The Week That Was....(4)

The lodge has been under siege from elephants this week which can bee seen as both a good and a bad thing. It was great for sightings, especially for walks, with eles swimming in Schotia dam most days. It was bad for the lemon tree behind the kitchen which was almost destroyed by one of the midnight elephant raids one night!

The lodge was also graced by a visit from the Kashane (Lisbon) male leopard who came to drink at Shidulu dam during breakfast one morning and then retired to the shade of a nearby bush for the rest of the day.

A small amount of controlled burning was done on the north eastern corner of the property with a larger burn planed for this week, weather permitting.

The highlights of the weeks drives are as follows:

• The male cheetah with the under bite crossed onto Idube and killed an impala to the south of the lodge, he fed on the kill throughout the day before abandoning it to the vultures the next morning. He was seen for a couple of days before crossing back to the east.


• All four of the Mapogo male lions were seen together at the airstrip before splitting off in different directions again.


• The Mapogo known as MrT unfortunately got hold of one of the remaining Ximunghwe pride cubs, there are only 2 left now, he was later seen mating with one of the Ximunghwe lionesses close to the western boundary


• The Shangwa female leopard was seen north of the river, she seemed to have been in a big fight and was sporting many battle scars, later in the week the Ravenscourt female was seen also showing battle scars so it seems that the two had a confrontation over territory.


• Hlabnkunzi female leopard and her two cubs were seen regularly, the highlight being seeing all three leopards feeding off an impala carcass at the same time, a very unusal sighting as leopards usually feed in turn.


• Tegwaan male leopard joined the Hlabnkunzi family at the same impala carcass later on before all four leopards were disturbed by the Ottawa lion pride sometime overnight, the morning after Tegwaan and one of the cubs were up a tree with the lions beneath whilst Hlabnkunzi and the other cub were found a bit further away. Eventually mother and both cubs were reunited and the lions moved off.


• The Ottawa lions were seen before the above sighting all over the northern part of our traversing area, this after they finished the big kudu bull the killed last Sunday


• After losing one of the cubs the Ximungwe lionesses split up and two of them moved north with the remaining cubs an Makulu Mapogo in tow.


• The Tai Dam female leopard was spotted up in the Northwest corner, she was with her son, a leopard that we had not seen for a long time and had thought perhaps was dead, the pair were moving with a purpose and eventually led us to a bushbuck kill close to the northern boundary in the Kloof river, the next day they had both moved on.


• Mabirri female leopard and her cub were spotted pushing their boundaries north into Idube again, the cub was left for a few days on our property as mum went off hunting, this is great news as the youngster gets closer to independence. the unoccupied territory around Idube can only remain vacant for so long...


• The female rhino with the long horn and her family were regular visitors to the northern part of Idube as were at least 6 other rhino making the ebony dam area the best spot for rhino viewing in the area!

So all in all it was another awesome week, the only downside was the bit of flu going around the staff!

Until next week,

Best wishes,

The Idube Team