June 2024

After our overview post of the Addo Elephant National Park (read here) and our elephant album of last week (read here), it’s now time to show you all the other wild animals we saw in this park during our visit.

Big wild animals:

Although the park is home to more than 700 elephants, there are also a variety of antelope species, Cape buffalo, lions, leopards and spotted hyenas. The endangered south-western black rhinoceros is also found here.

Small wild animals:

The smaller wild animals eluded us – such as foxes, jackals, honey badgers, vervet monkeys and porcupines. The warthogs made up for this though – we saw them quite a few times each day on our drives through the park.

We did hear jackals at night and on one of our drives through the park we heard the roar of lions near the road, but we could not spot them between the bushes and trees.

First day sightings:

It’s a fact that warthogs might not win a beauty pageant, but they entertained us with their flat faces that were often covered in mud as they dug in the ground for roots or when they run away with their upright tails.

The entertaining warthog

Warthogs (and a kudu cow on the right)

Speaking of kudus, we often saw them grazing together with warthogs. Kudus are one of the largest antelopes. The male kudu has long spiral horns which they use mainly for defense against predators and also in fighting during breeding season.

Young kudu bull

The characteristic spiral horns of a kudu

Kudu family accompanied by a warthog

Kudus on a hill

A lone male kudu

The Burchell’s Zebra is another common sight in the Addo Elephant National Park. It is easy to confuse the Burchell’s and Mountain Zebra. However, the difference between the two species lies in their stripes – the stripes on the legs (pale stripes in Burchell’s Zebra vs. bright stripes on the Mountain Zebra) and the belly of the Mountain Zebra is completely white without stripes.

Burchell’s Zebra

Herd of zebras at one of the water holes

Playful young zebras

Zebra foal

We ended our first day’s sighting of wild animals with a sleeping warthog on the side of the road. It’s the first time they haven’t run away – maybe this one was a bit lazy after digging for roots all day.

Sleeping warthog

Second day sightings:

If there’s one animal we didn’t think we’d see, it’s the endangered black rhino. But on our second early morning drive in misty weather, we saw an animal in the distance (which we thought was an elephant at first), but as we got closer we found out to our delight that it was a rhino. There were game rangers in a jeep not far from the rhino and they seemed to be checking the fences. It’s sad to think that this beautiful animal has to be protected from humans.

Endangered black rhino

We saw the Cape buffalo up close at Thali Thali Game Lodge near Langebaan in December last year (read here) and have great respect for these strong animals. The buffalo’s only true predators are lions and humans, meaning it has very little competition.

Cape buffalo

Old friends again – zebras and a warthog

It’s always great to see ostriches. Although this large bird cannot fly, they are considered the fastest running birds in the world.

Ostriches

Another antelope that we saw often, apart from kudus, was the red hartebeest. I mentioned in a previous post that these antelopes can reach speeds of up to 65km/h. Fortunately, for us, they were very patient to pose for photos and we were happy to take many photos of them.

Big herd of red hartebeest

Red hartebeest

Here are a few more photos of animals we saw on this day. We never got tired of seeing different animals quite a few times on one day – it’s always a beautiful sight to spot them in the wild.

The funny warthog

Beautiful kudu

Zebras (yes, it’s sometimes rewarding to look in your rearview mirror)

We ended the day with another sighting of the Cape buffalo

Third day sightings:

On our third day we left the park and did not deviate from the main road. So, we didn’t really expect to actually see any animals, but we were surprised to see a herd of elephants walking across the road (we wrote about that in our previous post – read here). But it was not just elephants we saw, the zebras also grazed along the road and we were able to take photos up close.

Beautiful face of a Burchell’s Zebra

Every zebra has a unique stripe pattern (almost like human fingerprints)

Zebras sleep for seven hours a day, they standing up during the day and lying down during the night. We saw one standing by the side of the road – he was in dreamland and not even us driving past him could wake him up!

Sleeping zebra

And then the biggest surprise came just before we left the park. On a slope of a hill, zebras, kudus and also elephants stood and grazed together. I’m sure somewhere there might also have been a warthog that we couldn’t see – it was the perfect farewell gift that the Addo Elephant National Park could give us!

Group of different wild animals in one photo

So, who else thought that the Addo Elephant National Park only had elephants?

All that remains of our visit now is to share with you that amazing event we witnessed at one of the biggest water holes – you can read about that here.