Wildlife report SEPTEMBER 2011

Hope you enjoy this report!

GENERAL:
Spring is in the air and anticipation in high for the first rain to start! The Knob thorn trees are usually the first to show that spring is here and this year they are flowering in full force.

As per usual we were entertained with some amazing marvels of nature, from Hippo‘s to the small red-billed oxpeckers feasting from a wound on a Buffalo (they eat the parasites on various herbivores, keeps the wounds clear of too many maggots and they also eat the blood).

LEOPARD:
We think that “Ntombi” may be in oestrus again. Her boy, “Umfana” is now about 18months old and will soon be completely independent. We had few sightings of her, and we think she may be spending time looking for a male in the Klaserie reserve close to the Nkombe pan area.
“Umfana” has been spending most of the month between Elephant dam and the camp! Like his mother he is also now a regular visitor in the camp, often surprising us by lying close to the library and the therapy room. We‘ve seen him on smaller kills a few times, but it seems like he still needs to sharpen some of his skills to get some of the larger prey species like Impala.

“Rockfig Jr.” is very active again within the core of her territory, and the last time she spent so much time along the Machaton River was during her pregnancy with “Tumbela”. Most of the recorded sightings of her were between Entrance dam and our neighbours, Tanda Tula. It has been close to 4 months now since “Tumbela” became independent and hopefully this is a sign that she may be pregnant again.

The beautiful young male, “Xinope-nope” proceeds to explore larger parts around his core area, and this could hopefully mean that is now confident to claim the territory between Marco‘s dam, our airstrip / Reflection dam, Impala dam and Tanda Tula camp. He is a large young male and shows ambition to maintain this frequented area as his territory!

The new female with two 10-12month old cubs I reported about a while ago was very active up North around the Nhlaralumi River‘s Klipgat- and Illegal crossings. One of the sightings that stand out was of her male cub on a termite mound late one afternoon. I sat with my guests at last light taking some nice photographs when suddenly the youngster crouches looking at something to the South. We knew his sister was somewhere just north of us where the Mongooses were calling from, so we thought the mother was close. To our surprise a large unknown male showed up, with a Spotted Hyena in tow, and chased the young boy into a nearby tree! As the persistent Hyena disappeared the big male wandered off vocalizing his dominance with the little girl now out to investigate the big guy wandering off into the darkness! WOW… what a sighting to witness!

LION:
Our resident “Machaton” pride is now down from 12 to 10. Three lionesses and only 7 cubs remain. The second cub was unfortunately killed by an unknown male while they finished feeding off a Buffalo they killed around Hide dam. The pride has done extremely well with hunts during this last month and we recorded two large female Buffalo, one large female giraffe and a few smaller unknown kills where only blood on their fur was evident. The three older cubs regularly follow the adults into serious hunts, but often give away the prides positioning as they get unnerved with large numbers of prey, especially when the follow large herds of Cape Buffalo!






The Timbavati boys were nowhere to be seen! Informants recon they are mating with lionesses from other prides in their territory further South of our traversing.

We saw the “Xakubasa” pride three times! Twice was only of the 2 white sisters and their tawny male cousin. We suspect that the 2 adult lionesses are in oestrus and possibly mating with the “Mahlatini” males further up North.


The youngsters appear to be in very good condition and we saw them finishing up with a Warthog they dug out of its burrow.

ELEPHANT AND CAPE BUFFALO:
Both species entertained in large numbers around the available water during what hopefully was the last spell of the dry months!

Large bull Elephants followed the big herds throughout our traversing.


An unusually large bachelor group of 17 Cape buffalo was active on the Jaydee / Fielmetter and Peru West portions of traversing. We saw a herd of roughly 400 a few times within the same area from the West and the bigger “Super” herd of 1 000 + from the South-eastern parts, was seen on numerous occasions.

WHITE RHINO:
Because of the major problems we currently have in our country regarding poaching of these HARMLESS, GENTLE beasts I will not discuss dynamics of Rhino‘s in our area of operation, but sightings remain amazing and SPECIAL!!

Please look at the following link for a list of trusted organizations that raises funds against Rhino poaching. http://5050.internext.co.za/?p=752

SPECIAL SIGHTINGS:
A pack of 10 Wild dogs moved into the traversing and we saw them quite a few times toward the end of the month. It looks like it could be the pack that moved away not too long ago to den with the pups now old enough to run around and hunt with the pack!




Hope too see you visiting this PRISTINE CORNER OF UNSPOILT AFRICA soon!

Morné’ and the Kings Camp guiding team.

Report written by, Morné’ Hamlyn
Photography, Morné’ Hamlyn