July Newsletter
11 August 2010
Elephant Calf
Photo: Louis Marais
Since the sad events of the last newsletter, Spain won the first African world cup and there has been plenty of action here in the bush and our visitors have been rewarded with some fantastic sightings.
There has been a shift in power in the lion population since the death of one of the Mapogo male coalition up in the northern Sabi Sand. The remaining five males regrouped here in the west and were seen together frequently even spending a night outside the lodge roaring. The five males then moved in a north easterly direction across our boundary. Something then happened between them and the new coalition in the north, and only three of the males returned west, a fourth returned about a week later – heavily battle scarred, the fifth has not been seen since and is probably dead. This leaves four of the original six males with about half their original territory, luckily for us most of that territory is our traversing area! With the new males in the north putting pressure on the prides up there we saw the return of the Tsalala pride (3 females, 1 sub-adult male and 5 young females of 14 months) to our traversing area. They were obviously trying to bring their youngsters deep into Mapogo territory to protect them from takeover attempts from the so called Majingalane coalition.
The first sighting we had of all four remaining males together after the fight was at a buffalo kill north of the river together with the Ottawa pride. It can be noted that the two young Ottawa males were kept away from the area by their fathers, and as they are approaching the three year age mark, it will not be long before they are pushed out permanently.
The Ximunghwe pride has lost all but the three youngest cubs but the females have been seen mating with the Mapogo males since then. The lodge was visited by one of the Ximunghwe females a 10h30 one morning, she was trying to catch the nyala close to room 5. This after she had caught a waterbuck just NW of the lodge but lost it to her Mapogo mate!
The big story of the past few weeks has to be that of a big male giraffe that was found just to the north of the lodge one afternoon – very dead! We are not sure why he died but it is possible that the huge male leopard we call Xindlevhana (small ears) had something to do with it as he was found feeding on the carcass. It is possible that the giraffe was sitting ruminating and the leopard surprised it and it fell whilst trying to stand….
Xindlevhana is not our friendliest or most relaxed leopard. He prefers to charge the vehicles and hide so we left him until dark when he is more approachable. That evening he was seen feeding but by morning the hyena clan had taken over. The next night the leopard was back along with some porcupine, then the hyenas returned and so the story went on until the arrival of the Mapogo lions – first 2 then 3 then all four and then the Tsalala pride also joined in creating havoc as the males did not immediately recognize them!
The lodge has had some visits from the local elephant population recently, with one bull having learned the art of unhooking the gate to let himself in! A bit of work has been done on the fences to avoid a repeat of this! Other elephant sightings have included herds swimming in the river and various dams and plenty of funny antics from youngsters as they interact with the cars.
The leopard sightings in the area have certainly not diminished with the loss of Makubela. In fact one week saw a total of 18 different leopards being found in our traversing area, this without some regulars such as Shangwa Female, Kasahane (Lisbon) Male and the Tai Dam female.
Obviously the leopard on the giraffe was a highlight but we also had some brilliant sightings of Hlabnkunzi female leopard and her 2 cubs both on and off a number of different kills. Hlabnkunzi was also pushing her boundaries more into the area vacated by Makubela, as was Mabirri. Both were seen on Idube property on more than one occasion.
Interesting interactions were noted around the Ravenscourt (Sindile) female who we are seeing more and more these days – her son, the Xinzele male, continues to be accepted by her and her younger son despite being nearly three years old. The younger son is almost at the age of independence already yet regularly all three leopards are seen together interacting happily.
Another confusing interaction was that between the Xindlevhana male and the new young male Mashiabanj. These two were seen showing no animosity to one another after the older male stole a kill from the Xikavi female and the young male came to see what was going on. The two males have no relation to one another that we know, Mashiabanj has come all the way from the Londolozi/Malamala boundary.
Tegwaan male was heard mating with the Hippo dam female in some deep thickets but she is so shy there was no good sighting of the two.
About a month ago one small cub that we presumed to belong to the Metsi female was seen but nothing again since and we were wondering if she still had a litter. This was confirmed a few days ago when tracks for a female with two cubs were found and followed, leading to Metsi with a duiker kill. The cubs were still shy and at most were just movement in the grass but it is good to know that they are there!
The buffalo in the area have been fairly quiet with the big herd not being seen for a while. The resident dagga boy bulls have made the rangers and trackers work for their sightings but that makes the sighting even more rewarding!
There were sightings of Serval, genet, white-tailed mongoose, civet and jackals often on the evening drives and rhino were seen almost daily.
For those of you who are avid followers of our wildlife our facebook page: http://www.facebook.com/idubeloge and twitter profile: http://twitter.com/idube_lodge have regular sightings updates during the day and a weekly roundup can be found on our blog: http://idubelodge.blogspot.com you can also find regular video updates at http://www.youtube.com/iduberobtheranger or http://www.facebook.com/rtrwildlifevideos
If you are not up to finding us in the social networking world, this monthly newsletter will still be a feature here on the main website!
Until next time,
Best wishes,
Rob The Ranger
Lion Cubs
Photo: Louis Marais
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