The first day of the month and an appearance by the two male cheetahs. They attempted to hunt, but didn’t have much success, as one of the males was limping due to a leg injury. Perhaps all is not well between the two brother cheetahs – they were seen fighting later on in the month. We saw another male hunting a female impala, and successfully caught her whilst we were watching. We also has several sightings of the female cheetah this month.
A busy time for the impalas, as they all begin to give birth at roughly the same time. It’s wonderful watching the little lambs on their spindly little legs, learning to use them and play. Unfortunately, it’s also wonderful for the predators to watch them, as they know they have a much better chance of catching one of these inexperienced young kids, rather than a fully grown adult. And its important to remember that predators do not just come in the shape of cats and dogs: a group of 60 baboons were relaxing by the airstrip – one of them busy feeding on a baby impala he had caught.
Early on in the month we saw three sub-adult lions who are new to the area. One of the young lions is very shy with the vehicles, but two are relaxed. The two Marsh boys were also seen, and Setwala, the limping male, was found around Splash. In fact, lions were seen almost every day – generally three or four males, and sometimes the mother with two cubs.
The wild dogs – 28 adults and pups – sped through the Splash area, chasing an impala that was about to launch itself into the lagoon as a means of escape. They managed to catch her just before she got to the water’s edge. They also spent time around the airstrip, and came across a leopard that was hunting. Naturally, faced with 28 competitors, the male leopard did the sensible thing and jumped into a tree until the coast was clear again. On the 8th, and hour spent tracking the dogs proved fruitful, when we came across the pack hunting. In the one hunt, they managed to catch three adult impalas and one baby! Several days this month they were followed on hunts where they pulled down multiple prey, from impalas to lechwe, in a single go.
We also saw the pack of six wild dogs several times towards the end of the month. These dogs have likely made forays into the Kwara area from the nearby Khwai concession.
It’s very easy to tell when a predator is not used to vehicles – often, they slink down, and are shy. But the opposite is also true – curiosity can be overwhelming, as we discovered in a trip to the Tsum Tsum area. A young leopard was spotted, and the reaction to the car’s slow approach was quite different: not only staring almost goggle-eyed at this new thing that was arriving, but each time the car moved slightly, the leopard got closer, to try and investigate what these strange round black things were that kept rolling along….
A highly unusual discovery this month – aardwolf are not seen very often, but locating an aardwolf den is even rarer! One adult aardwolf was found at the den looking after four puppies! Another mum – an african wild cat – was also spotted teaching her kitten how to hunt for small rodents.
