Safari Rarities
 

In one of the posts below, TuskerDave posts a link to his aardvark sighting, which got me thinking as to what rare animals I have been lucky to see on safari and which rarities I haven't checked off my life list.

Rare Sightings:
Caracal -- Savuti Camp
Aardwolf -- Savuti Camp
African Wild Cat -- Savuti Camp
Civet -- Savuti
Porcupine -- Sabi Sands
Sable -- Chobe
Roan -- Mkhaya (Swaziland)
Black Rhino -- Etosha
White Rhino -- Kruger
Wild Dog -- Chitabe, Savuti and Chobe
Reedbuck -- Serengeti
Tree Hyrax -- Serena (Masai Mara)
Gerenuk -- Samburu
Mountain Gorilla -- Bwindi (Uganda) and Parc Nacional Volcans (Rwanda)
Serval -- Savuti
Python -- Chitabe
Dik Dik -- Samburu and Serengeti
Steenbok -- Etosha
Nyala -- Mkhaya
Bushbuck -- Queen Elizabeth NP (Uganda)
Giant Forest Hog -- Queen Elizabeth NP
Eland -- Masai Mara

Animals that I haven't seen (yet):
Aardvark
Pangolin
Sitatunga
Meerkat
Brown Hyena
Striped Hyena
Klipspringer

Care to share your list of rare sightings and what remains on your wish list.

Michael

Okavango and Phinda in SA will provide about one-third of what you're missing. Sable abd brown hyenas are common at Kruger.

I have the memory of a slug so this won't be a comprehensive response by any means...

Acacia Tree Mouse (Tubu Tree)
Aardwold (Wolwedans)
Spotted Genet (forget which one) (Tubu Tree)
Porcupine (Ndumu and Little Mombo)
Sable (can't remember, I think Mombo)
White Rhino (Hluhluwe, Ithala, Little Mombo)
Wild Dog (Little Mombo 2001, Savuti 2004)
Rock Python (Savuti)
Nyala (Various South Africa)
Eland (South Africa)
Meerkat (Jack's Camp)
Brown Hyena (Jack's Camp)

Various medium and smaller sized deer such as grey and red duiker, steenbok, etc that I just can't remember names of right now...

My dad and the camp manager saw a striped hyena in the Masai Mara in April but I wasn't on that drive so I missed it.

Would LOVE to see a pangolin, a honeybadger, all the small cats that I haven't seen such as cerval, caracal, etc, black rhino, grevy's zebra. Basically EVERYTHING I haven't yet seen.

Plus all those I have again and again.

Hi, do swimming elephants count? I have photos of this big guy.
Lake Kariba, matusadona park, Zimbabwe.
Have few more. Have to get back later.
Thanks, david

Interested to see this - there are anulmals on thit_cho's list that I have seen but had no idea they would be thought of as rare - I suppose it depends where you go. Anyway, my list of highlights is:

2 Honey badgers - just outside camp at Nxabega
Civet - night drive Sandibe
African Wild Cat Savute
Roan Antelope - Ruaha
Black & White Rhino - Nakuru & somewhere else!
Serval - Mountain Lodge, Kenya
Klipspringer - Savute
Bush babies - Sandibe night-drive
Elephant-shaped ostrich :D

And of course .........
Tiger - Ranthambore, India
Blue Bull - same place

hello Ruth here is the swimming ele link if you want to see. click on the pic to enlarge it. i have it as a collage in there.
david
http://www.virtualtourist.com/m/1e53c/106a/1/

Ruthie
I caught the reference, you KNOW I've seen those elephant shaped ostrich too!
:D :D :D

Kavey, one morning 2002 a honeybadger hung out below the walkway on the way to Mombo dining. Probably stayed around for an hour.

Off the subject: most interesting warning we heard - don't go to the vehicles quite yet - the parking lot is full of lions. Mombo.

Pete saw one --- at Little Mombo. I took a game drive off as my back and hip were aching after some bumpy driving. And given all he saw on that drive it was not a drive I should have missed. But hey, I needed the rest and at least he saw lots and took pics!

hello there. remembered a few things.

some kind of huge spider in my tent:
matusadona, zimbabwe

monitor lizard, matusadona, zimbabwe

elephant tic, lake nakuru

cerval cat, masai mara

huge land snail, tsavo east

klipspringer, tsavo west

puff-ader, lake nakuru and tsavo west

aardvark, just outside the mara

geranuks, tsavo east

blank right now. Have to look back at my pics.
Thanks, David

hello there. remembered a few things.

some kind of huge spider in my tent:
matusadona, zimbabwe

monitor lizard, matusadona, zimbabwe

elephant tic, lake nakuru

cerval cat, masai mara

huge land snail, tsavo east

klipspringer, tsavo west

puff-ader, lake nakuru and tsavo west

aardvark, just outside the mara

geranuks, tsavo east (spelling?)

blank right now. Have to look back at my pics.
Thanks, David

I really, really envy that caracal! And an aardwolf (both at Savuti too...what month?) The other things I'd really like to see are the big primates, but haven't been to that area...yet!

