This is another post from my trip to the Serengeti in September.  The abundance of prey and predators is a perfect environment for Spotted Hyaenas, which are also known as ‘laughing hyaenas’. The hideous ‘laugh’ is really a signal of submission. Hyaena can also be spelt hyena, but I prefer the former because these are such unusual animals. They are also nicknamed the “bone crushers” of the bush. Spotted Hyaenas have a bite force of around 1100 pounds per square inch (psi) compared to lion at around 700 psi. By comparison the strongest bite force is exerted by a Nile Crocodile at 5000psi. This would partly explain why the wildlife is so scared of the water in the Serengeti and Masai Mara. The reason hyaenas have such a strong bite force is partly due to the structure of their skull onto which powerful jaw muscles are attached together with high bone density in their jaws and thicker than normal enamel on their teeth. The upper and lower teeth interlock creating a powerful locking and shearing force.

“Living things are involved in an open dialogue with the universe, a free exchange of information and influence that unites all life into one vast organism that is itself part of an even larger dynamic structure. There is no escaping the conclusion that the basic similarity in structure and function are ties that bind all life together and that man, for all his special features, is an integral part of this whole.”
~ Lyall Watson

Hyaenas are social predators living in clans which are regulated by a strictly enforced hierarchy. In the hyaena world, the queen is the clan leader, females dominate and males are at the bottom of the hierarchy, a social system unique in the predator world. The hyaena’s closest relative is the civet.

“I would rather than a mind opened by wonder than one closed by belief.”

~Gerry Spence

Hyaenas love water. They will  happily lie in it to keep cool on long hot summer days. They even hide parts of a carcass in the water out of sight of lions, jackals and vultures.

Down  in the Nyasiriro plain alongside the road which runs from the ranger’s post to the Grumeti river was a large pool of rain water trapped by the road embankment. This young hyaena was determined to cross the pool of water, but was not sure about our vehicle.

It was not too deep so the hyaena did not need to swim and having recent rains the likelihood of  a crocodile in the pool was minimal.

This hyaena tried on a number of occasions to cross the pool of water. It could have just walked another 100 metres around the edge of the pool.

“Yugen – a profound awareness of the universe that triggers feelings too deep and mysterious for words.’

Once in the middle of the pool of water this hyaena lost its nerve and turned and raced back to the water’s edge. I liked the reflection in the water.

One aspect of hyaena life that it is very evident in the Serengeti is that members of the clan disperse, and hide and sleep during the day in large tufts of grass and in shallow depressions. This wide distribution of clan members allows them to have eyes and ears over a large area. If lions make a kill, one hyaena has no chance of also feeding on the carcass but the lone hyaena will start to whoop which is a call to clan members for reinforcements. If enough clan members arrive they can taunt the lions enough to drive them off. If a male lion is present at the carcass, the hyaenas know their limitations and it is game off.

“Nothing ever goes away until it has taught us what we need to know.”

~Pema Chodron

Spotted hyaenas will scavenge when the opportunity arises but they are skilled and tenacious hunters in their own right. Hyaenas are now also recognised as the region’s most numerous and ecologically important predators, killing more game than lions. The two hyaenas in the image below walked through a herd of Topi. These antelope were wary of the hyaenas and watched them the whole time while they were close, but Topis are very quick and a hyaena would have little chance of catching one in a chase even though a Spotted Hyaena is capable of running at 60 kilometres per hour..

The hyaenas were smelling the ground and grass searching for scent clues of new-born calves or injured animals. To sleep, Topis usually lie on their sternum with their front legs tucked under their body and hyaenas have been known to attack them on the ground while they are sleeping. Those extremely strong hyaena jaws enable them to hang on even if the Topi manages to get up onto its feet with the hyaena attached.

This was one of the female hyaenas which wandered through the Topi herd looking for an opportunity. She looked to be one of the senior members of the clan, perhaps even the matriarch, just looking at her age, condition and girth.

At the top of a ridge in the Nyasiriro plain was a natural water hole, it could even have been a spring. We called it the “hyaena spar” as we counted eleven hyaenas in and around the “spar” at one point.

“Clearly, animals know more than we think, and think a great deal more than we know.”

~Irene M Pepperberg

The hyaenas lay in the water to keep cool in the middle of the day. This next character was lying in a small inlet on the side of the water hole. It only raised its head to see what the noise was all about and as soon as it saw our vehicle, it flopped down into the inlet again.

As you can see they are not shy about water and don’t seem to mind about getting too muddy. 

