Day 5 - Our Last Full Day in Ruaha

Today Christine and Olaf leave Ruaha and fly to Selous. We have therefore decided to go out early again and have a bush breakfast together before we drop them at the airstrip.

This morning we see a jackal walking down the track. As we watch he starts jumping around and we realise he has caught a small animal, maybe a mouse and is playing with it rather like a cat would, which is fun to watch. We then come across some giraffe with young ones. They are quite spread out in the bush and a little way back from the track, but once we know they are there we see it is quite a large group, about 8 adults and 5 young.

Jackal

Mum and Baby

Soon after seeing the giraffe Ayoub spots quite a large leopard tortoise. He is actually moving pretty fast. Then we see our first elephants of the day. They seem to be walking with a purpose and Ayoub says they are walking to find water. This group includes a little one but I can't remember now if this was the same baby that we saw yesterday or a different one. Surprisingly, after this we see another leopard tortoise, much smaller than the first. This one is walking down the track and then tries to climb back into the bush, which is a bit of a challenge for him.

The first leopard tortoise

Elephants walking to find water

Leopard tortoise trying to decide how to negotiate the slope and the gap!!

By now its time for breakfast and the guys stop in a lovely spot over looking a river bed where giraffe and impala are grazing. As usual we set up breakfast on the bonnet of the car. Then as we are eating we see the group of elephants we saw earlier, walk down into the river bed and drink. As we stand there watching this idyllic scene I have to pinch myself to make sure this is all real.....Am I really standing in this beautiful place, drinking a cup of coffee with no other people around......it seems like a dream!!

Watching the elephants

Time to eat some breakfast

Everyone watching and taking photos, even Ayoub and Dismas

The elephants have finished drinking and are walking on

Once the elephants have disappeared and we have finished breakfast we decide to try and take a group selfie using the timer feature on the camera. This takes quite a while to set up, and causes a lot of laughter but eventually we get some fairly decent photos.

Our final group photo

So now it is time to head to the airstrip so Christine and Olaf can catch their plane to Selous. It is not really "Goodbye" for us as we will meet up with them again at Lake Manze Camp.
On the way we see some waterbuck, dwarf mongoose, some birds, and even some more elephants.

Waterbuck

Dwarf  Mongoose

White Headed Buffalo Weaver

Swallow Tailed Bee-Eater

Classic Picture

At the airstrip we see Henry who we know from last year when he was with us as a trainee guide. It is good to see that he is now a fully fledged guide waiting to pick up his own guests. It is great to catch up with him.

Henry and Pete

Christine and Olaf are on their way.

So now it is just our group of 4. Over the course of the rest of the morning we see a nice variety of wildlife - some different birds, "Mr and Mrs" agama lizard, more waterbuck, an eland a long way away, a pair of jackals, rock hyrax and more elephants, this time eating. By now I have lost count of the number of elephants we have seen today but it is lots.

Waterbuck

Spot the Rock Hyrax

Male and Female Agama Lizard - The male is the colourful one.

He was eating his lunch before us!

Excuse the fuzzy picture but this was the only eland we saw this trip

These jackals ran out from under a bush

Once we had passed they returned to the bush.

Laughing Dove

Long Crested Eagle

"Toothbrush" Bush

Driving on, Ayoub points out a lion in the distance sleeping under a bush - not really worth a picture. More interesting are the batleur eagles that we see both flying above us. Dismas teaches us how to tell the difference between a male and female when in flight. From below both sexes have black and white under-wings but females have a very narrow black band of feathers and males have a much broader black band.

Female Batleur Eagle in flight

And on a branch

It has been a good morning and time has gone on so it's about 2pm before we stop for lunch.

Another good lunch with some great conversation

As we are leaving our lunch spot we see some elephants on the other side of the dry river bed. "Do you want to go and see them?" asks Ayoub. I guess he is thinking we have already seen a lot of elephants today.......but for me you can never see too many elephants, so "Yes please" comes my reply. So he turns the car around and we head back across the river bed again. To begin with we follow the elephants as they walk along, down in the river bed, but the view from the bank is not great so Ayoub heads off away from the river bed. After a few minutes he stops the car at the edge of the track under some trees. "Now just wait" he says. And sure enough a few minutes later the whole group of elephants walk right by, really close to our car- some of this group are very large! ...... another breath taking moment. I have kept the car in the photos to show how close they are.

You can just see an elephant in the river bed

Then a little while later...... see how close they are

This guy was looking right into our car

So it takes a few moments to get our breath back after the elephants have all passed by. However it is only about 10 minutes later when we see another smaller group, not quite so close this time..

After this we head to a marshy area with some water where we see quite a few birds.

Even more elephants

Also walking quite close to our car

Green Sandpiper

Woodland Kingfisher

Blacksmith Lapwing

Hammerkop

And as the day draws to a close we see a Skink lizard plus some more birds including more batleur eagles. It really has been the day to see these eagles and of course elephants.

Skink Lizard

White Browed Coucal - You cannot imagine how long it took to get this photo as it kept disappearing into the grass!

Batleur Eagles again

Southern Ground Hornbill

So it has been another amazing day filled with excitement and plenty of wildlife. We get back to camp around 6pm. This gives us time to do a bit of packing and shower before the usual dinner routine. There are 8 guests in camp tonight so quite a group. Conversation was interesting and the food good but by 9pm we are ready for bed.