Impala Park

I had one day with nothing much to do and time to fill (Paul had closed the workshop and had gone to a family funeral) so I walked down to the lake and visited Impala Park again.   I chose a bad day .... there were boat races going on from the beach, and HUNDREDS and hundreds of visitors, and a band, and lots of dancing and general noise.

So I walked through the park (fortunately all the activity was quite near the entrance) to the far end, and had the place more or less to myself !  The zebra which last year we found near the entrance had disappeared with all the noise; the lonely giraffe which is in a large enclosure was there and obviously fascinated by all that was going on !

 

 

Such an intelligent look, and wonderful long eye-lashes.  

 

I managed to locate some impala, but they were very skittish, and I had to sit down on the track and keep quite still, until they got used to me and came a little closer.

 

 Such sleek animals, with glossy bodies; you want to stroke them, but the slightest movement, and they are off !

I also saw three hippo in the lake, but nothing like the one I saw in the Mara !   I sat on the track for a while in another place, and watched these dragon-flies .... hard to see the wings, but they have transparent wings, with dark brown  blobs near the end of each wing, so when they are in flight, you see the body, with what look like small insects flying along-side, until you realise its the blobs !

 

 

 

I gradually worked my way back through the park, until I could see in the distance some of the boat racing .... rather like gig racing in Cornwall and the Scillies ... and then I came upon the dancers and the noise !                                                                                                                                                                 

 

 

 

 



And then ..... as I was thinking I had seen all I could see, I spotted a leopard fast asleep high up in a tree; difficult to see through the branches, but I managed to get one not very good picture of it !  I haven't seen a leopard in Africa for a very long time !