Rangers Report November 2014

by | Dec 9, 2014 | Rangers Reports | 1 comment

This was one of the best months, full of laughter, entertainment and loads of excitement. We were really on the edges of our seats at times, as the bush and all of its inhabitants did not stop to amaze us with everything they did. Finally the long wait is over as the bush suddenly came alive with newborn impalas, zebras and warthogs. We are still awaiting the wildebeest calves, but it won’t be too long before we see the first one. We also welcomed back our noisy friends, the woodland kingfishers, with their well known krit-trrrrrrrr sound. The veld is looking gorgeous and the burnt areas have really recovered well,as the ground floor is covered with bright green grass. Some of the trees that were damaged during the fire have also recovered well, as they have a lot of new green leaves.We had awesome sightings of general game and buffaloes that couldn’t get enough of the new green grass. We are not yet going off-road onto the burnt areas,because we want it to fully recover before we drive on it. We had some really hot days during the past month that pushed up well into the high thirties. With the high temperatures, we experienced days with very high humidity as well. We also had some incredible lightning storms with 47mm of rain. The average maximum temperature was 30°C. All the lovely rain gave new life and hope to some of the smaller creatures. Some of the wetland areas have a little bit of water in them and that makes the perfect place for frogs to mate and lay their eggs. Luck was on our side again this month as we had some great wild dog and cheetah sightings as well.

Female cheetah by Morné Fouché

Female cheetah by Morné Fouché

Leopards

The leopard sightings were just great! They were out and about, causing a lot of excitement for us and guest alike. Salayexe, our no. 1 lady has cubs once again and we know that her den is very close to our lodge. It is still early days, so we can’t say for sure how many cubs she’s got, but we saw that she’s got suckle marks. We went back to our sightings archives to see who the father might be and to our surprise the father seems to be Anderson. He mated with Salayexe on the 30th of July 2014. If you go and count 100-110 days from the 30th of July it corresponds to the time when we first saw suckle marks on her. She also mated with Tingana on the 16th of July,but it can’t be his cubs. We can’t wait to see the little bundles of joy for the first time when Salayexe brings them out to explore. We can only wonder if this will be the litter that will survive… Salayexe has had very bad luck when it comes to raising cubs. Kurula was very low on the radar and we did not see her often. Thandi is looking great and her cubs are doing great. They are very relaxed with the vehicles moving around them. Shadow on the other hand is the total opposite of her twin sister, Thandi. She was hiding a lot, so we did not get to see the cubs very often. Shadow likes to hide more in the thickets and she likes to moves the cubs around on a regular basis, to avoid getting any unwanted visitors. Kwatile is looking great at the moment and was seen moving around. Her young male cub is getting big now and is much more relaxed than a few months ago. Kwatile and Thandi were seen having a stand-off the one evening. This was bound to happen as their territories are right next to each other. To make matters worse, they are the same age, but Kwatile is a little bigger in size than what Thandi is. It will be interesting to know what will happen in the near future as both ladies are looking to expand their areas. Moya’s independent young male cub is looking fabulous and he is getting more relaxed with the vehicles. He has grown a lot in confidence, but is still small in size. Although this little legend eats very well every week or so, he can’t seem to pick up a lot of weight. Kurula’s two boys were seen a few times while moving around by themselves. It looks like she has broken all bonds with them. Nowdifficult times lie ahead when these young males have to look after themselves and try to stay alive. Bahuti is growing into a great leopard, still moving around in his father’s territory, but for how long we will have to wait and see. We had a surprise visit from Xivambalana and what a treat it was to see him. He is looking stunning and he grew up a lot since we last saw him. By the looks of things,this young male is still going to get bigger and stronger in the near future. Lamula was not seen a lot this month. He is spending a lot of his time south of our southern boundary. This was no surprise to us as Lamula was pressurized by both Anderson and Tingana, who’s also expanding and pushing Lamula more south. Surprisingly Anderson was truly like a ghost this month and he kept a very low profile. We got word that Anderson is also going further and further south, expanding his territory there. This might be why we did not see him more regularly.Tingana is looking great as always and he is spending a lot of his time in the western part of Mvula’s territory. It looks like Tingana is taunting Mvula at this stage, moving around and scent marking as he goes along. Mvula is still a magnificent animal and still a force to be reckoned with. Although he is getting older, he will still not back down from a fight.

