Lions
So much is happening on the lion front. This month has served up a big bag of mixed sightings and happenings. Duncan has covered the circumstances dealing with the Sand River Pride; I won’t dwell on this topic again though and will rather concentrate on what has transpired regarding the rest of the lion population in our game reserve.

The probability of massive population shifts has now become eminent, this due to the arrival of a coalition of 6 male lions. These males have arrived from the eastern reaches of the Sabi Sands from a property and pride called the Eyerfield Pride. They pose a great threat to the many sub-adult lions we have roaming with our resident prides. It really is exciting times here, and the rangers hold their breaths waiting to see what happens; we also hope that this coalition stays in our area as it is a phenomenal sight, being able to show our guests such a large coalition of male lions. The future possibilities excite us all here greatly.

These males have already been seen interacting with the Othawa pride, chasing them around the reserve one morning. The males also had an interaction with the Nhlanguleni male, he may well nave been given a real hard time before finding a gap to run away. He is seen rather infrequently and when he was seen reports suggest that he is scratched, scared and injured. If the 6 males remain, he most certainly will not. Either he will be killed, or choose to leave this territory and try establish himself elsewhere.

The Othawa pride was last seen on the morning that the new males were seen to chase them around. The intent at this stage seemed, to all that viewed it, that the males were planning to kill the youngsters, so that the females would have to accept the new males as the new dominant, territorial males in the area and choose them to sire new litters of cubs.

Well, only time will tell and it will certainly make for interesting viewing over the months to come,

The Ximungwe pride is still the dominant pride in our area. Here though some sad news is that the female that was transferred to Skukuza was eventually put down. She was too sick and injured to warrant attempts at trying to doctor her back to good health. She was found to be riddled with both Feline AIDS (FIV) and Bovine Tuberculosis and with her quality of life in mind, the state veterinarians, decided to put her out of her misery. There is another female in the pride (the oldest female) that appears to be heading the exact same direction. This is unfortunate, but all natural and part of the cycle of life in pristine wilderness areas like ours. All twelve youngsters are well and growing day by day. Soon these lions are going to be 2 years old and considered young adults.

On an even more positive note, the mystery cubs you have been reading about over the last couple of months have eventually been fully revealed to us here. The youngest female in the pride has given birth to 4 cubs, these are now about 3 months old and we are seeing them regularly now as the female takes them from kill to kill. Only time will tell how many of these youngsters will eventually survive this trying time till they get to about a year old.

The Ximungwe pride thus currently consists of 1 male, 5 females, 12 sub adults and 4 cubs. 22 lions in total, a very large and strong pride indeed.

The Ravenscourt pride were seen only on a couple of occasions, when they were seen there was still views of all the individuals, that being, 1 male, 3 females and 7 sub adults.

As for the Othawa pride, when they ran away, they still numbered 2 females and 6 sub adults; with the occasional presence of the Nhlanguleni male lion.

Watch this space for interesting developments over the next couple of months.

Leopards
She really is a little beauty. The Makubela female is fast becoming the most viewed, most visible and favourite leopard to see here in our reserve. She is a wonderful hunter, supremely relaxed around the vehicles, and a beautiful leopard. This month most of our sightings have been of this female, she fortunately spends a lot of her time close to our lodge.

Makwela has also, as always, provided us with great sightings this month. She spends periods in areas where we can’t find her, and all we can deduce form this is that she is still trying to conceive, it seems that she has left her usual territory, to try search for suitable males to mate with. If she conceives a litter, she will again return to her usual schedule and territory and once again regain her status as every ones favourite leopard female.

Shangwa and her 2 cubs, now about 7 months old, nave spent a lot of time in our reserve this month. We have been very privileged to watch these 3 leopards together, more often than not feeding on an impala carcass. It would appear that Shangwa may be returning to her old territory, using this area more and more to continue raising her cubs.

The Mambirri and Hippo Dam females were also seen this month, but due to access difficulties we have had no views of the Thai Dam female. Once the river drops though I am sure we will get to see her again.

Leopard males encountered this month were only the Othawa and Wallingford males. The Kinkytail and Chaba males were not seen at all. Surprisingly the Othawa male was the most frequently viewed of the leopard males this month.

He did have a very close call though which could have cost him his life early on in the month. He was patrolling his territory when 2 of the Ximungwe lionesses came upon him. They charged and luckily for him he managed to scramble up a marula tree. With the leopard up the tree the lionesses lost interest and lay down on a termite mound about 100m away. After about 20 minutes the lions got up and climbed the tree to get at the leopard. Eventually a stale mate was reached when the leopard had climbed to the uppermost reaches 0f the branches and the lions as high as they possibly could have. At this point the cats were barely a foot apart but the lions were too afraid to progress any higher. Ten minutes worth of hissing and snarling went by till the lions lost interest, descended the tree and left the area.

Specials
Ryan was fortunate to have seen a serval this month. They have been seen on a good couple of occasions this month, the environmental and habitat factors at present, make the area suitable for servals, who enjoy marshy, wetland areas.

Sightings totals for the Month:
Lion 57
Leopard 42
Elephant 47
Buffalo 19
Rhino 46
Cheetah 3
Serval 1
Note: The above sightings totals reflect the number of individual sightings of animals, not populations of animals in the area. E.g. If we see a herd of 12 buffalo this is noted as one sighting. These sightings are then tallied to get the figure reflected above.

Hope to see you all here really soon.

Warmest (slightly wet) bush greetings.
Rudi, Ryan and Marius

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