“Expect the unexpected”. This is a phrase I have become all too familiar with whilst working in the bush. The wilderness is completely unscripted, and anything can happen at any time.

It was a rather cold and drizzly summer afternoon in the Lowveld. My tracker, Donald, and I decide that our plan of action was to move into the southern parts of the reserve to try and follow up on a pack of wild dogs that had been seen earlier that day - no easy feat as the dogs could have moved a great distance during the cool and overcast conditions. We set off with high hopes!

After a while of searching we noticed a number of waterbuck alarm calling and staring worryingly into a thicket along the banks of the Sabie River. We’ve hit gold, I thought to myself. We rushed off to go and see what had caused all the commotion. As we got on scene, we noticed a big female hyena appearing from the thicket. Her face covered in blood.

We followed her for a little bit before her attention was turned to a small, thick bit of shrubbery. She seemed very fascinated by whatever was in there. With bated breath, we waited in anticipation as her excitement grew. Guesses of what it could be were being passed around the vehicle when suddenly a ghastly hissing came from the undergrowth and soon after, the hyena pulled out a very unimpressed African Rock Python.

How lucky could we be? What was to unfold in front of us was an epic back and forth battle between two formidable African predators. The hyena would try and bite onto the soft back ends of the python and in response to this, the brave python would unleash a powerful strike and try to bite the hyena on the nose. On a few occasions the python managed to succeed and would latch on to the hyena’s face for a few seconds before being thrown off. This tussle went on for a good 10 minutes before the hyena lost interest and moved off leaving the python rather battered and bruised, sporting numerous bite wounds. The battle was over. It is unclear as to the fate of the python that day but what a privilege is was to be witness to something so incredible and unique.

A sighting never to forget!