12 October to 20 October

The weather has been cooling down in the north western part of the greater Kruger National Park this week but alas, it has not brought any decent amount of rain. All our browsing animals are doing better as the trees are starting to bloom but our grazers are greatly affected by the lack of rain and the extremely dry bush.

The female leopard Nyeleti and her two cubs have yet again entertained us with their antics. They were first spotted this week with an impala kill close to a large knobthorn tree parallel to the Marakene. We watched the one cub feeding whilst the shy one of the two quickly melted away in the bush. Nyeleti started calling her cub and before long the shy one appeared and playing started all over again. The little family of leopards stayed in the same spot for the next 3 days allowing us excellent viewing before they moved on leaving just the bones of the antelope behind.

During the same drive we came across another two leopards about 200m from Rhino Ring. On closer inspection we identified them as Tyson, the current dominant male from Londolozi and Salayexe, the younger sister of Nyeleti. These two females share both the same parents; Mafufunyane & Saseke. We followed Tyson & Salayexe hoping to catch a glimpse of them mating but Tyson refused Salayexe's advances. Every time she presented herself to him it seemed promising but it always ended in a slap towards her side. We left them as they both headed towards the waterhole.

To round off the week we were graced with the presence of two cheetahs feeding on a waterbuck. As these cats are endangered and we only have a limited number in the park this was a rare and truly spectacular sighting.

The Simbambili team