Teracolus (Colotis) eris The Banded Gold Tip is a common and widespread butterfly that can be found in corners of all South Africa’s provinces. While reaching their highest densities in forest and savanna, they have a wide habitat tolerance, avoiding only succulent karoo, fynbos and mountain grasslands. They’re very fond of settling on flowers, fluttering […]
Banded Gold Tip Butterfly — de Wets Wild
Dixeia pigea The Ant-heap White is one of those confusing kinds of butterflies where the males and females look quite different, and even differ from season to season in their appearance – in general the males are more white and the females more yellow. They fly fairly slowly and quite fluttery, and can be seen […]
Ant-heap White Butterfly — de Wets Wild
Eronia cleodora The Vine-leaf Vagrant is a medium-sized butterfly with a wingspan of around 6cm (males are usually a bit smaller than the females). They fly fast and wandering, often settling quickly on flowers as they go. These beautiful butterflies may be seen year-round, though their numbers usually peak in spring and late summer. Their […]
Vine-leaf Vagrant Butterfly — de Wets Wild
Leptomyrina hirundo The Tailed Black-eye is a little butterfly – with a wingspan less than 3cm – that often goes unnoticed, despite being quite common where it occurs, which in South Africa is in the various kinds of forests and the bushveld savanna regions of the Eastern Cape, Kwazulu-Natal, Mpumalanga and Limpopo. They’ll even visit […]
Tailed Black-eye Butterfly — de Wets Wild
Lappet-faced Vultures, Botswana, Africa Turkey Vulture, CA We were driving on a California country road this week surrounded by sweetly fragrant ceanothus wildflowers, when we came upon two lethargic turkey vultures standing in the road. Turns out they were doing us a big favor. Because they were not moving for us, we slowly drove toward […]
Vultures are Cool — Jet Eliot
On the 15th of February 1912 the Mkuzi Game Reserve was proclaimed in the north of the Natal Province. At that stage the reserve covered 251km², with its northern and eastern border being the river of the same name. In the west the reserve straddles the Lebombo Mountain and in the south it reached to […]
iSimangaliso Wetland Park: uMKhuze Game Reserve — de Wets Wild
Today, on Endangered Species Day, we feature another African mammal that isn’t indigenous to South Africa. Choeropsis liberiensis With an adult population in the wild estimated at no higher than 2,500 animals and still declining, the IUCN considers the Pygmy Hippo to be an endangered species. The biggest threats to their continued existence is hunting […]
Pygmy Hippopotamus — de Wets Wild
Muscicapa striata The Spotted Flycatcher is a migrant to sub-Saharan Africa, travelling here to escape the winter in its Eurasian breeding grounds. The birds arrive in South Africa during October and November and leave again by early April, and is one of the most numerous summer visitors. While here, they can be seen in any […]
Spotted Flycatcher — de Wets Wild
Well, we’re back home in Pretoria after a wonderful two weeks exploring the iSimangaliso Wetland Park and Hluhluwe-Imfolozi Park. Lots of stories to tell you in the coming weeks about our trip, and we’re going to start with a sequence of photo’s from yesterday’s drive through the Hluhluwe-Imfolozi Park to Memorial Gate on our way […]
Autumn Adventure – You “musth” give way to this giant! — de Wets Wild
Over the years we’ve visited Cape Vidal, in the iSimangaliso Wetland Park, many times – our most recent visit was the twelfth time I had been there – but up until this latest visit we’ve only had one fleeting sighting of an Elephant there before. Seeing them so frequently this time around was therefore a […]
Autumn Adventure – Elephants: Cape Vidal’s Highway Patrol — de Wets Wild
huggers.ca 