Welcome to another SKNP Journal. There seems to be a slight chill in the air in the mornings before the am game drive goes out. Winter is slowly clawing its way back into our lives. The concession is drying out quickly; the once flowing and flourishing Nwanetsi has become a gooey, sloshy series of mud pools, frequented only by a few dagga boys and white rhino. The few remaining clear pools are magnets for game and on some days, literally hundreds of elephant, impala and waterbuck can be seen quenching their thirsts on the river banks.

The real fascination this past month has been the amount of birds, especially larger birds, being seen on the concession. The northern parts have been overrun by lesser spotted eagles and marabou storks. The storks are still around in great numbers, their ominous presence felt as they stare emotionlessly down at you from their perch in a dead Leadwood or knob thorn. We have been speculating as to why they are up there in such huge numbers; more than likely it is the presence of large colonies of red billed quelas or the huge armies of armored ground crickets in those areas. These large birds are one of the easiest storks to identify with their bare‐head, bare neck and the fleshy pouch on the lower fore neck. They appear to have white legs but in actual fact they are grey in color. This stork performs what is called Urohydrossis. Essentially this means that they urinate on their own legs to
cool down their body temperature.