The days are getting longer now and the bush is starting to bloom into lovely shades of green with beautiful flowers blossoming everywhere. An amazing transformation is taking place and what a pleasure to be a part of it. One afternoon we found a great herd of buffalo lying chewing the cud or sleeping in cool river sand close to one of our dams. Pure serenity! It makes you really appreciate being here.
We had a good sighting of Twin Spots (our resident female leopard) cub, when she left him in a drainage line – which is not unusual when she is off hunting. He is getting quite big already and is around 9 months old. Every day of survival is a success story for a leopard cub as they are very vulnerable at this stage of their life. They learn that remaining undetected is the best defense and these cats do a good job at that! The leopard’s worst enemy is in fact a troop of baboons as they are the only animals that both pose a threat to him and can go everywhere a leopard can.
The other night we heard a lion roaring, the calls getting closer and closer during the course of the night. By the time the morning arrived, everyone was really keen to locate the big cat responsible! We set out in the direction we believed the sound to have come from and after a while we found one of the young males who now dominate our area. Conveniently, he was lying in an open patch near one of our big dams so we got some fantastic photos.
