Only one day to see Kruger National Park, South Africa

More than a million visitors come to Kruger National Park each year in search of the Big Five; unlike the Serengeti, many of the roads are paved with lots of traffic so I'm amazed more animals aren't killed by vehicles here

Fish eagles mate for life and when one dies the other just stops eating; Kruger is a huge national park measuring 220 miles north to south and 40 miles east to west

We only had one day to see Kruger National Park and it didn't start out well; I never expected to be so cold and wet in the South African summer

We didn't have the best safari guides in Kruger; they did little spotting for us and they traveled the same roads multiple times (and slowly)

Uniquely among social carnivores, female wild dogs, rather than the males, disperse from the natal pack once sexually mature; the species is a specialized diurnal hunter of antelopes, which it catches by chasing them to exhaustion

The African Comb Duck is a very unusual sight here; one of the largest species of duck, their wingspan ranges from 46 to 57 in with males much larger than females

More than 12,000 elephants live in Kruger and they've actually been relocating some because biologists felt the land couldn't support the large numbers

Kruger became South Africa's first national park in 1926; the park is in the NE part of the country and linked to parks in Mozambique and Zimbabwe forming the Great Limpopo Transfrontier Park

We found this sad looking lion right next to the road; a large male lion was trying to mate with her and she just wasn't very interested

Southern Red-billed Hornbill; it is native to the savannas and dryer bushlands of southern Africa with the males being larger and heavier than the females (males also have longer bills)

Wild dogs are very endangered but we saw a pack of about 30 resting next to the road; their natural enemies are lions and hyenas but the main threat to their survival is humans

Long-tailed shrike (aka magpie shrike); this species occurs in woodlands, particularly riparian areas, and in the Kruger National Park is found in river valleys with thorny mopane trees

The African white-backed vulture has a 6-7 ft wingspan and is critically endangered; vultures are being poisoned by humans, although not intentionally, in order to kill hyenas, lions, and other predators

I wish we could have spent several days exploring Kruger since it's so vast; we visited the southern section which is the most popular because it is closest to Johannesburg