Wild dogs were seen most days during July including a thrilling chase of a kudu right through the middle of camp which nearly ended up with kudu falling into the swimming pool! The adults moved the puppies to a new den site about seven kilometres from their original den where we were able to watch the pack’s wonderful interactions including greeting rituals and the adults coming back to regurgitate food for their young. Sadly, the pack of wild dogs continued to lose puppies; from the original litter of thirteen there were only five remaining by the end of the month. The guides have noticed that this pack choose rather shallow holes for their dens rather than using deeper aardvark holes which would give the puppies greater protection from predators. The adults were seen hunting frequently including warthog, kudu, wildebeest and impala.
Ten members of the Bonga pride were mostly located at the midway point between Lagoon and Lebala camps. They have been pushed into this area by the coalition of four new males who have taken over the territory at the northern part of the Kwando Reserve. Three of the males appear to be more dominant and seem to be fighting with the fourth male who picked up a fresh scar to his face as a result. There was a pair of lionesses with a cub who seemed nervous of the males and were keeping well into the marshlands where the cub could be hidden in the reeds and sedges. We saw them raiding a kill from a big male leopard, other times they seemed to be preying on warthogs. A lone lioness was seen following the buffalo herds around and once we found her feeding on a successful kill. We came across a male and female lion mating.
The resident female leopard was seen feeding on an impala up a tree in the Kwena Lagoon area. It appears that her two sub-adult cubs have now separated from her completely. The young female was seen mobile but appeared to be sniffing and tracking. She succeeded in flushing out and mobbing a hyena who was dragging a tsessebe carcass. The young male was found resting on the river bank as we were doing a boat cruise.
The hyena den was active with up to nine cubs being seen at once, accompanied by various numbers of adults. The mothers were usually seen suckling their young in the evenings. Some of the cubs were starting to nibble on leftover meat brought back to the den by the females and were becoming quite playful.
Several species of mongoose were seen (banded, yellow, dwarf and slender). Honey badgers were located digging for mice. Night drives yielded sightings of aardwolf and African wild cat. Jackals, bat-eared foxes, African civets, caracal, genets, bush babies and were other smaller mammals spotted.
The coalition of two cheetah brothers were located hunting through the woodland and were seen chasing giraffe, a surprisingly large prey species for them to try and tackle. They were unsuccessful on that occasion but at other times we saw them looking relaxed and full-bellied.
Big herds of elephants were coming through camp to drink at the lagoon in front of the rooms, some making a foray into Namibia and back again. Bachelor herds of buffalo were all over the mixed woodland and riverine areas with breeding herds showing up on the floodplains. Eland, roan and sable antelope were seen along with giraffe, waterbuck, zebra, wildebeest, impala, reedbuck, tsessebe, red lechwe and kudu.
Along the river bank we saw hippos basking in the sun and huge crocodiles out of the water. Sitatunga were spotted during the boat cruise as well as monitor lizards, red lechwe, waterbuck and reedbuck.
Birdlife was great with raptors, kingfishers, bee-eaters and lots of water birds such as storks and ducks. Vultures, tawny eagles and bateleur eagles were seen near to wild dog kills.
(Note: Accompanying picture is from our Kwando Photo Library which consists of all your great photo submissions over the years, it may not be the most up to date, but we felt it was worthy of a feature alongside this month’s Sightings Report!)
