The cool moment of diversity is seen in Hwange National Park in South Africa as a bevy of different species show up to the watering hole over an 8-hour period on Monday (February 10).

During a recent safari in Hwange National Park, we decided one morning to do things a little different. Instead of driving around the whole day looking for animals, we decided to spend majority of the day at a waterhole, sitting in a thatched structure called a hide. The park is currently extremely dry and animals rely on the man-made waterholes that are pumped twenty-four hours per day. We sat in the hide from 6 am till around 2 pm that afternoon and didn’t regret once second of it. From early we were lucky to see a lioness walking around the waterhole while scanning the area for suitable prey. As the day moved on there were great numbers of zebra, impala and kudu visiting the waterhole for a drink. Animals were coming and going from all directions. Warthog families made their appearance while large monitor lizards were snooping around in the shallows, looking for something to eat. One of the great highlights during this period was to see the incredible number of elephants arriving and spending time at the water. The waterhole was teeming with life and we were amazed by the incredible variety of wildlife we were able to see by just sitting still and waiting. Our eight hours in the hide flew by quickly and in my many years of game viewing in Africa, I have never seen so much wildlife in just one day. Such a spectacle is definitely a rare occasion. It can really only be witnessed in a few protected wildlife areas in Africa during a stressful period such as the severe drought plaguing the park.