The resident Tau Pan pride were located frequently throughout the month and they were often seen drinking at the camp waterhole. The lions regularly lazed at the airstrip providing arriving and departing guests with amazing Kalahari memories. One time we heard a male calling near to camp and followed his roars where we found the whole pride of 8 adults and three sub-adults together. We saw pair of lions mating repeatedly for more than a week, so hopefully there will be even more additions to the family in the near future. They appeared to be hunting successfully and we saw them on kills including red hartebeest. One time we found a male eating something small whilst the rest of the pride looked on very hungrily. Another morning the adults were all sleeping at the pan whilst the sub-adults honed their skills by chasing oryx and springbok around.
A different pride of three females and a sub-adult male was located at San Pan and at Passarge Valley we found yet another group of 10 which included six youngsters of 1-2 years old. This latter pride was found a couple of times, once snoozing under a large umbrella thorn at the public campsite – we hoped that any arriving campers were vigilant!
A beautiful female leopard was back in the area after being absent for a couple of weeks. We were lucky enough to witness her stalking a steenbok lamb which she caught and ate. A couple of days later she was targeting the same species again and missed a couple of opportunities before she finally got her breakfast. One time we caught her running into the bushes carrying a bat-eared fox in her mouth. Another time we spotted a different female leopard walking along and then we saw that she was going to a kill that she had in a nearby tree. We watched as she fed for a while before she jumped down and went into the bushes.
Right at the start of the month we came across a pack of twenty wild dogs resting under a shady buffalo thorn tree at Deception Valley.
A single brown hyena came to drink at the camp waterhole in the early morning before we started our drive. Guests loved the time that we spent with this rare animal.
We saw cheetahs hunting often and as usual they were targeting their favourite species in the area, springbok.
General game species seen included springbok, oryx, red hartebeest and blue wildebeest. All of the antelope species had offspring who were still nursing from their mothers.
We had a very lucky sighting of two aardvark as we were driving along Passarge Valley. These nocturnal animals are very hard to see at the best of times and so it is an extremely rare encounter to find them out during the day. Other smaller mammals seen during the month were bat-eared foxes, black-backed jackals and lots of ground squirrels. Honey badgers were digging holes hunting for rodents and insects. We saw an African wild cat hunting mice in the long grass.
A lovely pride of ostrich including twenty chicks were seen at the Passarge waterhole. Other species which birders enjoyed ticking off included the iconic kori bustard, northern black korhaan, black-chested prinias and fawn-coloured larks. Palearctic migrants such as the pallid harrier were still in the area.
(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!)