My favorite "rare" sightings are

Zambia: aardvark, pangolin, wild dog hunting, hyena pups (cute), reedbuck, male paradise wydah in breeding plumage, Pels Fishing Owl, spitting cobra, grysbok, Scops Owl, elephant shrew (not so rare, but cute), bushbaby (think it was a lesser?)

(Should we do a separate one on birds?)

Namibia: Damara Dikdik (Etosha), black rhino, Desert elephants and desert giraffe of the Skeleton Coast

Botswana: white rhino (we were on foot!) wild dog, cheetah, small spotted cat (in fact Chitabe delivered pretty much ALL the African cats except caracal, as well as civets, genets and honey badgers...in fact we saw a cheetah and a honey badger together there...)Sable...Also Puff adder, rock python.

You know, perhaps we should assemble a "place and time most likely to deliver a ...." list.

I LOVE THIS THREAD :)>>>>> :))

Hi, I wonder if I could throw this is in. Something maybe most would not see or expect to see while on safari. A dead lioness!-masai-mara
Here is the link to the page. It is the 7th collage. I have a few shots of her. You can't miss it. Awesome teeth!
If anyone is intersted.
thanks, david

http://www.virtualtourist.com/m/1e53c/

I didn't bother including things like lions, eles, giraffe, zebra, baboon etc as they are so common. EVen cheetah and leopard have been seen many times by many people.

Weird thing is how some things that are rarer in one place are so common in another. We only saw one or two kudu in Botswana but plenty of them in South Africa, for example.

I'm not counting spiders. Eight-legged land-evolved beings (thereby excluding crabs and octopus) should be dead dead dead.

On another note we were surprised at how different brown hyena and spotted hyena are in facial shape. We watched a group of spotted fight over and eat the remains of a zebra carcass in Little Mombo in the morning and were sitting watching brown hyena that same afternoon in Jack's Camp. The brown hyena reminded me of grizzly bears (but smaller)!

Babies of anything are cute, even spotted hyena. Spending time at a den in the Mara until adults decided to go hunting and young ones disappeared underground and cut out all sound was amazing. Baby zebra, baby giraffe, baby lion, baby leopard, baby warthog, baby ostrich, they are all adorable aren't they?

Klipspringer: Savuti
Bushbuck: Chobe
Roan & Sable: Chobe
Banded mongoose: Chobe
Civet (2 separate sightings): Khwai River
African Wild Cat: Khwai River
Wild Dogs (twice -- once in our camp chasing an impala!): Khwai River
Rock Python: Moremi

Still to be seen on future trips to Africa:
Cheetah
Leopard
Rhino (both kinds)
Gorilla
Great White Shark (from a cage, of course)

Oops -- left out porcupine (2 of them together) -- Chobe

at Phinda in SA, some in the rover drove the ranger crazy stopping to pick up porcupine quills! I never got one but would love to. Perhaps this next time.

Question: tell me about the log hide at Savuti - details, please.

Tashak, I visited Savuti in August 2001, and we saw the aardwolf during the middle of our morning drive. We had just spent 20 minutes or so with a wild dog (he followed a fox into a hole and we heard fighting but the dog didn't surface), and our return to Savuti, I saw something in the distance, which at first we thought was a hyena, but as we got closer and with binoculars and zoom lens, was clearly an aardwolf walking around its den. After 3 minutes, it descended, but it was a great sighting.

We saw the caracal at the end of a night drive while returning to camp -- in fact, the cat was maybe 100 yards from the camp -- too dark, though, to photo.

I also saw a small crocodile fight a puff adder on the shoreline of the Chobe River -- we were only 5 feet away and I got some interesting, interactive photos.

Just returned from 5 days on the out skirts of the Mara. Whilst we missed Cheetah and Leopard, had some unusual sightings including Oribi, Naked Mole Rats, Zorilla, Porcupine, Genet (not in a lodge !) and Lesser Bushbaby. The biggest surprise however was a Pangolin in broad daylight so excellent photo opportunity !