16 November to 23 November 2008

This past week has been one with a lot of excitement at Simbambili couple of days of quiet game viewing early in the week was followed by one particularly eventful morning. Those of you who have been following our leopard diaries over the past few months will be familiar with Nyeleti, the female leopard and her two 7month old cubs.

We were viewing Nyeleti early one morning before leaving her and as we pulled out of the sighting we found an unknown male leopard at Serengeti pan. Something caught his attention and to my horror it was one of Nyeleti's cubs. Since this was an unknown leopard and these were not his cubs we were concerned as male leopards do kill cubs if they are not theirs because they can then mate with the female to spread their own genes. Unfortunately that is exactly what happened. The male killed the little cub in front of us!! It was a once in a lifetime sighting that I do not want to see again.

On a lighter note, the rest of the week was excellent. We were treated to some great (or not so great) hunting skills by both the female leopard Salayexe and the young male Mvula. Mvula came very close to a Steenbuck early one morning but he was spotted by the Steenbuck before he could move any closer for the kill.

Salayexe, the young female was very brave one day when she tried her luck with a fully grown male waterbuck. It ended up in a cat and mouse game with first the leopard chasing the waterbuck and then the other way around.

Tyson, the adult male whose territory overlaps into Simbambili was found early one morning at the waterhole right in front of the lodge. He was busy scent marking before moving down the Manyeleti River.

We were also lucky enough to have two different cheetah sightings during the week. and three of the Mapogo male lions were also in our area. Big herds of buffalo are returning after the good rains we have enjoyed recently and we even spotted the first newborn impala and wildebeest of the season.

Regards The Simbambili Team