Driving from the airstrip one morning we found a dead impala tucked under a bush, next to the road. Whose was it? Returning a few hours later, we found a female leopard feeding on it. She didn’t get to feed on it for much longer however, as hyenas arrived and chased her off the meal.
On the first day of the month we were also lucky enough to see the first sighting of the tiny wild dog puppies at their den site. The 14 adults were playing around the den when five little puppies came out of the den and joined in! By the end of the week, more puppies had emerged from the den – making a total of 10 in the litter. Whilst they are so small, one or two of the adults remain with the pups at all times, whilst the rest of the dogs go out and hunt. After a successful hunt, they return to the den, and regurgitate food for both the puppies and any adults that have remained behind.
Arriving at Half Way Pan on the morning of the same day, we spotted a large male lion looking fairly majestic, sitting under a tree. On approaching, we realized that the male had been assigned a task perhaps not normally associated with the “King of the Jungle” – babysitting. He had been left alone to supervise eight cubs! The mothers were either ‘out’ hunting, or perhaps taking a chance of a bit of peace and quiet… A few days later and the same pride were seen again in the same area. The lionesses had blood on their faces when they appeared, and soon led their cubs away to a warthog they had killed earlier.
Another day, and another wild dog hunt. This time, guests didn’t even have to leave the comfort of their fireside chairs to witness it. Early one morning, 13 wild dogs came chasing a kudu at full sprint through the camp, only stopping when they got to the fireplace and saw a rather startled group of people sitting around having coffee and porridge for breakfast. A quick detour by the dogs, and another hunt began finally catching a male kudu close to the airstrip (and followed by a rather rushed group of guests having given up on breakfast and dashed out to the cars.)
You don’t always find exactly what you are looking for when tracking animals in the bush – a fair amount of time was spent tracking a leopard, only to come across two male cheetahs off in the distance. We were able to sit and watch the hungry-looking animals for some time, whilst they stalked their prey, eventually chasing and catching a female kudu. We left the leopard hunt for another day!
Later in the month, we were again following the dogs hunting – they had had several warthogs over the last few days, and even attempted to chase sable herds to harass the youngsters. They were moving from one termite mound to the next as we followed them, apparently searching for more warthogs, when all of a sudden they gave chase and disappeared through the bush. We could hear them barking – not something wild dogs actually do very often. On re-locating them, we found them all around the base of a tree looking up – at a very unhappy male leopard that had obviously just scrambled up there in the nick of time!
Tables were turned slightly, when the pack of dogs were found feeding on a kudu. Whilst we were watching a big male lion appeared, chased the dogs off, and began feeding. The dogs hung around for some time, trying to see if they could risk an attempt at getting the kill back, before giving up and moving off after an hour. They returned to the den site and regurgitated what they had managed to eat for the puppies.
