A few days ago I promised photos of a spectacular leopard sighting that occurred about a week ago. Mike and the guests spent about a quarter of an hour with that leopard, and it was a highlight of their entire safari trip! After seeing the photos I understood why. Taking photos at night is extremely hard, but this guest had a very good camera, and I think they came out very well.

Judge for yourselves, and enjoy! No words need to be added, to be honest.

 

Yesterday was yet again a big day out on safari on our reserve! Two of the Big5 (though I personally really don’t like the hunter concept of the”Big5″) were spotted, namely the buffalos and also our herd of elephants. Our ranger took some beautiful shots of them, but then also a large crocodile was spotted, as well as the super rare Southern Ground hornbill. To see all of these animals on one single safari game drive is quite something!

The crocodile has chosen this “island” located right in the middle of one of our reserve lakes as his favourite spot, and he can be seen very frequently basking in the sun for hours on end. To take a photo of a massive croc, with the dramatic Drakensberg mountain range in the background, must be one of the most classic South Africa nature photos one can take on our reserve (hint alert!).

I also got through some spectacular photos of a leopard sighting 3 days ago, and I promise I will publish them on this blog either later today, or tomorrow. That was one hell of an evening game drive sighting, and our guests as well as ranger were excited to observe this large cat on a night hunt. Truly breathtaking stuff indeed!

I have had to become quite selective in terms of what safari sightings I report on on this blog, as the photos come in thick and fast, and it has become quite difficult to pick the best, it is just so many of them.

I’ll keep you all up to date, that’s for sure!

 

The rangers email in photos on a daily basis of all their best sightings, and what I notice is that the quality, scope and density of quality sightings is improving so fast that I have trouble believing it. We now see the lions almost every two days. Elephant sightings were always quite regular, but over recent weeks they have become downright frequent. The much increased intelligence we have about wildlife movement, as well as Uyai’s tracking skills are proving enormously helpful. Uyai knows  all there is to know about this reserve!

See below shots of the stunning sightings that I was emailed in 2 days ago.

What a beautiful shot of a mother elephant with her incredibly cute baby elephant, that is just a few weeks old. This is our very own royal baby, just with much less international media fuss, but it still matters more to me personally! The birth of a new elephant is always happy news, and it is wonderful to see how well the mothers care for them. What fun safaris …

Check out these choppers!

… and these !!!!

I just looked through all photos sent in by Mike last week, and while it is always difficult to choose, some always stand out.

I’d say that these sightings last week were the most impressive, not only for the sighting itself, but also the photo shot managed by Mike.

First up a white rhino, a massive bull! They never fail to impress, they always leave everyone in awe. Rhinos are being poached close to extinction these days, so it is great to see them doing so well on our reserve. We will look after them, and protect them, as well as we can!

 

Next up a Kudu, Africa’s largest antelope. They are very common, but due to their size they count amongst my favourites. The lions also like them as a large and tasty meals, but they have to catch them first! Not always easy indeed, as they are good and fast  endurance runners, and they have an incredibly good hearing sense. Look at these huge ears!

 

Undeniably one of last week’s most stunning sightings: a couple of cheetahs out on a hunt. Always amazing these very rare sightings, but they are becoming more and more common on our reserve. As a matter of fact every reserve has a “specialty”, a kind of animal that one sees unusually often there. In the Sabi Sands it is the leopard, for example, in the Kruger Park is is the elephants, and with us it seems to be more and more the cheetahs. Indeed on most reserves they are very, very rarely seen, as they get pushed out by other large cats. Another animal we see unusually often is the wild dogs. We see them on average once a month, on and off, but on most reserves one never sees them at all. (of course the wild dog is rarest carnivore in Africa, so it is truly amazing to see them as often as we do). Of course we see our lions very often as well, here, on average 2-3 times per week, so if you stay here for 5 nights, or longer, then you will have seen them up close at least once, most likely twice.

 

Last up a giraffe! I have written extensively about giraffes in recent times, and there’s a reason for that: they always keep on impressing me by their sheer size, elegance and distinctive shape. Giraffes are as African animals as they get!

Mike ran into the elephant herd on our reserve twice in two days, once two days ago on the afternoon game drive, and then again yesterday morning.

On one of the sightings an elephant entertained our guests with a messy mud bath (the guests were not covered in any!!), while on the second sighting the dominant bull had one of his funny moods again. He’s been like that for years, and if he is in a grumpy mood then one better stays away from him, but at the same time one should make it clear to him that we will not just drive away and that one stands one’s ground, that’s very important otherwise he will acquire this as a repeat behavior. So after his display of superiority he usually calms down, but the whole spectacle is quite something. He is much calmer than a few years back as he has gotten used to vehicles, but this is indeed a bull that is not naturally friendly. But he’s a beautiful elephant and it is always fascinating to see them walk past us, feeding off trees, bathing in mud, basically doing what elephants do.

