A Week in the Bush Vol. 486
on Dec 20, 2023It has been another magical week of sightings at Sabi Sabi. We hope you enjoy this week’s highlights…
Into morning safari, we came across a Talamati lioness who was on the scent of the other pride members, but she could not find them. She walked around for a long time before resting, where we left her. With a lot of buffalo on the reserve at the moment, it is only a matter of time before these lions pick out an old, weak or young buffalo to hunt.
The following day, the dawn chorus sounded a bit different. The songs of the birds were silenced by earth-trembling roars. These vocalisations sounded different to the usual territorial calls, and a quick search delivered the young Styx male clearly shaken by some occurrence. He seemed anxious and wary of his surroundings as he rushed through the brush, stopping regularly to look back. Perhaps the Styx male had a run-in with the Gijima males or the Styx females who disapproved of his presence.
All young males will have to leave the safety of their pride and fend for themselves until a territory can be established. However, these are treacherous times for any young male, especially a lone male, and it will take all of his skills and knowledge to survive.
Having seen the above-mentioned Styx lioness alone, we were happy to find 5 Styx females together with only the young male missing from the pride. The pride was crossing a road, showing interest in a herd of impala nearby, but the impala spotted them and ran to safety.
With tracks of a lion pride leading us all over the Southern sector of Sabi Sabi, our tracking skills were put to the test. Almost giving up and heading back to the lodge for breakfast, we decided to have one more look in the area where we had the last set of tracks. To our luck, we found the Southern Pride resting in a thicket. Not sitting still for too long and using the cool and cloudy morning, they were up again. The cubs used this opportunity to practice their stalking and hunting skills, and their two older siblings were more than willing to partake in their practice session. They even pounced on their mom occasionally, but she let them know that she couldn’t be taken down.
On our afternoon safari, we tracked them again and found them feeding on a warthog kill they had made minutes earlier. With rainy weather moving into the area, it is perfect timing for them as they will try and lay low the next day or two, hiding away from the rain. The pride is in excellent condition, and the two youngsters are doing very well. Hopefully, this pride will flourish again soon.
We found the two Gijima males in the company of two Talamati Pride females. They spent their time sleeping, and because of the cooler weather, we had hoped they would move around, but they chose to lie flat.
After finding the carcass of an impala female in a tree with no sign of the leopard, we started circling the area in search of any tracks heading into or out of the area. We stumbled across a small journey of giraffes, and as we were busy enjoying their peaceful browsing, something caught tracker Donald's eye - a female leopard lying in the shade of a small tree.
Golonyi watched the giraffe moving by, whereafter she got up and walked to the tree where her kill was. Clearly, she was not starving at the time and just wanted to get her kill off the ground and out of reach for any other predators. As soon as she is ready, she will start feeding and potentially move the carcass to a bigger, more comfortable tree.
We followed up on the sighting of Golonyi and her impala kill. She had taken her kill down from the tree and was feeding on the remains on the ground after eating the bulk of the kill up in the tree.
Leopards feel most comfortable feeding in a tree once safely hoisted, so we found this behaviour odd as once she had the kill on the ground, she did not attempt to hoist it back up the tree. We knew what would happen, but it happened much quicker than expected! Within no time, hyenas moved in and stole the remains of her kill despite her efforts to regain it. Golonyi moved off to quench her thirst.
The white tip of a tail caught our attention, and after further inspection, we found the Ntsumi female leopard with her two beautiful cubs trailing behind her. Ntsumi walked with purpose, and our first thought was that she must have made a kill somewhere and was taking her two youngsters to it.
Approaching a big Marula tree, Ntsumi started to slow down while gazing up into the tree. That is when we saw the baby warthog kill hanging on one of the branches. She effortlessly jumped into the tree, ensuring her kill was still secured before making herself comfortable on a branch higher up. Her cubs followed her quickly, inspecting what their mom had caught for them this time.
We were surprised to see Kigelia far east in her territory. We followed her for a while as she scent-marked on prominent bushes and shrubs. She hasn’t been in this area for a while, and she needed to re-establish her territory's borders and ward off unwanted visitors, making it a safe area for her cubs eventually.
Sightings of N'weti have been few and far between of late. His vast and valuable territory requires constant patrolling and scent-marking, even more so after some good rains. The rain washes away scent marks left by territorial animals and needs thorough remarking to keep invaders at bay. After a short nap, N’weti rose in typical big cat fashion from his slumber - a couple of yawns and a quick grooming session before heading off. Still a little dreary from his nap, he immediately started scent-marking as he slowly wandered south, fading into the thickets as only he could.
As we had just stopped for our morning coffee, we only had a few sips when, a few metres away, we heard a ranger call us on the radio to tell us there was a leopard nearby. We packed up quickly and joined them just as the leopard was going into a burrow, probably looking for warthogs, but there was nothing. We followed him as he tried to stalk herds of impala, but all odds were against him.
Leopards are very patient, even when their hunt is disturbed by the alarm calls of other animals or their prey noticing them, they are always willing to try again. They follow their prey from behind for extended periods, looking for the right opportunity to get at striking distance, usually five to ten metres.
The well-established hyena den on our reserve has been a delight around our rangers and guests. These young hyena cubs are growing by the day, becoming more comfortable in their bodies, and getting very curious with all life and forms of movement. We spent a good amount of time with them, watching them getting calmer with our presence and starting to inspect what the vehicle was, all while the adults kept a close eye. Their patterns are beginning to form on the body as the black is fading away, giving them their look for adult life. Even though they are still far from adulthood, they will use every encounter with humans and wildlife as a learning curve, helping them when fully grown.
Driving along a drainage line at night hides away many treasures, such as this beautiful Verreaux's Eagle-owl. We were fortunate enough to see him high in the branches of a Jackalberry tree, sitting, waiting for any movement underneath him where he would fly down and strike. These big owls have extremely soft velvet-like feathers, making it possible for them to fly silently through the bush, not warning any potential prey of their approach.
A very rare sighting of a Boomslang caught our attention as we saw him crossing the road in front of us shortly before ascending the closest tree. Boomslang have haemotoxic venom which compromises the blood clotting mechanism, causing uncontrolled bleeding if not treated. Luckily bites are very rare as these snakes are reluctant to bite and spend the majority of their time in trees, away from humans. This individual is still very small which makes them more dangerous as adult snakes control the amount of venom they eject when biting, whereas young snakes don't yet have full control and will inject as much as possible venom when threatened.
Until next time…
Blog by Wendy Claase
Images by Daniel Greyvenstein, Jason Street, JP van Rooyen, Ronald Mutero & Ruan Mey
