Hello hello, and welcome back to another update from Tanda Tula Safari Camp! It has been a week that has started to once again feel a little wintery, but with last weekend’s temperatures reaching 35 degrees Celsius, this might not be a typical winter! That being said, the last couple of days have seen us grabbing for blankets and hot water bottles in the early morning, but soon shedding the layers as the sun warms the Greater Kruger.
We had a week of reasonably good lion viewing, but it did involve a lot of fat bellies and, thus, a great deal of laziness from our feline friends! After finishing off their buffalo kill last week, the River Pride were seen with a couple of other kills, from impala to baby wildebeest, and an unknown feast that left ten members of the pride sleeping in the same spot for 36 hours! A couple of days later, the females made an opportunistic kill and were found with a fresh daytime-caught young zebra near Nkhari. The Sark Breakaways also spent the week looking in good shape, and I tried to spend time with them in the late evening on a couple of occasions but was lucky to even get a head-lift out of them! Needless to say, after the latter evening of laziness, the pride was located the next morning with not one, but two young buffalo kills! In the east, Ginger also found a single Mayambula female, but there were no signs of the rest of the pride. The Giraffe Pride surprisingly spent a week without showing face in the far west. The Vuyela males continued to make their presence known in the central regions, and we woke up to their roars almost every morning this week – morning roaring usually leads to a guarantee of early evening vocalisations from them, and they didn’t disappoint and gave our guests several great roaring displays this week.
The leopards played along surpringly well this week, and we had views of these spotted beauties most days. Dzindza made the most of the impala rutting season and was found with a young impala ram hoisted high up a marula tree that kept her fat belly in the same place for three days! The week started off with N’weti and Pezulu (the new name for her son) wandering around in the east, and at first it was thought that she was taking him back to a kill, but when they separated later in the morning, it was realised that our initial thoughts were wrong. A couple of days later, though, the pair was found on our eastern boundary, having just finished off the remains of an impala kill, leaving another two fat-bellied cats. Ginger and Given also tracked down an unknown male leopard with a duiker kill in the east, but the leopard highlight of the week were the couple of days that we got to enjoy seeing something that we don’t often get to witness, and that was the sight of mating leopards. Nyeleti pitched up with the Xiwumbana male on the southern end of Nkhari (the furthest south we have ever seen her), and we got to follow them as they began their honeymoon. With the Xiwumbana male being a touch on the shy side, we did get to hear them mating far more than see them, and eventually lost them as they crossed over a deep drainage line. A couple of days later, we woke up to the sound of the pair mating opposite Tanda Tula. Jack and Given went to work tracking them down, and we eventually got to catch up with the pair, and this time we did get to see them mating a little more clearly! One aspect of mating leopards that I always enjoy seeing is that it gives us a rare chance to compare the size difference between male and female leopards firsthand, and this size difference is emphasised even more when the male involved is the massive Xiwumbana!
In other leopard news, it was revealed this week that Marula Jnr has a littler of cubs that are a couple of months old – although she is still spending a good deal of time in the Klaserie, she does appear to be moving back into the Timbavati more regularly than she has for a while. She was seen suffocating an impala one evening, but the guide left her to her own devices so as not to draw unwanted attention to the kill. Sadly, upon following up in the morning, it was seen from the tracks that although she did bring the cubs to the kill, a hyena had managed to steal it away. The Nkaya Dam female in the west also has a litter of cubs that are now a couple of months old. Tristan and I bumped into her one afternoon as we were popping down to Plains Camp one afternoon last week…we also ticked off a caracal (oh yes, and the Giraffe Pride!) that afternoon!
Another surprise this week was the sight of a massive herd of buffalo in the east – there were around 500 members of this large herd, but they clearly hadn’t been in the area for some time, as they all looked very surprised when arriving at Machaton Dam only to find it bone dry! The lone bulls continue to hang out around Tanda Tula’s waterhole, and as the week drew to a close, they weren’t alone as a single male hippo also moved in! With the lack of water around, I wouldn’t be surprised if he became a regular feature at the dam over the course of the winter months.
The elephant herds still visited the waterhole on a daily basis, and the herds continued to move around all parts of the reserve, but with not a great deal of water around, they ended up having to trek over some distance each day as they moved from feeding grounds to watering points.
We also had a visit from a couple of packs of wild dogs this week; the first was a pack of only two – I do fear that this is the pack of three that we have been seeing for ages, but that some misfortune befell the missing dog. The week ended off with a pack of 10 members coming from the south and cutting straight north through the concession – all of these wild dogs were particularly dark and possibly originate from the southern Ngala pack. We received word that the northern pack of 20 dogs has once again chosen to den in the northern reaches of the Timbavati, in the dense mopane woodlands up that side of the reserve. Although it is always disappointing to know that we won’t see them as regularly as we do away from denning season, it is definitely better for the survival of them and the cubs, as there are not many lions up north. With two females pregnant, when we see them again in a few months, the pack could realistically have swollen to 40-plus members…but that is me getting ahead of myself again!
Aside from that, we continued to enjoy sightings of all our usual regulars and are also seeing some good ostrich viewing in both the east and central regions. And as I type this, I also remember that there was a sighting of a single cheetah last week in the east, but naturally it was when I wasn’t on drive! I will, however, remain optimistic that this year will be a good one for the cheetahs!
In the words of Ryan, “That is all I had time for!” – so until next week, keep well!
Cheers
Chad