This young hyaena was playing with an antelope skin. It was wet and supple and must have been striped from a recent kill. Hyaenas have been known to line their den with skins when they have pups.

“Tell me, what is it that you plan to do with one wild and precious life.”

~ Mary Oliver

This female hyaena and her sub-adult pup were lying flat in the short grass very close to where we found a family group of Bat-eared Foxes.

This female hyaena had a face marked by years of clan tussles. Hyaena’s ears seem to come off worst.

Hyaena have highly specialised morphology. It has a disproportionately large heart for its size, double the size of a lion’s heart giving it extraordinary powers of endurance. It has an ingenious skull shape with a massive zygomatic arch (or cheek bone) enabling massive jaw muscles to be attached to it.  Hyaena’s eyes are more forward positioned in the skull enabling them with superior binocular vision. The female gives birth through her pseudo-penis.

“The more you look, the more your see.”

~Robert M Pirsig

Hyaenas are ecologically important predators. Together with vultures they are the main members in the savanna waste disposal team. They can reduce an adult wildebeest to little more than a skull and a few vertebra in a bloody patch on the ground in minutes. These are some of the most intelligent mammals in the savanna and they lead complex social lives, networking and competing, cooperating to solve problems, recognising rank relationships of others, reconciling after fights and forming coalitions, according to hyaena zoologist Sarah Benson-Amram, a research fellow at the University of St. Andrews in Scotland. When tested hyaenas even outperform chimpanzees on tasks requiring cooperation.

“Intelligence is the capacity to perceive the essential, the what is; to awaken the capacity in oneself and in others, is intelligence”

~Jiddu Krishnamurti

Explore, seek to understand, marvel at its inter-connectedness and let it be.

Have fun,

Mike

It was mid-September in the western Corridor of the Serengeti.  A bit early for most of the migrants, but there were a few early arrivals. The resident avian population in the Serengeti at this time of the year is diverse and would gladden any bird lover’s heart. There was also a wide variety of habitats in which to photograph our avian friends. This post is a gallery of the birds we could photograph rather than the ones we saw. This post excludes raptors and Ground Hornbills, both of which are dealt with in separate previous posts.

“In Africa, I feel grounded in an indescribable way because by choice I had no connection to the outside world or technology. It forced me to be in the moment because I don’t know what the next minute will bring.”

~Karen Banks

Grey-backed Fiscal with its black patch across the eye and along the side of the neck down to its shoulder.

The Grey-backed Fiscal has a grey crown, nape and mantle.

Yellow-billed Stork feeding in a pool of water below where a pride of lions were resting in the late afternoon.

Yellow-billed Oxpeckers on the back of a Masai Giraffe.

“In the Serengeti the sense of abundance will envelope you. There is life everywhere you look. Each element is in a different state of ebb and flow, but all interwoven. In this abundance, diversity not numbers, takes on an altogether more important place in your awareness.”

~Mike Haworth

Male Yellow-throated Sandgrouse, head raised and alert. He must have heard something that concerned him.

Small flocks of these sandgrouse were foraging for seed in the short grass.

  

Male White-bellied Bustard displaying for the benefit of his female.

Female White-bellied Bustard.

Grey-breasted Spurfowl, this species is localised to this part of Tanzania.

“Nature uses only the longest threads to weave her patterns, so that each small piece of her fabric reveals the organisation of the entire tapestry.”
~Richard P. Feynman

White-browed Coucal.

This Little Bee-eater had caught a bee and was busy wiping off the bee’s sting against the branch.

“In nature, light creates the colour. In the picture, colour creates the light.”

~ Hans Hofmann

A pair of Little Bee-eaters hawking insects from this flimsy stem.

 

A lone Hottentot Teal on a pool of water dammed up against a road embankment.

I found it unusual that this Hottentot Teal was swimming alone in this pool of water. We normally see them in pairs. There were no other ducks around this pool of water.

“You can’t be suspicious of a tree, or accuse a bird or a squirrel of subversion or challenge the ideology of a violet.”

~Hal Borland

A male Ostrich, flushed with testosterone coursing through his veins.

A Malachite Kingfisher hunting in the pool of water below where we were watching a pride of lions.

A Capped Wheatear feeding on ants on this mound. This individual looked like a sub adult given its speckled breast band which will become black when an adult. The white supercilium and black bar on its tail feathers are diagnostic.

This character was very busy feeding on the resident ants around the anthill.

