24 May to 31 May 2009

24 May to 31 May 2009

 

Elephants and more elephants have been the flavour of the week. Herds of between 50 - 100 elephants have been on our property and extremely active throughout the week, moving to and from the waterhole in front of the lodge, providing some fantastic game viewing for all the guests from the comfort of their suites swell as from the main deck.

 

Other than elephants there have also been some other very exciting sightings during the week, lions have also been quite plentiful with both the Nkuhuma pride and the Styx pride both on our traversing area. We were fortunate enough to have the Nkuhuma pride move right through the camp twice this week and then settle about 300m away from the camp, making lion viewing very easy for the rangers.

 

The sighting of the week had to go to the Styx pride, we picked up the pride early in the morning, as they we all milling around a very large termite mound, then 2 of the lionesses got up and went straight to a large warthog hole on the side of the mound. The one female then began to dig inside the hole, the other lioness and the rest of the pride became interested in the digging, and decided to join her. They all dug for about 10min, so we waited and repositioned the vehicle. As soon as the engine had been turned off, we heard a large blood curling scream, they had the pig!!!!They pulled the large male warthog of about 80kg fighting from the hole and placed him approximately 4 meters from the vehicle, and the fight began. The poor warthog fought for about 10min against 10 lions and then he gave his final breath. The lions fed ferociously for a lot of the morning and gave us all some incredible photographic opportunities.

 

Leopard viewing has also been great this week, we finally are proud to announce to all the arrival of the two most beautiful leopard cubs that belong to Salayexe. During the week we had our first proper viewing of these two with their mother, they are still a bit unsure of vehicles but in time will relax around vehicles because their mother is totally relaxed. We look forward to the future with these two fluff balls, and many great sightings with them and all the Simbambili guests.

 

Tyson the territorial male leopard is still moving around making sure no other males move in on his patch, but the old male Mafunyane takes no notice and is still being seen a lot on drive, he looks to be in magnificent condition, and I am sure he will still be around for a long time to come.Nyeleti was seen on a number of occasions and Mbilo has also been seen inside her mother's territory but always on her own! Ntima was also seen this week, and we hope that she still is looking after her last remaining cub.

 

The pack of three wild dogs moved into the area for a day and then moved off west, it looks like theses 3 dogs are still looking for a den site, and we can just sit and hold thumbs, that they might settle on Simbambili.

 

 

Regards 

 

The Simbambili Team