5 July to 12 July 2009

In winter the weather seems to affect our early drives with the mornings being bitterly cold when we set out sometimes as low as 2 degrees Celsius, this does slow down animal activity a bit but as the winter sun rises it brings life back into both our own joints and the animals and the skies are clear and the action begins!

Yet again (for the 4th time in 2009) we saw wild dogs in our area. They were found on Jacobin Axis moving south across Nkorho. The pack was hunting but did not manage to kill that morning. Shortly thereafter we found one of the female leopards in our traversing, Ntima strolling around with the dominant male leopard Mafufunyane. We were delighted to have both of them back in the western part of the greater Kruger Park. We spent more than an hour with the pair before Mafufunyane spotted a herd of impala. Both leopards started stalking and chased the impala in a southerly direction. The male leopard moved into a thicket and we could not follow them further. Our current dominant male leopard Tyson was sighted in the Manyeleti River on an impala kill, he is one of the leopards that prefers the thickets over open areas and had hidden the carcass in the thick bush under a common Spikethorn. We struggled to get a good view and were only able to see him clearly on the next morning drive. Unfortunately it was not a big impala and he finished the carcass within a day and moved on.

Salayexe and her two young cubs have not been seen this week as they are still around Koala Bear view point in the Manyeleti which is fairly inaccessible. We hope to see them again soon.

Until next time
Thanks by Simbambili team