Wednesday 9/6/17 Thornybush

OMG!!!  Our first game drive last night was totally awesome!!!  I am just going to list some of the things that we saw and I will try to get some pix up also.  We saw a small bird called a purple roller bird,  a hairy thorn bush which the natives use as toothpicks, a common duiker, a terrapin, which is a fresh water turtle (did not know that only turtles that live in salt water are properly labeled as turtles).  We learned the difference between black rhino, white rhino, and elephant dung.  We saw African wild dogs - we saw a pack of 5 and there are less than 400 left in South Africa so we were very lucky. They are actually the #1 most endangered animal in South Africa and their nickname is the painted predator.  This group had 2 males and 3 females.  We also saw a vervid monky, a scrub hare, many nyala, a tree squirrel (about the size of our chipmunks, a pack of hyenas, a civet cat, which is not really a cat but is related to the mongoose.  AND then we saw ELEPHANTS!  It was magical!  There were quite a few in the herd including a mom and her 3 year old baby, who was copying everything that mom did.  If mom tore a branch from a tree to strip it of its bark, baby did the same (just not as nimbly).  We also were so lucky as to have a full moon last night and we had the most gorgeous sunset when we stopped for drinks - also great views of the Drakensburg mountains.  The pictures today are of a young nyala, our table setting at lunch with a zebra napkin holder, a view from my seat in the safari jeep with Chewie driving and Conright spotting, a purple roller bird, Chewie giving a lesson on identifying dung, and an African wild dog.