I feel like I have said this a great deal over the past few months, but wow, what a week of game viewing here in the central Timbavati! The guests at Tanda Tula were once again spoiled with some fantastic big cat action as the long dry season continued to deliver, as dry seasons usually do! I often say that when our lion activity peaks, the leopards go into hiding, but they didn’t get the memo this week. We had a good number of quality leopard sightings despite seeing no fewer than 58 different lions across our traversing area over the past seven days.
With so many lions around, it is no surprise that they took center stage! We saw five different lion prides (River Pride (10), Sark Breakaway Pride (16), Mayambula Pride (11), Giraffe Pride (9), and the Mawondane Pride (3)), and two coalitions of males (Vuyela males (4 of 5) and Birmingham Breakaways (5))—that’s a lot of lions in 11,000 hectares of space!
For me, the highlight of the week was no doubt watching a portion of the Sark Breakaways one evening as they hunted a herd of 900 buffalo. The pride had been following the herd from the night before but hadn’t had any luck. With empty bellies (despite an impala and young buffalo kill in the days preceding this), the odds were good that they were going to try their luck again once darkness fell. With lights out, we sat and listened to the sound of over 3,500 hooves stampeding as the lions tested the herd’s defenses. The dust became thick, and the anticipation grew; another stampede and a few subdued growls, but nothing that made me think the pride had been successful. Upon checking with the spotlight, however, we saw the eleven members of the pride all gathered around a year-old buffalo calf. It stood no chance, and without a bellow to signal its distress, the herd didn’t even know they needed to turn around and help a fallen comrade. A small meal for a big pride, but a meal nonetheless. While these lions were feasting on their buffalo, another portion of the pride (two females and the three cubs) were tucking into a fortunate meal—they had stumbled upon a dead baby elephant and spent a few days filling their bellies on a pachyderm snack.
The River Pride ended up losing their zebra kill from last weekend to the Mawondane Pride. (If that name sounds unfamiliar, it’s because they are a pride with no known history and must have arrived from the wilderness areas of the Kruger Park. They consist of just three members: two young males and their sister.) This led to the trio having nice, fat bellies and spending a few days relaxing at Marco’s Dam. The next night, however, they got busy and were found with a large buffalo kill on Nkhari that kept them in the area for a couple of days. But when the 10 young Mayambula Pride members heard the gathering hyenas and came to investigate, the outnumbered Mawondane Pride hightailed it, and the Mayambula Pride got to enjoy the remains of the kill. Later in the week, a single Mayambula female was found along the Machaton Riverbed.
The Vuyela males were not overly active, but we saw four of them during the week—one joined the dead elephant feast, and three were seen coming to the north from the Mayambula territory but soon rejoined the River Pride. We found them with the remains of a warthog kill one afternoon, but after that, they left the pride and didn’t return. The five Birmingham Breakaway males made a rare, united appearance, but this only came after the pride had a run-in with the Giraffe Pride around a young hippo that the males had killed. Hearing about the sighting in the west late one evening, we headed out that side the next morning and saw the humorous sight of five mud-covered lions resting off their fat bellies around the last muddy remains of Sunset Dam. They had killed the hippo in the mud, but that didn’t stop them from enjoying their meal. I’m intrigued to see how long it takes them to get all the dried mud off their coats.
On the leopard front, we had another good week with several different leopards being seen: Ntsongwaan male, Xiwumbane male, Nyeleti female, Rihati female, Dzindza female, Nkaya Dam female, Tawane female, Nkhari male (who arrived at the kill Ntsongwaan stole from N’weti), and two other unnamed male leopards were all recorded during the week.
The lowlight of the week was the Xiwumbane male. Despite having scavenged off the dead elephant last week, it did nothing to help his physical condition. He was skin and bones, a sad sight to see. Sadly, age doesn’t always treat these animals kindly. It was difficult to fathom that a month ago he was up in the Umbabat Private Nature Reserve to the north of Timbavati, feeding on a zebra he had caught and hoisted up a tree, and now he was days away from being in big trouble if he couldn’t find a meal. Nyeleti didn’t have such trouble, and she spent a couple of days with an impala kill in the far east, while the same skittish male from last week was also found with an impala kill near Tanda Tula. Dzindza enjoyed a duiker meal one afternoon and showed up again near Safari Camp later in the week, where she posed beautifully on a broken knobthorn tree. That evening, she even walked through camp on her way to the camp dam.
With these apex predators being so active, the smaller predators were a little less visible, and despite the pack of six wild dogs coming onto Nkhari, they spent most of the week to the far west. On the last day of the week, both the wild dog pack and a single male cheetah were reported on Savannah Plains close to our old Plains Camp, but none of our guides headed that side to see them. The single tailless wild dog continued to roam the central parts of the concession, and she was seen passing Tanda Tula a couple of times, but being a lone wolf (so to speak), she was all but impossible to follow. The fact that she manages to successfully hunt on her own, with an injured leg, is nothing short of a miracle!
As mentioned, the large herd of 900 buffalo returned to our area after a few months of absence. They are a sight to behold, but I suspect that the lion pressure will push them back south. The ten dagga boys continue to hang around the vicinity of Tanda Tula.
On the elephant front, the herds continued to visit the camp waterhole daily and were seen around the concession, with some big groups being seen to the west too. Apollo was even seen following a couple of herds, and he spent several days in the area, also popping into Tanda Tula camp dam for a drink and a bath one hot afternoon.
And that’s that—as you can see, it was a jam-packed week! Fingers crossed that the week ahead produces more of this magic! Be sure to check back next week to see what we got to enjoy.
Until next time!
Cheers,
Chad
