Leopard diaries

10 May to 17 May 2009 

 

We have changed over to our winter time schedule with the early morning drives departing just before sunrise at 06h00 and the afternoon drives departing at 15h30 to allow for the earlier sunset. The mornings have been cold with average temperatures of between 8 and 10 degrees Celsius, while the afternoon drives have been comfortable with lovely blue skies and temperatures averaging 29 degrees Celsius. We have seen an increasing amount of general game as the animals starts to concentrate around the remaining water sources in the area. There have been an abundance of giraffe, zebra, blue wildebeest, nyala, kudu and waterbuck.

 

A new hyena den has been found with at least 4 pups being seen. The clan of hyena has been very active in the area surrounding Simbambili Lodge and we hear them calling every night. These often misunderstood predators have to be one of the most successful in our area and we were witness to this on one drive this week as we watched the local clan, compete with the Nxuhuma pride, over the remains of a buffalo kill.

 

Simbambili means "the place of two lions", and this week we have definitely been the place of two lion prides!!!! Both the Nxuhuma Pride and the Styx Pride have been seen on our traversing area. The Styx Pride has not moved back to their core area out of fear that their cubs may be killed as two of the Mapogo Male lions have taken over their territory. Following the pride at sunset one afternoon we watched in amazement as a lioness and then her two cubs climbed into and lazed in the branches of large Marula tree. This behavior is definitely seen more regularly in leopard and was an absolute treat for the guides and our guests.

 

The Nxuhuma Pride has been our star attraction over the last week and half. The sighting of the week happened just after dark on Thursday night. Sitting in camp we heard a buffalo give a distress call out near the waterhole and on following up Matt and Doctor found the entire pride in the process of killing an adult buffalo cow!! One of the more experienced lionesses had the buffalo by the muzzle and was covering its mouth and nose so suffocating it in the process. The pride settled down to feed and we were hoping that they would be present for the next day or two with such a big meal. This was not too be the case because 10 hungry lions made short work of the kill and left the remains which were mostly skin and bone to the hyena clan the next morning!

 

Leopards have been relatively difficult to find this week and this could be attributed to the increased lion presence in the area. We have however seen the females Kurula, Salayexe and Safari during the week. Salayexe was seen on an impala kill which she had stashed in the high branches of a Buffalo Thorn tree. She finished the meat and then moved off in a westerly direction back to her den site. We are all eagerly waiting for the first glimpse of her new cubs!! Lazarus and Lucky were lucky enough to watch a large male leopard finish off the remains of a scrub hare that he had killed. This is was an unidentified male in the eastern part of our traversing area although he appeared well fed and relaxed with the vehicle presence. Speaking to the rangers from our neighbouring property we were able to find out that 2 days earlier this male leopard had been seen feeding on an aardvark!!

 

 

Rhino have been seen in small crashes of between 3 and 7 individuals. 2 large herds of buffalo have been moving through the area and one herd was seen in the vicinity of Simbambili Dam for 2 days. The main calving time for buffalo is at its peak in the beginning of winter and the number of chocolate brown calves has increased daily. Elephant have been few and far between with a few bulls being seen as they move to and from the bigger water sources.

 

Regards

 

The Simbambili Team...

27 April to 3 May 2009

 

This week has been absolutely phenomenal!! The game viewing and in particular the large predator viewing has been unbelievable and there were many unexpected surprises awaiting us around every corner. The autumn colours have added to this rich bonanza by adding a wonderful backdrop for some exceptional photographic opportunities.

 

The cooler mornings have made for some slow starts until the bush warms up, but this has given us some valuable time to locate and track animals, trying to work out the comings and goings of the previous evening as the trackers piece together the story from the tracks and prints they see. It is always a rewarding experience to follow a set of tracks from when you find them and then as if by magic, there ahead of you is the animal that you have been tracking.

 

This was the case with one of the few sightings of cheetah that we have had this year, on one afternoon safari, Matt and Doctor had found some fresh spoor of a lone cheetah moving into our property and began following the spoor on foot. It was not long before they walked past a dense stand of Strychnos, where an impala was hiding and appeared very nervous. They then moved on a few metres suspecting that the cheetah was nearby causing the nervous behaviour of the impala. As they began moving forward they heard the distinctive bird like chirp of the cheetah. Coming in with the vehicle they found the young male cheetah on a freshly killed impala. It was getting dark at this point and we left the cheetah to its meal, which we would later discover was appropriated by a large male leopard sometime during the night! This was not to be the last sighting of this young male cheetah and he provided us with three more sightings during the week, all of them memorable as this sleek cat moved through the bush.

 

 The wild dogs have been seen almost daily, sightings of these rare predators is something that we as guides and trackers cherish as the dogs never seem to laze around like the large cats. The young dogs which are approaching a year old are the ones who provide the best photographic moments, as they wrestle and practice their hunting moves on each other often landing on the floor in an undignified heap of black, gold and white!! The hunting behaviour of the dogs has been rather difficult to follow and it was only when they killed late one morning near the EP Airstrip,  that Al, Mumps and their guests  were able to watch them feeding  for the first time. It is astonishing how quickly the pack can finish a meal!

 

The Styx Pride of lions, made an appearance one morning when Matt and Doctor, where busy watching a Rhino cow and her year old calf. The bush erupted next to them as a herd of giraffe, zebra and impala ran from an as yet unseen predator. The commotion could not have been set off by anything but lions and as we rounded a bend in the road we found the oldest of the Styx lionesses moving towards the startled group of giraffe. The rest of pride was soon seen and the entire pride regrouped and rested in the golden glow of the morning sun as they pondered their next move.

 

Leopard viewing has been just as good with Mafufunyane, Safari and Shadow being seen regularly. Mafufunyane was seen resting early one morning and was found in the same spot later in the afternoon, he then proceeded to move off as the sun set. He continued moving in an easterly direction as he tended to the territorial housekeeping by spray urinating and scraping every so often. We left him and to our surprise he was found the following morning feeding on the impala carcass that the cheetah had killed earlier the previous day!

 

Elephant have been rather scarce and we have not seen the numbers of elephant that were present earlier in the year but this is normal in an ecosystem like the greater Kruger area as the herds tend to move around. We did have a good view of what must be one of the largest of the modern day big tuskers.  White rhinoceros and buffalo were seen in good numbers with a number of buffalo herds being seen as well as a large crash of 6 rhino. General game has been great with large numbers of zebra, giraffe, blue wildebeest and waterbuck being seen at the waterhole during the day.

 

Regards

 

The Simbambili Team

20 April to 26 April 2009

 

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.

 

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!!

 

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.

 

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.

 

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.

 

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.

 

Regards

 

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.

 

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.

 

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.

 

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.

 

The Simbambili Team