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Some good news & some bad news….
Winter is upon us very quickly this year; just all of the sudden the morning & evening game drives are chillier & you need warmer jackets. Some days everyone walks around with jackets on– that is the bad news
The good news is we have another female cheetah with cubs, this time there are 5 and they are about a month old, we have seen a female leopard with cubs, and to add to all the babies on the reserve we have some hyena cubs as well.
Our leopard sightings have been brilliant; some of the younger leopards are getting more use to the vehicles. While poor Marco got charged, by the female leopard with the cubs, while he was tracking her. That was how ever before we knew she had cubs.
At Monwana, we found a Lesser Savanna Dormouse, which is, according to the books, very rare to see. We found this poor guy in the swimming pool one morning, after being towel dried & given a hot water bottle to warm up with, it got livelier. That very same evening the little guy went off on its own, back into the big wide world.
At Monwana in the beginning of May we had the whole pride (5 lions) roaring all around camp, the next morning as game drive came back to camp, they found the tracks at our gate, where they sniffed around and left.
The impala males are starting their rutting season, the ladies get chased around, while the younger males fight for dominance before mating. So there is a lot of activity around. The waterholes at the camps are getting busier & busier as the days pass.
Serondella had a herd of Zebra, a troop of Vervet Monkeys, a troop of Chacma Baboons, a herd of Impala, some Bushbuck & Nyala all at the same time around the waterhole in front of the lodge.
One day while tracking on foot, Hein & Shadrack found a Grinding Stone in the reserve. It just shows us, there were people staying here long before we decided to life here.
On the evening of the 7th of May, we had a big thunderstorm; we received 32 mm of rain, which is great for this time of year. We will need it to “survive” the winter.
On the 13th of May we received some bad news about the cheetah cubs, one of the cubs were found dead by one of the rangers. Very tragic, we hope the other 4 is still alive.
To make the good news better again one of the lionesses from the Southern pride also has cubs, which is brilliant news.
On the 24th of May, Serondella had problems with the borehole pump, so Hein asked if Eloise could do the drive on his behalf, due to the fact that Eloise is also a qualified guide, so he can help the electricians. On the drive they saw lots of general game, tracked a male leopard for 1 1/2 Hours of course they couldn’t find him. On their way to view another leopard, they came across 2 dagga boys (male buffalo’s) drinking water & had a very nice sighting of the female leopard, as the sun was setting over the Drakensberg Mountain Range.
We would like to Congratulate Conor, Marco, Julia & Carl on their Birthdays, which fell in April & May. Hope all of you have a wonderful year ahead with lots of love & happiness. |