“Petite, nimble and uniquely coloured, you are available to only the eye that seeks you. You are like little jewels scattered through the grasslands. Self sufficient but woven into the tapestry of the wild life on the plains.”

~Mike Haworth

A Temmnick’s Courser out in the grass plains. This is one of three coursers found in this area, the other two are the Two-banded and Violet-tipped Coursers.

Wattled Lapwing with its brown body colouring and stripped throat markings.

The red frontal shield above its beak is diagnostic as both the white-crowned and Wattled lapwings have yellow facial wattles.

Spur-winged Lapwing with its distinctive black crown and nape and throat and white ear-coverts. It has a  brown mantle and that distinctive red eye. 

A Spur-winged Lapwing incubating her eggs alongside a large pool of water.

A pair of Sacred Ibis

One of a pair of Usambiro Barbets feeding on ants in an anthill.

Silverbird, a male in full breeding plumage, perched in front of a Rufous-tailed Weaver’s nest.

“Oh little winged traveller from far away places. Rest here for the summer. You are welcome and free here. There is enough for all and we are graced by your presence. Only you will know when it is time to return to that far way place, leaving us with only memories.”

~Mike Haworth

A Caspian Plover stretching near where we found a family of Bat-eared Foxes.

A Caspian Plover, a migrant from far-way places. This plover breeds in western and central Asia and migrates southward to eastern and southern Africa to escape the northern winter.

A Fork-tailed Drongo, one of nature’s great mimics.

A Hammerkop preparing to hunt from a rock in the Grumeti river. The river was teeming with crocodiles, so I am not sure who was going to turn out to be the hunter. 

In front of the Grumeti Tented Camp on a branch overhanging the river. This Green-backed Heron was perch hunting right in front of us.

A Superb Starling close to our family of Cheetahs below Masira hill.

“Colour! What a deep and mysterious language, the language of dreams.”

~ Paul Gauguin

These Superb Starlings feed on insects in the short grass on the Serengeti plains.

A Black-headed Heron, one of a group which was hunting frogs along the side of a large pool of water alongside the road.

Pale Flycatcher

  

“Science cannot solve the ultimate mystery of nature. And that is because in the last analysis, we ourselves are a part of the mystery that we are trying to solve.”

~Max Planck

A Kori Bustard minding its own business with a few buffalo bulls as onlookers.

A Kori Bustard foraging in the open plain.

 

“Who designed you? What wonderful imagination therein. Blue eyes with white and black surrounds. A velvet-black forehead and a golden crown which shimmers in the sunlight as you walk. And splashes of scarlet in the most improbable places. Oh and when you dance together, it is magical.”

~Mike Haworth

Grey-crowned Crane. 

We found scattered pairs of Grey-crowned Cranes on the Nyasiriro plain.

A Ruff from Russia. This was the second wader we found which was an early migrant.

“I had an inheritance from my father,

It was the moon and the sun,

And though I roam all over the world,

The spending of it is never done.”

~Ernest Hemingway

An African Spoonbill swishing its bill back and forth searching for food under the water.

A Black-winged Stilt leading a pair of foraging African Spoonbills.

A Black-winged Stilt plucking insects off the surface of the water.

A Woolly-necked Stork sunning itself next to the pool of water along the road.

A female Bennet’s Woodpecker working on the entrance to her nest in a thorn tree above the lounge at the tented camp.

A male Cocqui Francolin.

A female Cocqui Francolin foraging in the plain near the lion pride.

A male Rufous-naped Lark displaying to females

A Rufous-naped Lark performing his display routine from an anthill to impress any passing females. 

A lone Glossy Ibis foraging in the mud in the pool of water alongside the road.

The colour of the Glossy Ibis came alive with the right angle to the sun.

A Lilac-breasted Roller. You can also find the Broad-billed Roller, the Rufous-crowned which looks very much like the southern African Purple Roller and the migrating European Roller.

The beautiful blues, greens and mauves of the Liliac-breasted roller.

 

East Africa has a wonderful variety of birds. We got to see a minute portion of this diversity. By virtue of its location, it has residents, migrants and vagrants. There is a much bigger variety of  barbets, go-away birds, francolins, weavers, parrots, sunbirds, starlings and even pratincoles in East Africa than in southern Africa. I already feel the need for more visits to marvel and photograph the wonderful colours of East Africa’s feathered residents and visitors. 

“You didn’t come into this world you came out of it, like a wave from the ocean.

You are not a stranger here.”

~Alan Watts

Explore, seek to understand, marvel at its inter-connectedness and let its be.

