The big cats have once again delivered with incredible cheeah sightings and lions aplenty. Slowly but surely the morning and evening air is cooling and the autumn colours are returning to the bush. This really is a beautiful time in the lowveld.
Lions
Matimba males
These males are still split
at the moment and we still haven’t seen Induna for a while. The dark maned
males have been with the Koppies females and most of their activity has been
around and just west of Main dam. No major happenings have occurred and it
seems that peace has settled in Matimba territory, for the moment. They have
been a little scarce and there were some days that we couldn't find them at
all. One of the blonde males showed an injury on his left foot and moved
quite gingerly. It looks as if he was in a big fight and this male frequents the south, he may have picked it up south of our border.
Nkuhuma pride
These females have been
around the south over the last two weeks, mostly in the area around S8 and S9.
The cubs are all still doing very well and have given us some fantastic
sightings, doing lots of cubby type things. They haven’t been with the Matimba
males and hopefully these males are protecting their territory well enough to
look after these precious little ones.
One sighting we had was of
three of the cubs in a tree. The two smaller cubs were trying to escape one of
their larger cousins, who was in a curious mood. He kept at least one of the
small cubs cornered, and kept harassing “this little squirt”. Eventually the
little one used his teeth and bit back, to the surprise of the bigger cousin.
Leopard
Beacon male
Patrick had one sighting of
the big male on the eastern side of Main dam. No photographs this time!
Unidentified Leopard
We only had one sighting of
an unidentified Leopard. One of our trackers, Simon, found a young male of about
nine months. We think it might be one of the Main dam females cubs but we are still
trying to get some identity photo’s of him. These youngsters have a
big part to play in our Leopard Identification Project.
Cheetah
We were once again lucky
enough to have an incredible Cheetah sighting. We found the young male with an Impala
kill at Xigamba pan and he was extremely relaxed. From what we can piece
together, he is the son of the female that we find around the lodge. She
had four cubs two years ago and all were male. Sadly, we think the others were
killed, which is unfortunately normal. This male has fortunately returned to the area and
is treating us to great sightings.
The other sighting was of two
males at Vincent’s pan, close to the Kruger National Park boundary. They killed a
young Waterbuck and were feeding on it. We think these may be the two males
that killed and ate another male a few months back. They are possibly making a play at setting
up territory in the area.
Other views from the Bush
I hope you enjoy enjoyed blog!
Darren and the Safari team
All photographs and videos edited by Darren Roberts-York
No comments:
Post a Comment