As promised yesterday, here the photos of the elephant sighting we had a couple of days ago. On one of the photos you can catch the tiny little elephant baby, the newest arrival. Maybe 1-2 months old or so. The herd is very protective of their little ones, and so they shield them as much as only possible. Great news for the reserve, and an adorable sight for our guests! We are looking forward to seeing him (or her?) grow up in the next years. Our elephant herd has grown nicely, from an initial 9 animals to now about 15, if I am not mistaken, so that’s great as a conservation effort and success. The reserve is now so large (36,000 acres), with ongoing discussions to hopefully enlarge it even further in the future, that there is plenty of room for the elephant herd to grow in size. As a matter of fact, it is estimated that we need about 50-60 elephants to keep the vegetation in check, so there is plenty of scope for more. What an exciting future.

We spotted the lions a couple of nights ago, right on our portion of the conservancy, the Moditlo Private Game Reserve (which forms part of the 36,000 acre Blue Canyon Conservancy on which the Vuyani Safari Lodge rangers traverse). They were sleeping right next to the staff village, keeping the staff up for some of the night with their loud roars. Quite some alarm clock indeed! Like the elephants, they have now been on Moditlo for several weeks, they seem to like it in this area at this time of year. We also saw the elephants with their newest baby elephant, I will publish tomorrow on this blog some photos of their most recent sighting yesterday.

A couple of days ago, when Mike and Uyai were on their way to work, in the early morning, stumbled across the lions. Posing as statues!

They had decided to use the new bases for the reserve signage, which had been built a few weeks ago, as a piedestal. I suspect it it because they retain heat very well, and now in the winter season, this comes as a welcome radiator to them. Whichever the reason they did it, it was a hilarious sight. Maybe we shouldn’t finish the signage, and just keep the bases for lions as they are.