Have fun,

Mike

At the Grumeti Tented Camp in the Serengeti, we usually gathered at the open air lounge before first light for a cup of coffee and a rusk or muffin. This was a traditional meeting to work out where to  go for the morning and discuss what we hoped to see.  There were very few vehicles in this part of the Serengeti in mid-September which meant there were few eyes searching for the wildlife we were hoping to see. Much of the wildlife moves at night so there is no guarantee that what you saw at last light the evening before you will see at first light the next morning. Nevertheless, it was a fun exercise to find out what each one of us wanted to see.  The intriguing part of this exercise was that if you were absolutely precise about what you wanted to see, it was uncanny how often that is what revealed itself, not always but often enough to keep the mystery alive. I had seen one Bat-eared Fox in the Masai Mara a few years ago, so asked whether there were Bat-eared Foxes in the Serengeti. Our guide, Yona assured us that they were around, but were not common so we would be lucky to see one or a family of them.

“For the 99 percent of the time we’ve been on Earth, we were hunter and gatherers, our lives dependent on knowing the fine, small details of our world. Deep inside, we still have a longing to be reconnected with the nature that shaped our imagination, our language, our song and dance, our sense of the divine.”

~Janine M. Benyus

Guess what we saw that morning, our first Bat-eared Fox family.

“Man is not himself only…He is all that he sees; all that flows to him from a thousand sources…He is the land, the lift of its mountain lines, the reach of its valleys.”

~Mary Austin

It was only when we ventured south toward the Nyasirira plains that we found a family of Bat-eared Foxes. On this particular morning  it was cold and the wind was blowing hard. The two adults were above ground lying in the open just in front of their den. There are two distinct populations of Bat-eared Foxes in Africa, one that lives from Ethiopia to Tanzania and the other in southern Africa. The Bat-eared Fox is so named because of its distinctive bat-wing shaped ears. Its latin name is Octoyon megalotis where the second word in the name comes from ‘mega’ meaning large and ‘otus’ meaning ears.

After a little research, I was surprised to find that there are five species of fox in Africa, the Fennec Fox found in the Sahara, the Cape Fox found in South Africa, Ruppell’s Fox found in north Africa, and the seldom seen Pale Fox, also known as the African Sand Fox or Pallid Fox found just south of the Sahara. The focus of this post is the Bat-eared Fox.(Source:https://synapsida.blogspot.co.za/2015/08/the-dog-family-foxes-of-africa.html)

As you can imagine with large ears like this, the Bat-eared Fox has a hard time when the wind is blowing hard. The sound of the wind must be like a roaring its ears, so it flattens them.

We found the den on a rise out in the open plain with hyaena, antelope and buffaloes all around. These are not big canids. The male is around 55cm in length and has ears about 13 cms long. 

 

“Experience is not what happens to you; it is what you do with what happens to you.”

~ Aldous Hux

Bat-eared Foxes are mainly insect eaters so do not compete with the larger carnivores, but that does not stop the large predators killing them if they get half a chance.  The other termite eaters are aardwolves, antbears and pangolins. Surviving on an all-insect diet required several adaptations which are found in the Bat-eared Fox. Firstly, their large ears provide acute hearing which enables them to hear insects such as dung beetles and termites under ground and in the thick grass. Bat-eared Foxes also have specialised extra teeth for shearing when chewing on insects, and their lower jawbone is designed to open and close rapidly.

Apart from pure survival, the fox adults were especially wary because they had two cubs. Bat-eared Foxes are socially monogamous and the male is actively involved in looking after the cubs once they are weaned off their mother’s milk.

The cubs clearly knew the rules and disappeared underground on cue from the adults, but as youngsters they were overwhelmingly curious and wanted to see what this thing was that was looking at them. The thing being our photographic vehicle.

“What I like about photographs is that they capture a moment which is gone forever, impossible to reproduce.”

~ Karl Lagerfeld

Cubs are born after a gestation period of about two months and are weaned in a year. The cubs are born in underground dens, usually during spring or early summer. A Bat-eared Fox family has several den holes in its territory, each with many entrances, tunnels, and chambers. The foxes’ claws are made for digging, and they can create their own burrow or enlarge an empty one made by another animal. 

 

Outside the den, the fox adults are ever vigilant.  The short grasslands in the Serengeti seem to suit them and the position of the den on top of a rise in the middle of the plain gave them a good visual of a large area around them.

Termites make up around 80 percent of their diet and there are many termite mounds on the plains of the Serengeti, so I am a little surprised we did not see more Bat-eared Foxes.

