March 12, 2011
Malachite Kingfisher in Kruger National Park, South Africa

On our eleventh full day in Kruger National Park, South Africa, we continued to explore the area around the Pretoriuskop Rest Camp. The first thing we did was find the lions from last night and we saw two klipspringer nearby. The most startling encounter of the day occurred as we were driving along one of the dirt side roads through a forest. The road and tree canopy created a nice tunnel, and all of a sudden there was a southern ground hornbill flying right down the tunnel towards us. These large birds spend most of their time on the ground, and it was quite impressive to see it, with a 6 ft (1.8m) wingspan, fly about 3 ft (1m) over our vehicle! My favorite image of the day is of a malachite kingfisher. These diminutive kingfishers are about 5 in (14 cm) tall and are usually rather skittish so they're difficult to photograph. We photographed it from one of the permanent bird blinds in the park, and he flew right up close to us and landed on a nice perch!

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