered and have become more so in areas where they have been constantly disturbed. While their eyesight is poor, which is why they will often charge without apparent reason, their sense of smell and hearing are very good. They have an extended “vocabulary” of growls, grunts, squeaks, snorts and bellows. When attacking, the rhino lowers its head, snorts, breaks into a gallop reaching speeds of 30 miles an hour, and gores or strikes powerful blows with its horns. Still, for all its bulk, the rhino is very agile and can quickly turn in a small space. The female family groups are often visited by mature males checking for females in estrus. Several interrelated family groups may inhabit an area and know each other well. When they meet at watering holes and feeding places, they greet each other affectionately.
Info source: https://www.sa-venues.com/wildlife/wildlife_rhino.php
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The photo was taken during October 2017 at Rietvlei Nature Reserve, Pretoria, Gauteng, South Africa.

Guardsman

Criss-cross

Identifying elephants isn’t difficult, but it requires using powers of observation and it takes a bit of practice. There are many different characteristics that you can use to identify an elephant: sex; body size; shape; length and configuration of the tusks; size and shape of the ears; ear venation patterns; notches, tears, holes in the ears. An elephant’s tail can also be used to distinguish an individual.
What to look for when using the tail to identify African elephants:
1. Some elephants have what we call a “kinky tail”
2. Others have an unusually “short tail”
3. A few have “half tails” having been bitten by hyenas when they were calves.
4. Still, others have been bitten and left with “no tail” at all.
Info source: https://www.elephantvoices.org/features-guide.html?id=819
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The photo was taken during February 2017 at Mabula Private Game Reserve, Bela-Bela, Limpopo, South Africa.

Criss-cross

Beady

The Crowned Lapwing prefers dry, open habitats, either with or without scattered trees. It has benefited from the habitat impacts of both affluent and poor communities; golf courses, sports fields and airports, on one hand, and overgrazing on the other. In some areas, the presence of Crowned Plovers is an indicator of mismanagement of ranchlands. In South Africa, Crowned Plovers move locally in response to changing conditions. Crowned Plovers, like many of the wader species breeding in South Africa, have a long breeding season, often starting in August and ending in May. In addition, a pair may have more than one successful breeding attempt. If nests or chicks are lost, further attempts to breed may occur. They lay two eggs in a scrape in the sand, lined with vegetation or small pebbles. The eggs take about a month to hatch and the chicks between four and five weeks to fledge.
Info source: http://www.adu.uct.ac.za/adu/projects/shorebirds/crowned-plover
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The photo was taken during December 2017 at Rietvlei Nature Reserve, Pretoria, Gauteng, South Africa.

Beady