  

You can imagine that those large ears are like radar antenna and will pick up the slightest sound anywhere near. They locate their prey through their acute hearing. Bat-eared Foxes hunt in groups of two or three with hearing being their main sensory function.

“The purpose of life is not to be happy. It is to be useful, to be honorable, to be compassionate, to have it make some difference that you have lived and lived well.”

~Leo Rosten

Just looking at their faces, their muzzle is small. The teeth of the Bat-eared Fox are much smaller and structured in shearing surface formation, different to other canid species. This is an adaptation to its insectivorous diet. Hunting for food is mainly diurnal, during sunrise and sunset. In the more northern areas of its range (around Serengeti), they are nocturnal 85 percent of the time. However, around South Africa, they are nocturnal only in the summer and diurnal during the winter.

 

It was interesting to see the fox adults quickly picked up on a Black-backed Jackal wandering in the direction of their den.  Immediately the male Bat-eared Fox stood up and stared directly at the Jackal.

Visual displays are an active form of communication. Only when the jackal continued to walk closer did the male Bat-eared Fox arch his back in a threat posture, with the female behind him lying on the ground with her ears flattened. 

When this threatening display did not work, the pair of fox adults ran toward the jackal in unison. The jackal decided this was not going to end well so detoured around the foxes den.

This Bat-eared Fox family had their den about a kilometre from water. They seldom drink water as they obtain most of their moisture from their food.

“You cannot get through a single day without having an impact on the world around you. What you do makes a difference, and you have to decide what kind of difference you want to make.”
~Jane Goodall

Threats to these small canids are disease and floods (when caught in their dens) while the more immediate threats come from larger carnivores such as lions, leopards, hyaenas, cheetahs and African wild dogs.

“If future generations are to remember us with gratitude rather than contempt, we must leave them something more than the miracles of technology. We must leave them a glimpse of the world as it was in the beginning, not just after we got through with it.”

“We must not only protect the country side and save it from destruction, we must restore what has been destroyed and salvage the beauty and charm of our cities … Once our natural splendor is destroyed, it can never be recaptured. And once man can no longer walk with beauty or wonder at nature, his spirit will wither and his sustenance be wasted.”

~ Lyndon B. Johnson

Explore, seek to understand, marvel at its inter-connectedness and let it be.

Have fun,

Mike

After spending some time on the eastern side of the Grumeti river in the Western Corridor of the Serengeti, we decided to venture on the western side between the Grumeti river and the Kirawari range of hills. We crossed the swollen Grumeti river across the bridge near the Grumeti Tented camp.  Other than a few hippo in the enlarged pool all our guide had to go on was the shape of the water flow across the low level bridge. When the river gets too high for a road vehicle to cross then visitors must use the suspension walk bridge to cross the Grumeti river and they are collected on the other side. Mother nature rules!!

“We have more to learn from animals than animals have to learn from us.”

~Anthony Douglas Williams

This post is about Southern Ground Hornbills, as we had seen a number of  pairs of these birds on both sides of the Grumeti river.  This was an encouraging sign as these hornbills are classified as vulnerable in the  IUCN Red List species.

“Living wild species are like a library of books still unread. Our heedless destruction of them is akin to burning the library without ever having read its books.”

~John Dingel

Within the hornbill family there is a unique sub-family, Bucorvinae, consisting of only two species; the Southern Ground Hornbill (Bucorvus leadbeateri) and the Abyssinian Ground Hornbill or Northern Ground Hornbill (Bucorvus abyssinicus). Both of these species are found in sub-Saharan Africa, with the Northern Ground Hornbill living on the southern edge of the Sahara Desert from Ethiopia to Senegal, and the Southern Ground Hornbill occurring from north as Kenya and the Democratic Republic of Congo to Namibia and South Africa. The northern species can survive in arid habitat, while their southern cousin prefers grasslands, woodland and savanna.

The focus of this post is on Southern Ground Hornbills. Although Southern Ground-Hornbills are found in open grasslands and savanna throughout sub-Saharan Africa, they are considered vulnerable to extinction due to loss of habitat and predation, and because they are slow breeders. More often than not you will usually see these large hornbills striding through the grass, so it is quite something to see them in flight.

Despite their size, ground hornbills are strong fliers although they do not fly long distances and they fly low to the ground so are often not seen. They have low aspect ratio wings, meaning the length of their wing relative to the depth is relatively low. This enables them to fly at relatively slow speeds. When in flight their white primary wing feathers are very noticeable. Southern Ground Hornbills sometimes perform aerial impressive pursuits when defending their territory. 

