Meet Mukwa

Elephants are amazing creatures - each with their own distinct character. Walter Gwarada presents them here, starting with Mukwa:

Name: Mukwa

Nick Name: 4 by 4 due to his size and ability

Age: 23

Sex: Male

 

Favourite food - anything edible but mostly elephant cubes and oranges. He will do anything for oranges. He does have a strong appetite for cabbage trees and rhuss plant species.

Characteristics - quite greedy! He always tries to steal feed from Duma and Taba. He is known for pinching feed from Duma who sleeps in the middle in the boma at night. Mukwa does have an playful character and enjoys teasing new elephant handlers to see how brave they are.

 

Interesting facts about Mukwa - Very gentle to guests since he knows exactly where his bread is buttered.

He loves swimming and mounting Duma though he knows by now that despite the fact that Dumas facial features resemble a female he is definitely a male!

 

Mukwas Facial features - Very handsome elephant with long eye lashes which extend forward. Adorable.

 

Come meet Mukwa and the other elephants on a day trip to Addo Elephant Back Safaris - or why not make come and stay for a few nights at our beautiful safari lodge?

Tortoise on drive

On an afternoon game drive with the Webber family from Cape Town we came across this leopard tortoise walking along an elephant path.

We all jumped out the game viewer to have a closer look and on approaching him I was surprised to see that he wasn’t scared. 

Normally when you approach a tortoise they will try to hide by tucking their head and legs into their shell to protect themselves and make a hissing sound to deter the approaching threat or predator. 

This confident fellow however was not going to shy away. This boldness gave us the perfect opportunity to study him up close and determine the sex. 

We soon discovered that it was a male, you can tell this as the females have a flat shell underneath and males have a small depression on the underside of their shell, this allows the male to mount the female without rolling off her as would happen if he also had a flat shell. His braveness paid of as he was rewarded with a light head scratch from Debbie, which he really seemed to enjoy.

written by Andre d’Hotman