We are seeing the elephants more regularly as of late because of much improved communication, so that’s excellent news!

See the photos of both sightings below.

 

A couple of days ago Christopher Mashile (our waiter) and Gerrard van der Merwe (our chef) were on their way back from the lodge to the staff village on the reserve, when the unexpected happened. They suddenly spotted a young male leopard, staring at them at the side of the reserve track! This had been Christopher’s first leopard sighting ever in his life and Gerrard’s second. While both work in the bush, but only rarely go out on a game drive, they actually don’t see as much animals as they would like to. Christopher was incredibly excited, and Gerrard took it properly in and both enjoyed this sighting immensely, especially as the young leopard was totally relaxed and stayed in place for about 15 minutes, showing the full grace and beauty of this very enigmatic large cat.

Bad luck would have it, they didn’t have a proper camera with them, and they also didn’t have a proper phone with them, so Gerrard attempted the best he can with his Galaxy, and boy, when I saw the shots, I really wish he had a Nokia Lumia or maybe the new 1020 Lumia to be introduced soon! 😉 food for thought! (I am not getting paid for advert placements, I am just a pleased owner of a Lumia 920, and it takes AMAZING shots)

That said, the shots give you a good impression of this exciting (and private) sighting that Christopher and Gerrard enjoyed right on our reserve. Gerrard always says that one of the great things of working in the bush is that one always sees new things, or unexpected things all the time. Well, this one was a special moment!

 

I promised a little while ago that I would post the link to the video that shows the footage of a cheetah eating a recent kill.

This footage was filmed about 6 weeks ago, by Gilles, our creative arts specialist, while out on safari with guests of ours. He has collated all the footage into quite a stomach-upsetting clip! Viewer discretion is advised! 😉

OK, enough talk, here’s the link. Enjoy!

 

 

Pierre took some very cool photos of two fighting giraffes a few days ago. This is a typical fight called “necking” where two male giraffes hit each other on their necks using their horns. This is also the reason why the horns of make giraffes never have hair: the constant fighting has destroyed the hair tops on their horns, so they are bald.

Are these fights dangerous? Well, usually not. After a relatively short while, one giraffe submits and walks away. There are rare cases though where more serious injuries are caused, and death very sometimes occur as a result of these. But that is very rare. But the fights can look very vicious, that’s for sure! It is quite the spectacle.

These fights are (what else?) about females, and who gets to mate with them. Male giraffes are not the “family”-type though, and do not participate in raising offspring. Giraffe journeys (as groups of giraffes are called) are more random groups that form, and then  dissolve again, so the social structure is very fluid.

Here the photos:

 

Art and his wife stayed with us for 8 nights, and they saw more than one spectacular thing!

He sent through these pics he took during one of the safaris on our game reserve: a lioness munching away at a (very!) recent kill: a zebra.

It had been a terrible day for this zebra, obviously, but the lions were enjoying it. This is a very tasty and rare meal indeed! Art managed to take this great up close shot of what was going on, as well as the other lionesses nearby. It’s amazing how fast nature’s instincts take over, all these lions were very young and quite inexperienced a few years back, and they now hunt anything, even giraffes, which is quite a rare thing to do for a smaller pride of lions.

I am not sure why, I cannot help posting all these grizzly photos, but while nature seems brutal (well, it is!), I must say that it is a deeply humbling experience to see wild nature taking its natural course of things. It makes us realize that the human kind really lives far outside of the usual reality, and witnessing this really runs home that point. We are a lucky bunch on this planet!

 

A few days ago Art emailed in a truly spectacular and stunning shot of our lion pride! They got within 30 feet of them, and they were very relaxed (the lions, not the feet 😉 ). They were probably digesting a recent kill. Our lions quite like resting in, or near, riverbeds, especially in the colder season, as the heat of the day is stored in the sand and they can enjoy the warm comfort going into the cool night.

We still suspect that one of the females may have given birth to a cub or two, but so far, they are elusive. In the first 2-3 months female lions keep their cubs hidden and they are fiercely protective over them. Ultimately, if she has had cubs, we will start seeing them too!

The last two cubs were females, and they are almost fully grown now and they will have to be moved to another pride as they must not breed with their own dad (this is not uncommon with lions though, and this can happen up to 6-7 generations down until it becomes an inter-breeding issue).

Many thanks to Art for sharing this beautiful shot with us and our fans, this was one hell of a sighting! In the words of Art: “If I don’t see another animal for the rest of the trip, this would make it…..”. But Art saw many, many, many more animals than our lions! (he saw them a day later munching away at a fresh zebra kill … unbelievable!)