Maholoholo has a lot of vultures in their aviary that can't go
back to the wildbecause of various injuries. It offers a good opportunity
to take up close pictures of vultures that you wouldn't get in the
wild.
Here's a Cape
vulture--one of the more common ones we saw in the wild, but it is listed as
threatened. Not pretty, but interesting. And we'd be knee deep in
carcasses without vultures cleaning things up for us.
This beauty is the
African whitebacked vulture. It's the one seen most at carcasses in the
bush.
With a much
sharper beak, the hooded vulture gets into all the nooks and crannies when
cleaning up carrion. It is not common except in the northern part of
southern Africa.
A close up of our
old friend, the Marabou stork. Those feathers on the back of his head and
neck looked just like hair. Not a pretty fellow.
More to many
people's liking were some of the animals that the center has in for
rehabilitation. Reminding me of a small wolverine, this waddling bundle of
fur is a honey badger--renowned for aggressive behavior, a serious biter,
malicious digger, and tearer up of things. But this little fellow was
adorable! They said he was constant trouble at the center, but he rolled
over for the guide to scratch his tummy this day. My animal pictures
are not high quality but with all the small kids on our tour, it was hard to get
a clear shot.
The honey badger has very loose
skin which makes it easy for him to turn and bite any predator that might grab
him. They follow the call of the honey guide birds leading them to bee hives in
hollow trees. They tear the hive open and eat the honey and larvae--their
skin is impervious to bee stings. The honey guide birds then come
in and eat honey and beeswax till they can't digest any more.
