Tonight’s sunset drive was taken by our fabulous new student guide. She did a great job and had some rather insanely good luck with sightings too!

First up was the Brown Hyena that ran across the road in front of us.  I may have mentioned this before, but Brown Hyenas will travel as far as 40km in just one night searching for food. The fact that we see them at all is incredible.

On the way back we were surprised to find a huge cheetah by the road! Yet another cheetah sighting at night and in the dark, where cheetahs aren’t supposed to be. We didn’t stay with her for long as she looked like she may have been on the lookout for a snack. And as we know, Kalahari cheetahs don’t bother to read the mammal books and often seem to hunt at night.  Even more interesting, is that here they’ll hunt hares and springhares as well as little antelopes.

Before the sun went down, I snapped a few photos from the passenger seat. I do love this bad photo of Ostriches taken into direct sunlight….

And who doesn’t love a muddy Wildebeest?  Here’s a new fact I learned last night: The Wildebeest’s extra long face is an adaptation to eating very short grasses. So even if your face is right to the ground, you can still watch out for predators. Their long face is also adapted to making them look funny (not ‘ugly’, funny). Try looking a wildebeest in the eye without smiling and giggling. Can’t be done.

Sunset Drive Sightings:

Cheetah
Brown Hyena
Black Backed Jackal
Bat Eared Fox
Scrub Hare
Springhaas
Springbok
Steenbok
Wildebeest
Ostrich
Gemsbok
Yellow Mongoose
Kori Bustard
Pale Chanting Goshawk
Scaly Feathered Finch
Verreaux’s Eagle Owl
Spotted Eagle Owl