As you may have noticed, Londolozi seems to be going through a phenomenal patch of sightings. I was fortunate enough to be hosting guests through a series of six particularly spectacular game drives in a row. I thought it to be good enough to compile into a blog post. So here goes…
One of two young male cheetahs that have been roaming Londolozi over the last couple of months. Given this individual’s relaxed nature around humans and our vehicles, we can only presume that he has been raised somewhere nearby and had decent exposure to our presence.
Our lucky streak was ignited one sunny afternoon by the presence of a young male cheetah resting upon a termite mound in the setting sunlight. He was one of eight of his kind that were recorded at Londolozi in the last month which might be a record.
We rose the very next morning and while climbing onto the vehicle at first light, we were startled by the bark of a bushbuck just outside the camp perimeter.
Eager to investigate, we drove in the direction of the alarm call. Marching down the road towards us, we were met head-on by the Senegal Bush Male. He was on a dawn territorial patrol; scent marking and calling as he strutted through the bush.
The Senegal Bush Male on the move.
Shortly after leaving him on the move, we received a radio call that lions were hunting buffalo just a few hundred meters away from us. The Ntsevu Breakaways were hassling a massive herd of buffalo and had brought a cow down only to be chased off shortly after that. They found themselves in a standoff for over an hour. Stay tuned for more on this particular sighting.
That afternoon our plan was to go and find a pack of African Wild Dogs that had been found that morning. Finding them exactly where they were left, we watched as they slept for a while but our patience was rewarded when they started to move. They popped out on the open clearings around our airstrip and took off after several different prey targets.
African Wild Dogs rely a great deal on their eyesight when they hunt. More often than not, as they start to move, they’ll initially head for an open, clear area to try get a better view of what prey could be lurking nearby. The airstrip is the perfect example of this.
Being a pack of 18, they split up rather quickly and form smaller groups of five or six which go after the same prey. We followed one of these groups down into a dense tamboti grove where they managed to catch a bushbuck ewe. Between them and the hyenas that were on the scene in no time, the bushbuck had all but disappeared in a matter of minutes. The sun had just set but we thought it fitting to head up onto the open crest and enjoy a celebratory drink.
Our Londolozi windsock, surrounded by several of one Africa’s most phenomenal predators.
The next morning started rather slow. After a drawn-out tracking mission with nothing to show for our efforts, we wondered if our luck had finally run out. The Nkoveni Female and her two young ones had wandered out of reach however, in the time that we had been on her tracks, the Ximungwe Female had been found. She had a young impala hoisted in a small Jackelberry tree. The scene sounded amazing over the radio and I felt we deserved the reward after our patience on the tracks. Upon arriving at the sighting we were quick to notice that there was no chance of a decent photograph but who can complain about a beautiful leopard draped over an ebony branch?
An African Wild Dog takes a moment to rest in the soft sand of the Manyelethi Riverbed. This was our second afternoon in a row with the same pack of wild dogs and they lead us on another successful hunt!
Late on, in the morning past, the same pack of wild dogs had been seen north of the river. You always take your opportunities with the wild dogs as they tend to be gone as soon as they arrive and can often go weeks before we see them again. We meandered up the banks of the Manyelethi River, to the last spot they had been seen and shortly had eyes on them. We parked in the shade and waited for the inevitable hunt closer to sunset.
Jerry Sibiya and his guests were positioned perfectly to watch the wild dogs trot towards them.
Within the half-hour, they were on the move; crossing the riverbed and covering ground fast. Between us and the other two vehicles viewing them, we worked as a team to keep an eye on them. They took us through places of the reserve I’d never been to and eventually caught an impala in the leadwood forest. I had bent my steering rod in the process and couldn’t turn left for the last moments of the hunt but fortunately, we were close enough to the action.
I took the steering rod as a sign that the lucky patch was over and my theory would be put to the test the following morning. Our plan was to get down to a marula tree near the southern boundary where the Nweti Male had been seen with a warthog kill. I hadn’t even had a chance to tell my guests the plan and we bumped into two lionesses right outside the camp. They were from the Talamati Pride and seemed to be searching for their other two pride members with soft contact calls as they emerged on the airstrip.
One of the Talamati lionesses gives her soft contact call which ended up attracting the wrong lions!
Little did they know, their calls were attracting the wrong attention. As if on cue, the Skorro Breakaway Male arrives from the west at the same time that one of the Ndzhenga Males arrives accompanied by a Ntsevu lioness.
The five lions converge in front of us in the open sending the Skorro Breakaway Male bolting off to where he had emerged from. The two Talamati lionesses break away to the south as the two males announce themselves in bellowing territorial roars.
One of the Ntsevu lionesses marches down the road after the Ndzenga Male who she was eating with amongst all the action.
We soon lose our view of the Skorro Breakaway Male and can hear him calling from the riverbed. Satisfied that he had defended his territory and company, the Ndzhenga Male took post at the last place he’d had eyes on his competitor. Further down the road, the two Talamati lionesses were found to have met up with their other two siblings and had settled down on the vantage of a termite mound, hoping to not be drawn into the chaos that had ensued.
We are known to have phenomenal sightings, both in frequency and quality, at Londolozi but like any other safari destination, there comes a time when you have to work quite hard to see amazing things. Then there are days like the ones described above where we are reminded how incredibly lucky we are to call this place home and hold such a divine connection to this land and her curious inhabitants.
Chris Taylor
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