Winter is definitely starting to creep up on us here at Simbambili, with some very cool mornings and evenings experienced throughout the week. The bush has swapped its green summer coat for the dappled yellows, browns and tans that are so distinctve of autumn.
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The game viewing has been phenomenal this week, with lion, leopard, buffalo, rhino and elephant being seen regularly. However, the highlight of the week belonged to a much rarer predator in our reserve, the African Wild Dog! A pack of twelve dogs moved onto our property from the southern part of the reserve and provided us with some fantastic sightings over the last couple of days!!
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The pack was first spotted around Safari Airstrip, where they attempted to hunt the large herds of impala that congregate there during the late afternoon. This led to some rather interesting viewing and even more interesting driving as we followed the dogs through the bush trying to keep up with the hunt. Although unsuccesful in the hunts that we witnessed they are the most successful hunters of all the predators.
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This week we have been lucky to have two prides of lion on the property. There is a territorial dispute occurring further south in the reserve, with two of the Mapogo Males, trying to take over the territory of the Roller-coaster Male. This has led to the resident prides that are protected by the Roller-coaster Male to scatter and take their cubs, of which the Styx Pride has nine, into hiding. That hiding place has been the northern part of the Sabi Sands where we have seen the pride regularly for the past week, one of these times was on a large zebra stallion kill as the lions lay around with full bellies.
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The leopard sightings have increased as the bush thins out and on one particular morning game drive no fewer than five individual leopards were seen. The young female leopard, Mbilo, has now become fully independant from her mother, Nyeleti, who appears to be pregnant and if her last mating was succesful then we should expect to see her new cubs around the end of May. The territorial male, Tyson, has definitely started to push Mafufunyane, further east and was seen scent marking early one morning in what used to be a central area of Mafufunyane's territory.
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We came across a very intersting sighting on one of the night drives during the week, a large Mozambiquean Spitting Cobra, had overpowered a smaller Puff-Adder, and we watched as the large cobra manouvered and bit into the adder to immobilise  it further. Spitting cobras are known to feed on other snakes and to watch this take place was very interesting.
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Regards
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The Simbambili Team
15 April to 20 April 2009
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Winter is the best time to view the small cats and during the last week we have been fortunate enough to see large spotted genet hunting francolin unsuccessfully at night. White tail mongooses were active each evening drive, they hunt ground nesting birds. Unfortunately they didn't catch anything in our presence. There are still lots of tracks around the Hyena den site, but no sighting as yet of any youngsters. General game has also been excellent for the last few days with great sightings of giraffe zebra and blue wildebeest.
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On one drive after we had enjoyed sightings of lots of general game we came across some lion tracks and after following up we saw 4 lionesses and 10 cubs of the Styx Pride at One Eye Pan that had moved into our area. The cubs are about 8-9 mouths old and very relaxed in the presence of the land-rover. Later that evening the pride began to hunt blue wildebeest on the open area and a male wildebeest picked up the scent of the pride. When the cubs saw the wildebeest they broke cover too soon and ran towards the wildebeest which then ran off. After this unsuccessful hunt the pride regrouped and once again were unsuccessful in attempting to hunt a herd of impala following which the pride moved north out of our traversing area.
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The female leopard Safari was picked up on Tamboti Clearing in a tree where she had stashed an impala kill. We enjoyed 4 wonderful days of this particular leopard sighting. One morning she was eating up in the tree and we were only vehicle in the sighting which our guests thoroughly enjoyed Safari eventually moved the carcass to another spot in the soft sunlight which made for great photographs. The following evening we saw her drinking at a pan, it was fantastic sighting and after she had finish we followed her back to the kill. The large territorial male leopard, Tyson has been seen on the regular basis scent marking furiously and pushing deeper and deeper into Mafufunyane's territory We followed him for a while before he went into thick bush where it was impossible to follow. Shadow, the one year old female leopard was sighted at Xigodi pan we were not able to view her for long as she vanished into the thick vegetation.
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Wild dogs were sighted at Simbambili Dam one night, next. Their tracks had been picked up on our western boundary as they came in from Robsons in the morning and they were eventually sighted at Simbambili Dam in the evening. The pack which consisted of three adult dogs then moved through our property and into Vuyatela from where they eventually crossed into the Kruger National Park. It was great to have these endangered animals on our property once again.
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The Simbambili Team
7 April to14 April 2009
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Winter is once again upon us, the mornings are becoming a lot colder than normal, and the nights are also becoming colder. Â I think we are probably past the rain, as we haven't received any rain over the last week. We are also seeing the colour changes in the grass and the leaves on the trees, they are moving from the summery green colour to a more greenish- brown tinge. The natural water holes that were filled with water from all the rain are also starting to show signs of drying up!
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On the mammal sightings front, there has been plenty of action. For the entire week we have had two different herds of buffalo both numbering about 300 moving in and around the property. The elephant herds have been a bit scarce, but we have had some exceptionally large bulls present throughout the week. One such bull had the most massive pair of tusks, Im sure he could be an up and coming tusker for the future. The rhino sightings have also been fantastic, with a very large ‘crash' of 7 animals seen nearly every day, as well as another 4 separate animals and a female with a young calf.
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Our two little hyena pups are not so little anymore, but are doing very well and are growing every day. They are both still based at the den, but on a few game drives we have come across them out hunting with the rest of the clan. These two pups are producing some great viewing for our guests as they are not at all nervous of the vehicles and now come right up to the vehicles and on one occasion the braver of the two even went right under the vehicle to investigate.
