Although last month the rains started, and we had a few days with rain during the month of December, overall, the rainfall has not been anything like last year. Sections of the Kalahari are still very dry, forcing some of the animals to move through to the greener regions – the area around Pipers Pan for example is normally a good area to see cheetahs at this time of year, hunting the antelope that congregate there. But this year, the grass has not had a chance to grow plentiful as yet, and so the antelope are not there in large numbers.
Two of the big male lions managed to kill a fully grown female giraffe along Carlos Road. Some distance away, two males from the Passage pride seemed to be waiting to see if there was a chance to get any thing from this meal, without clashing with the Tau males… As it happened, the two Tau males stayed with the carcass feeding on it for six days… by which point it was rather smelly, and had a rather large number of maggots… The Tau Pan females with five cubs were seen in the southern area of Tau Pan, and the cubs were spending quite a bit of time playing around whilst their parents tried to heard them into the safety of the bushes for hiding.
The female cheetah with the two sub-adult cubs spent time in the Tau Pan area. These three are very relaxed, whereas the male that was seen in the same area a day or two later was very skittish, though he is seen quite often. Deception Valley also had cheetah sightings, with three sub-adult males proudly making their own way in the area, free from the watching eye of their mother.
Only one leopard sighting this month – a healthy looking male resting in the morning sunlight.
A few unusual sightings including caracal! Seen twice in one day, the animal was none-the less, very shy, and quickly moved off before we could take photos. Another unusual visitor – a male elephant! One was actually tracked via its GPS collar by researchers from the Delta, all the way down to south of the Tau Pan area, and then heading east. With little water in the region to drink, it’s a hard trip for an elephant, but the promise of rain collecting in small pans allows them occasionally to make forays into areas that they would not normally be seen.
For the birders, a few welcome guests and a very unwelcome one: black winged pratincole was a rare sight in the Kalahari, as well as a flamingo, in transit to the salt pans near Nata. And the unwelcome visitor? A very undesirable invader – an Indian mynah. These birds were originally transported as pets to South Africa in the early 1900s, and quickly adapted to their new habitat and became a pest. They take over niches filled by native birds, and are also known to be key dispersers of the invasive plant Lantana. So, although very unusual, it’s not good news to see one in the Kalahari!