Lions

Dwarf mongoose

Dwarf mongoose

Lion sightings were unbelievable this month, as we saw lions almost every day. With all the lions that moved through the area, we could clearly see that there were some changes happening with all the prides and coalitions. The name on everyone’s lips this month was definitely the Birmingham males. These young males have really caused a big uproar in the northern Sabi Sand Wildtuin when they moved into our area. These young guns are looking great and they are full of confidence, killing four young buffaloes in just three days. Even the elephants would be running when these young males come down the road. They are scent marking all over and to make everything even more interesting, they are roaring their territorial call. Birmingham is the name to be remembered, as it looks like these young males are here to stay. Who knows? Maybe they will be the next dominant coalition in the Sabi Sand Wildtuin. The Breakaway pride is in really good shape and looking very healthy. The four adult females are great hunters, so the cubs are eating well and growing up very fast. The young sub adult male cubs are looking great with their facial hair that is coming through. We can clearly see that one of the young males will have a very dark mane when he grows up, as the dark hair is already pushing through the blond hair. We had a few great sightings of the Nkuhuma pride, moving in and out of the area. We have been seeing more and more of the Nkuhuma pride these last few months, as they are moving further south than normal. After the Styx pride moved further south a few months ago, the Nkuhuma pride and the Talamati pride started moving into the Styx pride’s territory. We were also very fortunate to see the Talamati pride for the first time. The Talamati pride looks like a very strong pride and they are also very healthy. The two Matimba males are also looking great as always. These two big boys are spending a lot of their time with the Nkuhuma pride. The Nkuhuma females are really good buffalo hunters, so this might be the reason why they are sticking with this pride. The Majingi males are in fantastic shape and still looking majestically when they walk down the road. Both the Majingi and Matimba males need to be very wary of the new kids on the block that have their sights set on this area.

Buffaloes

Impala baby by Morné Fouché

Impala baby by Morné Fouché

This month it was buffaloes around every corner!We had a very big herd of about two hundred buffaloes moving through our area. The big herds just love the new growth on the burnt areas and we have seen the herds moving around our area for most of the month. These herds had a lot to do with the fact that we saw so many lions,as they were trailing them. With all this new growth, the buffaloes don’t have to move very far to find food and water. There are still some of the old buffalo cows that are still a bit skinny, but the rest of the younger animals are looking great and healthy. We also saw a few younger males hanging around some of the water holes. There were a few old dagga boys out and about as usual and we also had a few males that were hanging around our lodge. Our guests were spoiled with buffaloes on the open area, just lazing around in the water during the hot days.

Elephant

Kudu males by Morné Fouché

Kudu males by Morné Fouché

November was exceptionally good as far as elephant sightings go. We had a few stunning breeding herds of elephants, which moved around in our traversing area. There was one of the herds that went for a swim in one of the big waterholes to break the heat and to cool down. There were also a few little ones that did not want to get out of the water when the rest of the herd was ready to move on. One of the females was very vocal and caused a chain reaction through the rest of the adult females. Only then did the little ones get out of the water. It is fascinating to watch a herd of elephants feeding and socializing. The elephant is a very social animal and a close knit family. There is so much food around at the moment that the big herds have split up into smaller units again. We had a few big males that came through and moved between the female groups. Two of the males we saw were huge, with big tusks. It is always such a pleasure to see these big tuskers in the flesh and not only on a picture in a coffee table book.

Special sighting

How great it was to see the five young Birmingham male lions hunting and scent marking around our area. These 5 young beasts are big for their age and they will be a force to be reckoned with in the near future. If they manage to stay together for the next year or so, they might be the rulers of the northern part of the Sabi Sand Wildtuin.

Did you know?

The lappet-faced vultureis the biggest vulture you get in South Africa.

I hope you enjoyed this month’s report, see you out on game drive soon!

Morné Fouché

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