Wild dogs were still denning near to Lagoon camp in June giving incredible sightings of the mother nursing and the whole pack interacting, including their “greeting rituals”. The pack comprised six adults and they hunted every day to give the alpha female and her puppies sufficient food. Towards the end of the month the eleven puppies were getting quite bold and were curiously approaching our vehicles. The female who lost her puppies to the alpha female the previous month appeared to have recovered well from their fight. The dogs had good success hunting in the riverine area where they were seen feeding on a female kudu and sub-adult waterbuck.
Spotted hyenas also had a den in the area with seven cubs of varying ages. Most appeared to be doing well, though towards the end of the month we noticed that one youngster was getting weaker and was being bullied by the other cubs; this is quite normal dominance behaviour within the clan. There were usually a few adults left behind to guard the den site and guests enjoyed watching the mothers tenderly nursing their young. The cubs were being very playful and one day we watched them having a tug of war over a warthog skull which the adults had brought back to the den.
Two sub-adult leopard cubs aged 10-11 months are now more independent and were seen increasingly on their own, as well as with their mother. The cubs were now at a stage where they were practicing their hunting skills on mice and birds meanwhile their mother was keeping their bellies full with impala, warthog and baboon carcasses. The young male appeared to be splitting away from his sister and mother completely and one day paid us a visit at camp, passing between Room 1 and the main area. The female leopard came into oestrus and then was seen together with a very nervous adult male.
A group of five lions were seen in Lagoon during the month consisting of three males and two females. One of the males is markedly more skittish than the others and tends to keep himself a bit more separate, especially when vehicles are around. The other two brothers were patrolling huge distances to mark their territories, sometimes splitting apart to cover different areas. One of the females came into oestrus during the month and was duly mated. As a pride, they seemed to be specialising in wildebeest as a favourite prey species, but the lionesses were also seen visiting warthog burrows in the late afternoons as the temperature cooled down.
The coalition of two cheetah brothers were seen occasionally. On one occasion they were hunting a huge male warthog, but he stood his ground and eventually chased the cats away. They were also seen hunting red lechwe.
Aardwolves were located more than once during night drives. We saw a caracal successfully hunting mice through the grasses and it eventually moved into a more open area giving everyone a good view. Other smaller mammals located included African wild cat, honey badger, African civet, genets, bat-eared fox and side-striped jackal.
General game was very good throughout the month including large herds of elephant, giraffe, zebra, wildebeest, impala, kudu, red lechwe, tsessebe, eland and waterbuck. Endangered roan and sable antelopes were also enjoyed by our guests. Large buffalo herds have come back out of the mopane woodlands and were often found drinking by the river.
Notable bird sightings included saddle-billed storks, ground hornbills, secretary birds, pearl-spotted owlet, Verreaux’s eagle owl and black herons. Short-tailed and tawny eagles could be viewed following the hunting wild dogs, hoping to be able to scavenge the carcass. A large group of vultures were seen at their bathing spot.
(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!)