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This last week we have enjoyed daily lion sightings. The one Mapogo male lion with the broken leg has been hanging around our property and providing some fantastic sightings. He seems to be moving more easily now, and was even able to steal a kill from the female leopard Salayexe which kept him busy for a few days and this allowed him to rest and restore his energy! He was also seen calling frequently for his brothers, and on Friday morning they replied and he began to move south to meet up with them.
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News from the south is the Tsalala pride lionesses have had cubs and even though the cubs have not yet been seen the females have been seen with suckle marks, so hopefully within the next few months we will be able to view the new arrivals.
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The territorial male leopard, Tyson was again seen this week but later moved south, the other territorial male, Mafufenyane was also seen, but seems to be feeling the pressure a lot more from Tyson and also that of a new male from the north called Jordaan, this particular male is massive and was even seen trying to kill buffalo calves within the buffalo herd this week. He tried to jump onto the back of one but was thrown off and moved into very dense bush after that. We look forward to ongoing sightings of this magnificent male. Of the female leopards both Salayexe and Ntima have definite suckle marks, which is a great sign that they both still have cubs, the White Cloth female and her cub who are resident in the eastern section of our traversing are also doing really well.
Nyeleti was seen during the week on a regular basis but without her cub Mbilo so it appears that she has finally been able to get send her demanding teenage cub out into independence. Shadow was also seen twice on impala kills and Safari was also seen a lot of the time.Thandi was also getting in on the act when we had a great sighting of her posing on a termite mound for about an hour and we managed to get some great photos.
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Both cheetah and wild dog tracks were seen this week as well an amazing sighting of a sub adult giraffe that was killed by a crocodile in the east. The giraffe was pulled out of the water which provided us with some incredible viewing of crocodile and hyena interaction and large numbers of vultures were also present. A Cape Griffon Vulture was seen which is an incredibly rare sighting in our area.
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The Simbambili Team
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30 March to 5 April 2009.
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As we are entering autumn it is noticeable that most of the migrating and hibernating animals and birds are preparing for their journeys resulting in fewer sightings of these species. The trees and the grass are slowly losing their lush green coloration and the plains game species are getting more active as the bush become drier.
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We have seen more than 17 giraffe this week in one area and zebra and wildebeest almost daily. Elephant were spotted wallowing in Serengeti Dam and we watched them having their famous mud baths in the early mornings. One morning whilst watching the elephant we could hear baboon alarm calls and we followed up to find that Tyson, the territorial male leopard, was the reason behind the baboons distress.
He was lazily lying under a buffalo thorn watching the baboons rallying their youngsters to get out of harm's way.
The female leopard, Salayexe was next on our list and we watched her hunt, unfortunately with no luck!
Nyeleti, another female leopard, was sighted on Londolozi's boundary heading south whereas her 1 year old daughter Mbilo was seen close to Serengeti on an impala kill. If this young female made this kill herself we have hope that she will be a constant sighting in this area and will grow into a beautiful leopard capable of feeding and fending for herself.
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The Simbambili Team
23 March to 30 March 2009Â
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Another week has gone by at Simbambili, the bush is still extremely thick and green, and we are still having the odd bit of rain here and there, but nothing to heavy. The mornings are changing rapidly and all of us are having to put on one or two jerseys on before we head off on drive, we can all see that winter is nearing in the bush.
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Even though the bush is very thick it hasn't lessened our sightings at all. It has just made us all work a little harder. This has all paid off as the game viewing this week has been phenomenal with lions being seen every day this week as well as leopards. On at least 3 days this week all the big 5 were seen on drive.
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On the lion side, we have had 3 of the Mapogo coalition around the whole week, one of the brothers seem to have broken his leg, proberly trying to kill a buffalo or a giraffe. This has hindered his movements quiet a lot, so he has not been able move to much with his brothers and has been separated quite a few times .Even though the other two have been away from him they still seem to make their way back to him. This is very lucky for the injured one as he is unable to hunt for himself, so he is totally dependent on his brothers for food, we will keep you updated on his progress.
The leopards have been plentiful with Mafunyane and Safari being seen on a few occasions mating with each other. Tyson was also seen this week, but spent a day around the area but them moved off. Salayexe was also seen this week and she looked like she was lactating, so we are all hoping that she might have some new arrivals for us.
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The highlight of the week on the leopard front was when we found Nyeleti and her cub which now has been given the name of Mbilo which means ‘survivor' on an impala kill, Nyeleti had managed to kill a fully grown male impala and hoist it into the tree. This provided us with great leopard viewing for four days. Nyeleti is still showing a lot of aggression towards the young cub, the cub is obviously just not getting the message from its mother, in sure it is only a matter or of time until the part forever.
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Elephants have been everywhere this week, especially around the camp, we were lucky enough to see a baby elephant that was only hours old, it was so small that it was still very unstable on its feet. The mother was very protective of the young one so we gave her and her little on the space they needed.
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Rhinos and buffalo also have been great this week with us seeing a very large "crash" consisting of 6 individuals, this is definitely one of the larger crashes I have seen in this area. A buffalo herd of 350 has also been moving in and out this week, this has proved some fine sightings when we have come across them at the waterholes with all 350 buffalo drinking and wallowing in the water.
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General game has been great as we have seen loads of zebra, giraffe and wildebeest, and the birds have also been fantastic with sightings of bateleur eagles and brown snake eagles been recorded. Ground hornbills were also seen which is very lucky as they are extremely endangered at the moment.
