There’s a CROCODILE in my backyard!

By Sodwana Bay

[embedyt] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iDSr5j5ofJ0[/embedyt] Checkout this cool video of our very first Crocodile found! Lake Sibaya is so close to us that we can literally hear the Hippos at night grunting! So we consider Lake Sibaya to be part of our backyard, since there are so few houses past us! We had been searching for months for some sort of sign that there might be at least one Croc in the Lake! Crocs are not as easy to spot as Hippos since they are so flat and mainly hide in the reeds! We discovered the best way to find a crocodile is to look for moving logs in the water or to find the shimmer in the reeds, more often then not, the shimmer you see in the reeds is a Nile Crocodile!


How fast can a Hippo run under water?

By Sodwana Bay

[embedyt] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fDVFHXJtIBE[/embedyt]   We were so excited to find our very first Hippo. After months of trying to find Hippos we finally were able to see one. Although he was in the distance and all we could see was his head when he came up for air. It was a Hippo!!! This was a special mission of mine to find the Hippo as it was my mom’s favorite animal! So sort of this video and the Hippo Pod video goes out to you, mom hope you watched it from heaven! Drone Talk: I really tried my best to get the glare less with color grading in post editing but obviously I still have a lot to learn. This footage was taken before the Hippo Pod video and as you can see I did not take the time of day and the position of the sun in to consideration. It was noon 12pm and I flew directly into the sun – reflection on the water. Now I know better – get the sun to your back! I’m slowly learning and making many needed mistake as this will only make me a better wildlife drone operator. For Example with the Hippo Pod video – Lake Sibaya was smooth as glass and when I tried to find anything in the water – I could only see dark green – I had no reference points – no ripple or reflection. I did though; get awesome clouds reflecting in the water and super happy about that.


Our first ever Crocodile at Lake Sibaya.

By Sodwana Bay

Crocodylus niloticus Lake Sibaya is home to 2 highly aggressive marine animals – The Nile Crocodile and Hippos! So unless you can still see your feet in the water and don’t see any signs of Hippo or Crocodile activity, don’t swim in the Lake!   [embedyt] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iDSr5j5ofJ0[/embedyt]   Fun Facts about the Nile Crocodile: If you ever visiting Sodwana Bay, find out where Lake Sibaya is and make a day trip out of it! If you look hard enough you might be able to find a living log floating in the water or basking on the shoreline! Here is something we can all learn from the Nile Crocodile – Respect your elders! Nile Crocodiles are one of the few crocodile species that like to socialise… They don’t mind sharing an extra large meal or a school of fish. As long as there is enough they not picky who shares a meal with them… As long as you respect the hierarchy. The oldest and largest male always gets first debs on everything, the best piece of meat, fish and even the best basking spot. Sometimes the younger males can get a little cocky and challenge the alpha. That is a really poor choice on their part, since often times the younger male will be seriously injured or even killed in the fight…. Come on, everybody knows you don’t take on something that is bigger and stronger than you! READ ORIGINAL ARTICLE >>> READ NOW


A new life @ Lake Sibaya!

By Sodwana Bay

This little babies footprint is round about 10cm – 12cm long which leads us to believe the baby is about 2-3 weeks old Wow what an extraordinary year it has been!!! With the Covid -19 and all the death surrounding most of the world we are still privileged enough to find that the world around us is still teaming with new life! We would love to welcome our newest member to Sodwana Bay, Lake Sibaya ~ South Africa. [embedyt] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UozTyEhERqM[/embedyt] A baby Hippo we suspect was born to our favorite Hippo Pod about 2-3 weeks ago! As of yesterday we have counted 4 babies and the newest addition (that we have not yet seen) will be the 5th baby in this tiny pod! NB! These are not actual facts. All of our statistics are speculated and are not proven! Welcome Baby Hippo… Hope to see you soon! So as of what we know there are at least 6 adults and now 5 babies with brings the total amount of members to 11 Hippos, no doubt there are many more in the lake, but yet again the Lake is the largest Fresh water lake in South Africa and is claimed to have the second largest population of Hippos in South Africa, we are lucky to be able to witness this little Family grow! If you come to Sodwana for a winter holiday, be sure to visit Lake Sibaya. Winter is the best time to see Hippos and Crocodiles out on land! Please be considerate of others when doing game drives, we all get excited seeing wildlife and sometimes get over eager. When spotting Hippos and Crocs try drive much slower and stop a fair distance as to not spook the animals back into the water! This will help considerably to get that perfect natural calm photo! Good luck to our newborn, can’t wait to see you soon! Check out all the need to know about these Magnificent Mammals! – Hippos @ Sibaya Lake – Sodwana Bay ~ South Africa


