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April Newsletter

31 March 2008

April has begun and the days are getting noticeably shorter now as we approach winter. The temperatures are also lowering and during this month we can expect night time minimums of single figures, the days however, will still be in the high twenties.
April should also bring the last few rain showers of the wet season. Hopefully some will be heavy enough to fill some of the dams as many are already very low and the rains are not expected again until October or later.

March (and Easter) passed by in a flurry of activity and the theme of the month seemed to be babies…

The two lionesses of the Ottawa pride had been reported as having cubs as long ago as the end of January but nobody in the west had seen them until now. One afternoon drive the lionesses were tracked down just to the north of the Sand River, one of the big males of the Mapogo was with them and so were seven cubs. We saw the cubs playing and jumping around the big male before they moved off into the thickets again. At least two of the cubs were female giving hope for the longer term prospects of the pride.

Shangwa the female leopard also brought her three new cubs out for us to see. Her den site is located on an island in the middle of the Sand River around some large granite boulders. As the area is hard to access and the cubs are still young, vehicle activity around the den is kept to a minimum and only when the mother is present. This has meant that there is not always a chance to see the cubs but the wait is certainly worth it. One morning only a few days after the den had been discovered I took a chance and drove to the den and discovered Shangwa on top of the boulders. Positioning the vehicle carefully we waited…

A small yellow and black ball of fluff ran along the bottom of the rock and spent a long time trying to jump up towards its mother. Its size prevented it from reaching a foothold and it gave up and ran back to the other side of the rocks. The mother also went down out of view and after a few minutes when she did not return we moved on, very satisfied.

The big buffalo herd has also had its numbers boosted by a large number of new calves born in the last couple of months. Close to 800 animals stretched out in the open clearings to the south one evening sharing the clearings with rhinos and elephant and later on three lions who had been feeding on a dead impala also came to see the line of animals stretching for kilometers across the bush.

A new rhino calf was spotted on Idube and numerous elephant calves are seen with the herds so babies were definitely the theme for the month!

One larger youngster that we saw in March was the cub of the Tai Dam female leopard. One of our lesser seen resident leopards, the Tai Dam female usually stays to the north of the Sand river and here she and her cub were seen with the young Treetops male arguing about the possession of a kill. All three leopards were too focused on one another to be bothered by the vehicles and we had amazing views of them in the trees and open clearing, great for the guests and for the rangers who don’t see these animals so often.

Another animal we don’t see to often is the Wild Dog or Cape Hunting Dog. We really only see these animals for a few days each year so to have four of them roaming around and to see them mating was very special.

One interaction that was missed during the month was that between a leopard, a hyena and a python. The early morning drive only caught the aftermath of what happened. The leopard – Mabirri’s cub was found on a termite mound growling at a hyena which ran off, in a nearby tree sat an enormous python. What seems to have happened is that the python had caught a small antelope and was in the process of swallowing it when the leopard arrived.The young leopard then probably tried to steal the prey from the python, attracting the attention of a nearby hyena. Who ate what was hard to determine but between the hyena and leopard, the antelope was completely devoured and the python bitten badly.

When I arrived the leopard had run off but the python remained in the small tree. It had been bitten on the head and had lost an eye but otherwise it seemed that it would survive. It had certainly lost none of its speed or aggression as it struck at me from its perch narrowly missing my head as I walked underneath it! The loss of an eye would not be too much of a blow as pythons use heat receptors at the front of the snout to locate their prey at night. I returned later in the day to see if it would still be there and to perhaps get a measurement but it had retreated to one of the nearby termite mounds going underground to recover from its wounds.

The young leopard that had been part of the interaction joined her mother and the rest of the drive was spent following them as they frolicked around through the bush.
Snakes were sighted regularly in the evenings as they came onto the roads seeking the extra warmth and I caught many puff adders and one evening, after leaving a sighting of the Wallingford male leopard feeding on a giraffe carcass, even saw an enormous snouted cobra which reared up and spread it’s hood for the cameras when I got out of the car.

In the next few weeks we can look forward to the arrival of our resident lodge leopard Makubela’s first litter of cubs as she is looking very pregnant at the moment. Hopefully her den will be close to the lodge so we can visit the youngsters regularly.

That’s all for this month….
Keep well
Rob the Ranger

If you have not seen our BROCHURE and would like a copy, please e-mail Sally at
res@idube.com and she will be delighted to send you one.