WILDLIFE REPORT

General

Spring is in the air and the trees are starting to burst into bloom! It’s a great time in the season as you can feel and anticipate the rains coming. It has been a very dry winter and we hope that the coming summer will soothe the scorched earth with its water.

Leopard

As per usual we had amazing sightings from all our resident spotted friends.

Mangajan, the dominant male, has made a clear statement that Warthog is ranked highly in his diet. We followed him one morning from one of the small water holes after he had a drink. When he stood up it was evident that he had fed. His tummy was full, almost dragging on the ground! He guided us through the thickets into a lovely open area where we saw the hog up in a tree. It was untouched, which meant that he had had something else to eat. Looking around it became clear that he possibly used the opportunity to kill the hog’s inexperienced youngsters after he killed her. That gave him the chance to hoist the big prize up into a nearby tree for later consumption.

We also had amazing Hyena activity around that kill which led to the discovery of our new Hyena den, which belongs to the Rock fig clan. (More on that later.)

The Leopard cubs are doing just brilliant and we shared many amazing sightings of the M’bali and Rock fig females and their young with our guests!

M’bali Jr. is now about one year old and she is one of the most relaxed Leopard cubs I’ve seen in a long time…

On late morning drives you can easily expect the youngster to end up under a vehicle to get to some shade away from the harsh sun. Her and the mother were seen frequently during the month on various kills, ranging from Steenbuck and Grey Duiker to Impalas and Monitor lizards. This is the oldest any of M’bali’s cubs has ever lived to and we truly hope that M’bali jr. grows to become a good successor for her mum!

The Rock fig female’s cub is now about 8 or 9 months old. It has taken us some time of habituation to settle the little one with vehicle presence but it has finally paid off!!

The youngster wasn’t exposed to vehicles as early and as often as the M’bali cub because of the location of the early dens. This proved a challenge. With a lot of effort and teamwork, we managed to relax the young one and the sightings just keep getting better by the day! They were seen on numerous occasions close to camp on kills and we see the youngster alone in trees quite often waiting for mommy’s return.

Lion

It is amazing how much animal movements change because of offspring growing up…

With the Shobele prides sub-adults approaching two-and-a-half years they need larger prey to sustain all seven of them. All of a sudden they realized how difficult it could be to find prey larger than impalas and they had to adapt by moving great distances at night to find food. We saw them very often and they seem to be in very good condition! Frequent prey at this stage includes Kudu, Waterbuck and Zebra.

We haven’t seen much of the Machaton pride this time around but I understand from gathered information that one of the adult females is very close to giving birth! We are not sure where this might happen but we surely hope it will be within our traversing.

The three Timbavati brothers are continuing their claim of dominance in the South and we reckon it’s just a matter of time before they decide to try and expand further to the North. This will mean however that they need to get past the Shobele male!

The odds are unfortunately against him but the old boy still has a few tricks in his mane…

Watch this space; we’ll inform you of any changes in rank or dominance…

Elephant and Cape Buffalo

There are only limited amounts of water around and this means off course that both species were seen in huge numbers around some of the dams and water holes.

I recall on two occasions counting Buffaloes from the same herd. The first
Time I stopped at 600, the second time the situation was perfect and we worked out a method to count them…

I waited for the head of the herd on a road with lots of open space. It took the whole group 8 minutes to cross. On average there was between 10 and 15 Buffaloes crossing per 5 seconds. That’s about 960 Buffaloes!!

We also had great combinations around the water with different animals congregating for a drink.

White Rhino

These days we don’t complain at all! Sightings of Rhinos are more frequent than ever before and some days we have sightings of six to eight of them together!
The most special sightings are of the females with juveniles. At firs they seem very nervous but they soon settle down and most of them are already getting very used to the vehicles.

We even had Mtenge-tenge sharing a drink with the matriarch of the local Hyena clan!

Special Sightings

As I mentioned before, we found a Hyena den! This den is active with three females and each of them has one youngster. There are also a few other adults associating with the clan from time to time.

The den is a recent discovery and we are still habituating it for good viewing.

Until next time!

Kind regards,
Morné and the Kings Camp ranger team.

Written by: Morné Hamlyn
Photography: Morné Hamlyn.