 The Southern Ground Hornbill has a bright red face and bare red inflatable throat patches. Their eyes are pale grey green and they have an impressive set of eye lashes. Its beak is black and decurved, and comprises two powerful mandibles. The upper mandible is downward curving and has casque above. This casque is more developed in males than females and probably plays some role in displays or male selection. Their legs and feet are strong, scaled and black and they walk in tiptoe. Their feet have thick underside pads and their toes have serious claws which almost look like talons. The female has violet blue throat patches, and sometimes this colour can cover most of the lower parts of their face.

“The human race is challenged more than ever before to demonstrate our mastery, not over nature but of ourselves.”
~ Rachel Carson

Southern Ground Hornbills are the slowest breeders of any bird in the world. They lay one to three eggs, but usually only one chick survives. The parents rely on a small group of family members to raise and feed their chick, which takes up to two years to become an independent adult. These hornbills are unable to breed until they are about 7 years old. It is estimated that a group only raises one chick to adulthood every nine years, but fortunately they are known to live for up to 60 years. The next image shows a juvenile with its orange-yellow facial skin colour.

Small animals need to lie low when a party of ground hornbills is out foraging. These omnivores snap up anything from insects and lizards to small birds, rodents, tortoises and snakes, even rabbits and monkeys. They are excellent hunters, walking on the ground and using their huge beaks to catch a wide range of prey. When other prey is scarce they also eat seeds and fruit. In the next image, this male Southern Ground Hornbill with a baby tortoise gripped between its mandibles.

“Our task must be to free ourselves by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature and it’s beauty.”

~Albert Einstein

The male Southern Ground-Hornbill has a magnificent red wattle (throat pouch) in contrast to the dark blue wattle of the northern species. 

Traditional African cultures saw ground hornbills as harbingers of rain. Killing them was a taboo and many Africans regard these hornbills as sacred. Sadly, views are changing and these birds have become increasingly threatened. A major threat to the species is loss of nesting habitat due to clearance for small-scale use, agriculture, and because of fires.

“Know that the same spark of life that is within you, is within all of our animal friends, the desire to live is the same within all of us….”

~Rai Aren

This large ground hornbill can be seen striding through the savanna and will actively avoid man.  

These hornbills are monogamous, pairing for the 30 – 40 years of their lives unless their mate dies. They live in groups of as many as nine birds but with only an alpha pair that breeds. Southern ground hornbills are diurnal. They will rest during the night in a tree then rise at dawn. They nest in large cavities in trees or on cliff faces. When they rise they produce territorial calls and then fly down to the ground to begin foraging. They are territorial and the group will defend their territory extending for of around 100 hectares. 

“…drink in the beauty and wonder at the meaning of what you see.”
~ Rachel Carson

This is largest of the hornbill species. They can grow to a height of 130cm, with the males attaining a weight of up to 6 kgs and the females being around 2 kgs lighter. Other than the wattle, the bird appears black in colour. It has white primary feathers which are only visible in flight.  

The Southern Ground Hornbill is carnivorous. It strides through the bush with purpose, foraging on the ground, digging with its bill for food. They are also co-operative hunters  where large prey are pursued and dismembered by several group members.

When you are out in the bush, from around 4h30 in the morning you will begin to hear Ground Hornbills calling.

http://www.xeno-canto.org/explore?query=southern+ground+hornbill

It is a reassuring sound early in the morning. The pre-dawn chorus between pairs comprises a deep booming call (hoo hoo hoo-hoo) that can be heard as far as three miles away and is sometimes mistaken for a distant lion. They amplify their calls by inflating the big, red, balloon-like wattle below their bill.  This member of the family has a very large keratin casque on top of its beak which is believed to vibrate and amplify its call. 

The northerners call supposedly sounds like a grunting leopard. 

These ground hornbills are very much at risk mainly due to a shrinking natural habitat and persecution. With a population that is now estimated at around 1500 in South Africa, the species is classified as Vulnerable on the IUCN Red List.

“For most of us, knowledge of our world comes largely through sight, yet we look about with such unseeing eyes that we are partially blind. One way to open your eyes to unnoticed beauty is to ask yourself, “What if I had never seen this before? What if I knew I would never see it again?”
~ Rachel Carson

Explore, seek to understand, marvel at its inter-connectedness and let it be.

Have fun,

Mike