It has been a busy month for the animals as summer starts to take hold and the rains finally start in earnest, there has been a baby boom in the past few weeks and we have been seeing new baby elephant, giraffe, warthogs and of course it it’s the impala lambing season now too!
The first impala lamb reported in our area was seen up in the north of the reserve, sadly the next morning the Ximhungwe pride were seen snacking on it!
The fact that the impala have their lambs in a very short space of time means that despite the predators getting hold of some of the youngsters, many more are able to survive as the sheer number of lambs means only a small percentage are lost.
Other young animals we see are the young cubs of the Ximhungwe lion pride: The pride has been having a bit of a rough time over the past few weeks with the youngest litter of cubs seemingly being lost to the Dewane male leopard and one of the slightly older cubs being badly injured by a hyena. The injured cub eventually seems to have succumbed to his injuries despite his mother’s long treks between the pride and him to try to help. The oldest female of the pride also died recently and for a while their was a great deal of concern over her cubs – the oldest in the pride but we are happy to report that they are now with the female who lost her cubs and seem to be fine. The main core of the pride has been moving up and down our entire traversing area and has been very successful with kills; despite the setbacks the pride looks well and healthy. One of the meals they had was actually inside the lodge grounds, right up against the manager’s house – a fantastic start to that particular morning drive! The three Mapogo males were also present with the pride for a lot of the time and the interactions between the cubs and their fathers was always a delight to see.
The Mapogo males did also leave the pride from time to time and had a good time hunting Buffalo – one adult bull in the north and later on another bull and an adult cow – that time with the help of the one Ximhungwe lioness who had lost her cubs. They were also seen mating with the same lioness on a few occasions.
The Othawa pride is not seen so regularly these days so it was a treat to see first the three lionesses close to the river and later in the month the two young males in the south following the buffalo herd. The three lionesses are old enough to reproduce now and have reportedly been seen mating with young males from the East (Nkuhuma males) as well as the Mapogo males. The young males are looking magnificent, their manes are nearly complete and they are big strong lions, despite their determination in following the buffalo they did not manage to catch one whilst they were in our area.
We have also been treated to many magnificent leopard sightings:
The Shangwa female and her approximately one-year-old son have been seen around the eastern stretch of the river a lot more frequently recently and we have been treated to some fantastic interactions between the two and also between the youngster and other animals as he learns to hunt, one morning we watched him stalking buffalo – the buffalo were aware of his presence and just chased him away each time he got too close.
The Xikavi female was also seen a few times very close to the areas that Shangwa has been in and the similar size and looks of the two (Xikavi is Shangwa’s daughter) has had many people momentarily confused1 One sighting actually saw Shangwa and her cub together with Xikavi – there was some argument over the possession of an impala kill!Hlab’nkunzi is still coming through the lodge on a regular basis and she was seen with an impala kill up a tree just outside the lodge, there were also hyena and a herd of elephant on the scene.
The Tlangisa female is still moving all over the place trying to avoid conflict wit the other female leopards, she also came quite close to the lodge where she was seen with a duiker kill. At over 2 ½ years old she will soon have to find herself a permanent home, she is already starting to show interest in the males and will need a defendable core territory by the time she has cubs.
The Metsi female has been trying very hard to attract the attention of the Dewane male recently and it seems to have worked as they were spotted mating recently, she was also seen on her own a couple of times but not very regularly.
The Tassleberry female has only been spotted a couple of times since she was seen mating with the Kashane male, the skittish female known as the Mobeni female was also reportedly mating with Kashane, this may mean she has lost her remaining cub.
The Dam 3 female was seen a couple of times and it seems she has a new litter of cubs, as she is not a relaxed female we wont see all that much of them but it is nice to know they are there!
The Xinzele male was seen regularly in his usual core territory south of the river and there were a lot more sightings of the Dewane male, he seems to have settled in our Southwestern corner.
The Kashane male was seen with an impala kill for a few days in the south, he also managed to hide a bull nyala kill in front of the lodge for a few days and was only discovered when the kill was finished!
There was also a sighting of a handsome young male leopard up in the north, he was a bit shy and as yet we do not have an ID for him.
The pack of painted hunting dogs also came through the area quite a few times and as always were very successful with their hunts whilst they were here, the three remaining pups are almost as big as the adults and it is getting quite hard to see which is which whilst they are all running around. The fact that the pups are that big now increases their chance of survival and it looks like the pack will stay strong for a while.
Recently the reserve has had an increase in pangolin sightings and we are averaging 1 sighting a week at the moment, these peculiar creatures, also known as a scaly anteater, are usually shy and roll into a ball when disturbed. One of the pangolins that was seen was so relaxed it actually walked up to the vehicles and had a sniff around!
The lush green bush has resulted in a lot of elephants being attracted to the area, many of which have had extremely young calves with them, the hot weather has also meant we have had some great sightings of the herds swimming in the many waterholes.
The buffalo herd has also been in the area regularly, it seems that a couple of the smaller herds have joined up at times leaving us with one massive group of close to 1000 animals on occasion!
Video highlights for November can be found on Idube’s
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