Tintswalo Ranger's Blog

Every cloud has a silver ligning

With a fair amount of rain in the last week, life continues its march into summer. The bush is looking fantastic and the Nwasisontso River flowed for the first time this season.

Giant plated Lizard

Lion

Sizanani Males and Koppies Females

We haven’t seen much of our resident pride lately. After all the chaos caused by the Matimba’s a few weeks ago, the Koppies females have been keeping a very low profile. We saw them with the Sizanani males on Panicum road and this was the first time they’ve been seen together since the Matimba’s were in town. The next morning we found the Koppies girls at Wild dog dam and they moved north towards the airstrip. They went into a thicket and settled down for the day.

The Sizanani boys moved far north, unfortunately into an area of clay soils which means we have not been able to follow up on them for a few days.

Sizanani male Movements

Koppies female movements

Matimba’s

These boys have been fairly busy lately. Two of the Matimba’s seem to have set up shop from S8 dam all the way to Main dam. These are the two culprits that have been giving the Sizanani males uphill. Their week started out with a Buffalo kill on Power lines road and a second buffalo kill was found on Ntzaka loop a few days later.

The Sizanani males then roared close to Mantwaan Mphisi pan and the next night both Matimba males were there, almost in exactly the same spot as the Sizanani males the night before. They did the same thing, marked their territory and roared into the night. The next night I found them at Main dam where they crossed the dam wall and continued to mark their territory and roar.

It looks as though a show down between these lions is on the cards.

Matimba movements

Leopard

There was not much on the Leopard front this week! We saw the Main dam female’s cubs in a drainage line at Workshop road but it looks as if she has maybe moved them further east towards Ntzaka loop. This is unfortunately in Matimba territory. Lucky for the Leopard the interest generated by the Sizanani males might make the Matimba’s look further west and take pressure off her and her cubs.

Another Leopard was seen by Fritz at Dixie koppies. It was on the other side of a Buffalo herd but by the time Fritz had got into the area, the Leopard it had moved into the koppies and he was unable to follow.

Leopard sightings

Cheetah

The female that has been around the lodge has once again treated us to some great sightings. It all started with an Impala kill between two of our suites. Two guests were packing to go home and watched the saga unfold from inside their suite!

She had a second Impala kill on Red road not far from the main gate. We sat and watched her eat for at least an hour in typical Cheetah fashion, constantly looking up to survey the area for any other predators. After about an hour she left the kill and made her way off. I’ve seen Cheetah do this before. They leave the kill to the scavengers to avoid any competition that could result in injury.

Cheetah Sightings

Wild dog

We started off by having a good sighting of the pack of two. They were seen at Zebra pan and by the evening drive had moved to Ingwe Manzi. We only had the two sightings of them on one day.

Komma, our lone female, did not want to be outdone and killed an Impala between reception and the kitchen! She was seen by the night guard, as he was doing wake up calls for the guests, but was unfortunately scared off and did not return to the Impala.

Wild dog Sigtings

Special sighting!

We were treated to an incredible sighting one morning. We were making our way to Ndlovu Manzi for a well-earned cup of coffee. Just before arriving at our chosen spot, we were stopped by two Elephant bulls fighting in the middle of the road. We very quickly realised that we were in fact in the middle of a breeding herd and a few males were around the vehicle. While watching the males pushing and shoving one another we heard a blood curdling Elephant scream. We couldn’t approach. We did not know what was happening but knew that there was something different about this scream. I couldn’t go forward and had to wait for these males to take their squabble off the road before we could investigate.

After a few minutes the males moved off the road and we were able to go closer to where the scream came from. There was a cluster of Elephants in the road and one big male was making a nuisance of himself. While watching the herd we realised why this cluster had formed.

A tiny calf was in the middle of it all. We witnessed the female passing afterbirth and came to the realisation that this had just happened. This calf could not be more than just a couple of minutes old! The male, driven close to insanity by the elevated levels of oestrogen caused by the birthing process, was not taking no for an answer. He kept on trying to mount the female and just went on and on while the tiny calf desperately tried to get to the safety between moms legs.

We decided to make our way to the same area that afternoon to see if we could find the little calf and what the outcome was. Almost at the same spot, we found it with the rest of the herd. Alive and well!

Other views from the Bush