Victory Loves Planning

I left the lodge with Jamie (guide) and Duncan (maintenance) to go for an afternoon walk. We headed south and crisscrossed the Nwasisontso River several times. This practise increases your chances of seeing game as you stay close to the lush riverine forest and high ancient trees.

So far the weather was comfortable and the walk easy. No brush to squeeze through, nice open game paths to follow and good open views from the front to spot what might be waiting ahead.

We were on the eastern side of the dry river bed when we suddenly heard the sound of breaking branches. We almost instantly spotted a big Elephant bull casually feeding on a large Bushwillow. We watched and as our senses were fixed and concentrated, we heard several different groups of Elephant feeding, breaking branches and softly vocalising by making distinct low rumbling noises audible to us. We stopped and viewed some of the herd coming into view. The wind direction was perfect. I could feel it in my face and on my cheeks. Wind blowing into our faces while viewing the animals meant we were far from being detected by these large pachyderms. So far the walk has been very exciting and overwhelmingly in our favour. Could it get any better?

As we stood and enjoyed the moment, I heard a sound that made my feet want to move and investigate. My mind told me to rather stop and listen. It was the sound of a male leopard rasping repetitively just to our north-east. I asked my two accompanying trailists whether I should try to find this magnificent animal on foot. The answer was a resounding YES! I calculated the risk and devised a strategy.

Listen and establish how far the animal was from us. Determine its direction of movement. Determine the approach keeping in mind cover while approaching and cover once in the sighting. Safety was high priority. Wind direction was already in our favour but we had to be as quiet as possible. One foot after another in very dry grass! The leopard was still a good distance away, so some noise was still acceptable before it would become pertinent to drop decibel levels to an absolute minimum.

As we moved closer to the sound, it suddenly dawned on me. We were making the same amount of noise as the feeding elephants were. This was absolutely great! The leopard at this moment must’ve only been hearing the elephants. If he could not smell or see us but only hear us he would think we were nothing more than noisy feeding elephants!

The odds were stacking-up in our favour.

We moved fleet footedly with all senses sharp and focused.

The leopard was also moving. Judging by his course of direction he would soon walk into a big open sodic site. We got closer and dropped very low, now moving deceitfully silent. We positioned ourselves ahead and parallel to where the leopard should come walking past. Well hidden behind a Raisin Bush and small Jackalberry Trees, our bodies were concealed amongst the brush with perfect little peep holes the size of large juicy red apples.

The sound intensified as this Leopard rasped and rasped. The wind was still perfect with no inclination of changing direction. Silence came and our eyes were peeled. In a moment of pure disbelief this very large male leopard walked into view. With his tail high in the air and his head low, he paused and rasped confidently. We watched and watched and watched. Seeing this animal on foot could only have been a result of all the odds in our favour, team work and careful planning.

We engraved the image into our minds. He was a burnt ebony colour with a very muscular neck. Perfect rosettes were scattered over his sleek Jaguar like body.

We left him and he left us totally unaware of our high level of affinity towards him. Even more amazing was that this leopard turned out to be one of our most elusive individuals on the reserve. Very few images have ever been captured of this particular animal. Viewing him on foot made it so much more special.

Shirombirombi 4 years ago - One of the very few images ever captured

What a walk! What an experience! What a pleasure!

Until next time!

Fritz Breytenbach