As one of our guides points out when guests mention they are seeing no animals in the Kalahari – “Are you sure?”. Even on the quieter days, there is a lot of life out there, just on a smaller scale. The most populous animals belong to the insect family – and there is a huge variety to behold: harverster termites, ants, butterflies, beetles, armoured crickets, and many many more. Many of the mammals that live in the Kalahari are truly dependent on these smaller beings for their existence. Don’t overlook what doesn’t have four legs and fur!
But if its big things you are looking for, they don’t come much bigger than an elephant. They don’t normally come to the Kalahari as the habitat is too dry for them, but one was seen mid month standing under a group of acacia trees, before moving off.
The beginning of the month and it was a show-down between two groups of predators – the smaller ones this time: a stand off between black backed jackals and bat eared foxes. The jackals start to challenge the foxes, though they appeared nervous about doing so. The foxes launched into the jackals, and it was the jackals that had to turn tail and flee!
On the same day, a male cheetah appeared at the waterhole, looking pretty hungry. He drank for a bit, and then began to stalk some springbok in the distance. He ran at them, in the hope of catching one, but missed it.
An early start – 5am with the sun not yet up – and the lions could be heard roaring around the camp. Skipping breakfast, we headed out into the dawn, to see what we could find – and we found lots and lots of lions – 16 in total! A big male and female were mating, from the Tau Pan pride. Members of the San Pan and Phukwi pride had also turned up, and these were chased away by the Tau Pan pride! By the next day, it wasn’t all happy families even within the Tau Pan pride – one of the males approached the dominant male that was mating, and soon found it advisable to back away slowly, as the bigger male growled and stood his ground. There were also tussles at the water hole, as the two large males attempted to drink from the same spot (near the pipe, where the freshest water comes out) Although there was sufficient water available for all, this was obviously a coveted spot, and resulted in an all-out brawl between the two!
The mating couple continued their honeymoon for the next four days, providing pretty much guaranteed lion sightings for the duration.
Guests were also treated to the first sighting in many months of a brown hyena – passing by the waterhole one morning. He didn’t stop to drink. A few days later we saw him again in the late afternoon, this time stopping for a drink. At the end of the month, the hyena turned up again to drink, only to find a cheetah already at the waterhole drinking. When the cheetah saw the hyena, he ran off, not wanting to an altercation with another predator.
We also had a great sighting of a male leopard, that was resting by Phukwi Pan.
