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The male Leopard, Bamba Nyati, is moving every week between two female leopards. Every sighting we see of him, he is with the other female. The sightings of him and the girls have been great, especially since they are all so relaxed around the game drive vehicles.
Serondella has seen its fair share of Leopards in one week, with the female Leopard visiting the waterhole every second day. One afternoon she came to drink at the one pan, after quenching her thirst she had an afternoon Siesta at the pan. While watching her, we heard grunting noises from the 2nd Serondella pan. When we got to the other pan, she saw a herd of probably 300 buffalo drinking water. Slowly but surely, they started moving off to the other side of the camp (the side where the leopard is still resting). As we started seeing the first of the buffalo coming through the shrubs, the Leopard casually walked off in the opposite direction. The buffalo caught her scent and started running after her, but she was already long gone. The buffalo ended up staying for 4 hours even while we were having a boma dinner, not even 15 m away.
One of the female Black Rhino was attacked – unsuccessfully - by the Lions. She has a lot of scarring, but no serious injuries.
We had very hot days and finally received the relief in form of heavy rains. Within 3 to 4 days everything turned green. Green grass shoots, green leaf buds and of course all the insects and termites that comes with the first rain.
We have gone out a couple of nights looking for frogs (a favorite activity of the rangers). Thornybush Game Reserve is host to 32 different species of frogs; to date we have spotted 21 species.
Early one morning we were woken up, to the sounds of growling and Hyena laughter. On further inspection by our tracker, we saw a male Lion being attacked by a pack of Hyena. They changed position every couple of minutes. Lion attack Hyena, Hyena attacking Lion. The Lion roared and received a response from the Lionesses that was not too far away. The Hyena knew that if they didn’t get out of there – there would be major problems for them….
On an early mid December afternoon our tracker at Monwana was washing the game drive vehicle, when he heard something running not to far from him. He turned and saw a male Cheetah carrying a baby Impala. We quickly collected the guests that were currently in camp. Everyone packed into the vehicle and less than 50 m from camp; we had a male Cheetah feeding on the baby Impala.
A couple of days later we had a male and female Leopard drinking at the waterhole. Unfortunately when we got the guests in the vehicle we couldn’t find the 2 “lovebirds”.
Merry Christmas to everyone and a Happy New Year!!! May the year to come be another great one!!!
We would just like to congratulate two of our couples: David & Kelly (Monwana management) on their wedding in November, and Marco & Vivian (Serondella management) who married in camp, beginning of December. (Wedding photos will be loaded shortly on our gallery). May both couples have many HAPPY years ahead of them, filled with nothing but love and happiness.
The old female Leopard, Ixongile, was killed on the 2nd of Jan 2010, by another female Leopard (Twin Spot), which was her granddaughter. Very sad news for the reserve, Ixongile was around 18 or 19 years old. Many of the long time Thornybush Rangers shed a tear for the old girl, she will be sorely missed.
We are currently updating our website; if you have any photos for our gallery or comments for our guest book, which you would like us to upload, please feel free to send through to Julia – Monwana@iafrica.com |
