Yes, one minute you are finding a lion very cute …
… and the next minute you are finding out what’s really up. This is nature, beautiful, raw, real, and cruel at times. Because this was obviously a very bad day for a kudu. Wrong place, wrong time.
But then again … that’s what our guests travel thousands of miles for. Seeing the world’s rarest and most impressive animals upfront. And that they get here! Oh yes, and lots of it! Lions, cheetahs, hippos, elephants, rhinos, giraffes, everything …
Yes, it is a tough world for those lower down the food chain … so it’s best to watch out, and be careful! Very cute actually …
Many of our guests come to Africa to see the “Big 5”. Not sure why, but somehow travel agents have an urge to reduce any travel experience to a silly “tick the box” event. So many are surprised that in many cases it is not the Big 5 that leaves them with the most amazing experiences. There are animals that leave a much more lasting impression on you, be it a huge eagle or an enormous giraffe, or just an uber-cute monkey mother with her little one. There are many hundreds of fascinating, beautiful (and huge) animals to see here outside of the very narrow range of the so-called Big 5.
So what have we been seeing these last days? Well, a lot. The whole range actually. Here some examples.
It is great to be able to go and explore the riverbeds, because that’s where a LOT of the action takes place.
We also tracked and found the Lions on a couple of occasions along with the MRL guides. They were all over the reserve, so it takes proper tracking skills and good communication to locate them. It is amazing how much ground they can cover in one single evening. The young males are sprouting rather impressive looking manes by now. They have to look out for daddy … he doesn’t like it much!
We saw Monkeys and Hippo and an AMAZING sighting of a Verreaux Eagle Owl! He was just chilling in a tree, looking right at our guests, a few yards away. Amazing!
Verreaux Eagle Owl
Here a close-up photo of a Kudu. An animal much larger than the photo suggests, actually. These are big animals, and very good runners. They are targets for the lions, of course, so a big one like this one, that was a very lucky (or clever) one.
And then there is always the unexpectedly cute one! An African squirrel. 🙂
We also have several hundred zebras on our 36,000 acre reserve, roaming around freely in large herds, often joining ranks in a symbiotic fashion with wildebeest. Probably one of the most elegant animals in the bush, in my opinion …
We have tracked and found the elephants quasi every day this month, they have now stayed in the south of the reserve for a while. They were drinking water, frolicking in the riverbed and had a bit of a standoff with Lions! Krest managed to capture this on film (visit our Youtube channel!!). All of this occurred in an area we call “Cotton Fields”. The Lions walked off rather briskly after the incident. Don’t mess with a lion! Our guests were privileged to a scene that one usually only sees one National Geographic.
Wild dogs were tracked and found near the Seven Star Junction – they were playing with each other in the cooler weather and there is some cool video footage as well.
See below all the photo footage we snapped on our day out.
