The highlight of this blog is definitely the return of a small pride of Lion. They are a breakaway group from the Orpen pride and haven’t been seen for more than half a year!

 

 

 

Lion

Orpen Breakaways

 

 

The last time these lions were seen was just before the massive flooding that happened in the lowveld. They were pursued by the Matimba’s and several cubs were killed. After that they ventured east into the Kruger National Park and we hadn’t seen them since. Until now! We were having a tough time finding lion. Their tracks were everywhere, but no lion could be found. Mpho got onto it, and as he does it, within half an hour, he had lion.

 

We arrived at the sighting and at first thought it might be the skittish pride from Kruger and approached very carefully. These lion did not even look up. The group consists of two adult females, a young female and a young male. The two youngsters were lying on a termite mound and were extremely curious. They afforded us great opportunities to get fantastic shots.

 

 

After a good half an hour of watching these youngsters and enjoying their posing, they got up and joined the adults. After this sighting it seems they moved back towards the Kruger area.

 

 

 

 

Sizanani males

  

We had two sightings of these males. The first was on Nyathi drive junction with Vulture pan road. They had a young Wildebeest calf which they had killed. The dominant male was feeding and the male with the bad leg was watching. The bond between these two still surprises me and I’m still amazed by their behaviour.

 

The dominant Sizanani fed on the calf for a while, left the kill and approached his brother. They went on to head rub and the dominant male left his brother the rest of a very small kill. Normal lion behaviour would have been eating the calf and leaving nothing for the other male. Lion society revolves around the strongest survives, but these two have a relationship stronger than I have ever seen.
 

 

The second sighting was a little closer to home.  Two staff members came out of the kitchen at the lodge and got into their car. When they turned the lights on, both males were about 30 metres away and casually watched them go past.
 

 

 

 

 

Leopard

 

 

We had one good sighting in the last while. Patrick found a young male at Rian’s Folly road and it was clear he was stalking. Fritz and Patrick stayed with the young male and watched him until he snatched up an Impala lamb. This young male was in the northern parts of the Beacon male’s territory and we haven’t seen him again. We went back to see if we could find him again, but an Impala lamb only goes that far.

 

 

Other views from the bush

Further than that we have had a lot of big Buffalo herds on the reserve in the last while and the big Elephant congregations have also been a real reward on safari. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Darren Roberts-York


Photo & Video Editing: Darren Roberts-York
Lion and Rock Monitor videos: Fritz Breytenbach
Elephant video: Patrick Gumede
All Video taken with a Nikon Coolpix P510