28 October to 02 November 2008

There has still not been any rain at Simbambili in the last week even though there has been a build up of big rain clouds. Mild temperatures continued during the week with the highs only getting up in to the mid to high thirties at the end of the week.

As always we have been treated to great leopard sightings during the past week.

Nyalethi, the female leopard together with her two young cubs was spotted around Serengeti Pan twice during the week. Safari, the old female has been seen around Big Dam and surrounds hunting and often picked up lazing on top of a termite mound.

Mvula, the young male leopard that has established a territory in the northern part of Simbambili was seen with a Duiker kill up a tree but it wasn't until last night that we followed him going north just after dark. I could see that something had caught his attention and out of the blue he killed a young Duiker. He then carried it for about 50m before starting to pluck the hair out and feeding. He was seen again the next morning hunting impala so the duiker kill was probably stolen by hyena

A previously unknown female leopard moved into the area where she killed a young zebra and dragged it up a tree. She fed off it for about three days but one afternoon she went for a drink at a nearby pan and on her return found that three hyenas had gotten hold of the leftovers and she moved on.

We have been very lucky with two cheetah sightings in one week and regular sightings of lion, buffalo, rhino and elephant have been recorded. All the migrant bird species are also back which gives our safari experience even more variety.

Regards The Simbambili Team