The lioness mother started the month well, by catching a baby giraffe. Her three young cubs spent time feeding on the giraffe, together with mother and aunt. The next day the mum was not so lucky in her hunting techniques – possibly hindered by the tag-along youngsters – and spent some time stalking impala, without success. Still full from the giraffe meat, the cubs didn’t seem too bothered.
The end of the month, and the male lions were trying to assert their territorial dominance: two male ‘Wanderers” now spend much of their time on the westerly part of their huge territory, with two young males establishing themselves more to the north. These two young males are successful hunters of zebra, and event the two big Wanderers have been known to scavenge from them.
The large pack of 15 dogs had much better luck though, and were found having just hunted an impala. For dogs, the choice meal, and the one that they successfully catch more than any other. We saw them hunting a few times this month, as well as a small pack of 4 dogs close to home, running around the airstrip. At the end of the month, the alpha male and female were missing, leading us all to believe that they may have been establishing a den, but we are struggling to locate this.
The two male cheetahs were seen regularly this month as well as the female with three sub-adult cubs. They favour the Splash area for its open plains, where game congregates to feed, and the cheetahs benefit from the surrounding bush to allow stalking. For cheetahs, it’s all about the stalk and the sprint, so you have to be exceptionally lucky to catch them hunting. Most of the sightings this month were of the cheetahs relaxing in the shade, sleeping off the hard work of the hunts. We did, however, have one run of good luck, with the mother cheetah trying again for an impala, chasing and killing it right in front of the game drive cars.
In the middle of the month, game sightings of cats were getting quite ridiculous, with game drives regularly seeing a few lions (with cubs) then moving on to a cheetah (with cubs) and then on to another couple of male cheetahs, and then possibly a hyena to finish off with. Hard to imagine sometimes, that we do not live in a zoo.
Leopard sightings, though a little more sporadic, were also very good. When sighted, they were generally found feeding on a recent kill, which provides excellent viewing for hours – if not days!
Sitatunga were also spotting this month again from the boat. Most unusual sighting however, was of something that is only spotted maybe once a year or so, if you are very lucky: bush pig. Kind of like an overgrown warthog, with more hair, these are very shy animals. How they manage to meet up and mate to produce more bush pigs, is beyond me.