Hippopotamus @ Lake Sibaya

By Sodwana Bay

Hippo POD @ Sibaya Lake Wow we have great news – Lake Sibaya has 2 new lake dwellers… In the midst of the Covid-19 #Lockdown – it is good news to know that besides everything that is happening in the world right now – there is still LIFE! We have no expertise on hippos we can only report what we took via video. #Watchit NOW:   [embedyt] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UozTyEhERqM[/embedyt] Subscribe @ our Channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCXH0Nm5epc8gZj9WfI8qGIg Wiki Post: Our First ever viewing of a lone Hippo @ Lake Sibaya. https://sodwanabay.info/wiki/hippos-sibaya-lake-sodwana-bay-south-africa/ https://sodwanabay.info/wiki/hippo-lake-sibaya-sodwana-bay-south-africa-watchit/ News LINK > Southern People


The Shady one – Roman spider @ Sibaya -Sodwana Bay – South Africa

By Sodwana Bay

Solifugae is an order of animals in the class Arachnida known variously as camel spiders, wind scorpions, sun spiders, or solifuges. The order includes more than 1,000 described species in about 153 genera. Despite the common names, they are neither true scorpions (order Scorpiones) nor true spiders (order Araneae). Much like a spider, the body of a solifugid has two tagmata: an opisthosoma (abdomen) behind the prosoma (that is, in effect, a combined head and thorax). At the front end, the prosoma bears two chelicerae that, in most species, are conspicuously large. The chelicerae serve as jaws and in many species also are used for stridulation. Unlike scorpions, solifugids do not have a third tagma that forms a “tail”. Most species of Solifugae live in dry climates and feed opportunistically on ground-dwelling arthropods and other small animals. The largest species grow to a length of 12–15 cm (5–6 in), including legs. A number of urban legends exaggerate the size and speed of the Solifugae, and their potential danger to humans, which is negligible. Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solifugaehttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solifugae I think this is the hardest I have laughed and screamed in a really long time… Now living out in the bush and having a braai can sometimes be a tricky business. Tom has this super crazy phobia of this specific spider… The red Roman Spider or more commonly known globally as the Sun spider… Tom has a funny personality on his own already. He loves making jokes and and overall is mostly a funny guy outside of work. He can really be a class clown, when he’s in the right mood… I think I laugh the most when he is super scared of something, never ask him to be your knight in shining armor when it comes to freaky, ugly creepy crawlies like this one. Well at the time when we caught this monster of a creepy crawly, I wasn’t aware they are actually aggressive and can bite really sore. We were sitting outside having a great chat about our dreams and what we would love to do still within this year, when suddenly Tom felt a weird tickle on his foot. At first he didn’t take note of it and thought it might just be a piece of grass, but this grass started to move, right now I am so wishing I had the camera ready to video him… I think it was the fastest I have seen Tom jump on anything before and that’s saying a lot… since we use to work in construction. For some reason Roman Spiders/Sun Spiders seem to really be attracted to Tom’s Shadow. Besides that I have this really bad habit of putting my feet up on chairs and couches all the time. I can even walk past the stupid things and they will never chase my shadow, maybe they after Tom’s hairy legs or something (Read facts below)… I sound like a really bad fiance, but I love watching Tom run away from these freaky looking critters… HAHAHA! On this occasion I had to be the hero in his story, but he does save me more often then I save him, so I don’t mind saving him once in a while… when he has to save me almost everyday… Unfortunately we do not have our own photo of this freaky creature, he was way to fast tryna get away from the light and any footage we have is super blurry… A few facts about this scary Critter that roams our sandy planes: Despite their name they are not actually spiders, the only thing they have in common with a spider is their 8 legs! You know that feeling, when you think something is stalking or watching you out in the bush, maybe just check your shadow there really might be something following you in the dark of night or in the daytime… These creatures are supposedly daytime dwellers, running from shadow to shadow, but we have only encountered these shady creatures at night, much delight to our kitten and Puppy… No, they do not have 10 legs as popular belief might suggest, I guess it just makes them sound even more scarier and more alien like, but there front lobes are more like feelers than legs and are way to short to use as legs… Although it is not a spider it is still classified as a Arachnida. Ok, so here is some good and bad news all in one go – Roman/sun spiders are not poisonous, but tend to be quite agressive and can apparently bite really sore – I seriously hope never to be bitten by one these scary creatures… They tend to shave your hair for you while you sleep… Reports might suggest that these creepy crawlies will give you a really bad free beard trim and all they ask for in return is that you donate your hair to their nests. There has been cases where animals have been left with bald patches after an unexpected visit from mister Sun Spider. These things are super vicious – they eat – spiders, scorpions, even small reptiles, but you wanna know the worst part – they will even prey on each other and eat their prey alive, that’s just horrible. They have super strong pincers like a crab which helps them successfully catch and eat their prey… They can grow between 70 -160 mm. The bigger the scarier… I am a lover of almost any creature, but never been a huge fan of Spiders – Especially – Hairy, aggressive, huge and poisonous ones!!!! Please go checkout our  Patreon Page Below… We wanna start giving you guys who are committed to us exclusive content and be able to further our channel and provide better content to our Patrons… To do this we need funds and all the support we can get… Also check out our YouTube Channel when you done reading this… Every view is one step closer to our goal, we need 4000 hours of our subscribers views and 1000 Subscribers to be able to start making money and better content for you guys, YouTube is free please watch all our videos till the end… and subscribe…