20th November – Klakisa’s Boy Becoming a Firm Favourite!

Photo of the Day

Klakisa's boy 2:2 male - what a beauty!

Morning Drive

(Grant and Chad)

1 x leopard (Klakisa’s boy 2:2 male) – Mbali, Mcau Rd

2 x rhino (relaxed males)

1 x breeding herd of elephants – Motswari, Camp

1 x breeding herd of elephants – Peru, Jack’s Camp

1 x elephant bull – Scholtz, Long Rd

1 x elephant bull – Motswari, Camp

2 x elephant bulls – Mbali, Mbali Dam

6 x elephant bulls – Mbali, Woza-Woza Cutline

12 x elephant bulls – Peru, Apple Leaf Rd

Afternoon Drive

(Grant and Herold)

3 x lions (Mahlathini Males) – Buchner

1 x breeding herd of elephants – Motswari, Reception Link

3 x buffalo bulls – De Luca, Argyle Rd

Daily Synopsis

Greetings folks, and hope you all having a good start to the week!  Just to finish off the updates for the weekend, which was rather good!  I only drove on the morning drive, as Grant and Herold were the only ones with guests in the afternoon.

My morning was a drive of two halves; I started off trying the east, for some unknown reason.  It proved to be the wrong choice, as for the first hour and a half, all we saw was our lone wildebeest on Kudu Pan Clearing and one kudu bull, one herd of kudus and one elephant bull in musthe that we couldn’t spend much time with, well, because he was in musthe!  To make matters worse, two rhinos were found on the opposite side of the reserve, and while I initially expressed an interest in responding, I later changed my mind as it was just too far away...also, there was some good viewing to be had in the north.

Kudu cow and elephant bull in musthe

It started with my new favourite leopard (yes, I am fickle when it comes to favourite leopards!), Klakisa’s 2:2 boy.  Johannes had found him in his usual area of movement, and I went to take over the sighting after Grant had enjoyed a lovely view of him.

Klakisa young male

We got to spend some quality time with him, albeit it a bit of a mission as he kept moving in and out of, and across a drainage line, but we managed to keep him, and eventually he settled on a termite mound and posed wonderfully for photos for us.

What a gorgeous leopard, and what a poser he is!

He was watching a nearby impala ewe that was very reluctant to move away from the area; either she had a lamb hidden nearby, or the blood on the leopard’s whiskers were from the lamb – his lack of a belly points to the former rather than the latter.

We soon left him as he moved into the drainage line and them made our way towards a herd of elephants between Mbali and Peru Dam, and spent a good part of the morning watching them as they moved down into the Nhlaralumi Riverbed where they fed and drank, even in the company of a large musthe bull that was chasing away a group of young bulls that joined the herd.

Breeding herd of elephants at Peru Dam

As the setting was so great, we actually stopped and had our coffee overlook the herd of elephants as they continued with the antics in the riverbed below us.

Coffee stop with some elephants!

One of my guests’ requests was to see a crocodile, so we went towards Vyeboom Dam – while we found our young crocodile in Buffalo Pan, the large regular at Vyeboom Dam was on the bank, so we went to view her for a while before making our way back to the lodge.

Wildebeest herd and a large crocodile at Vyeboom Dam

The impalas were scattered all over, and we even got to see a 2m long black mamba resting on the road! 

The other highlight of the morning was when a herd of more than thirty elephants arrived at the mudwallow in front of the lodge to havea  splash about during breakfast!  Great timing as always from our elephants!

In the afternoon, Grant and Herold went up into the Umbabat wilderness hoping to get lucky with the white lion cub – while they saw signs of the lionesses, they had no luck with them.  They did however manage to track down the three Mahlathini males, so their afternoon wasn't a total waste – also, the elephant herd spent their afternoon in and around camp to round off another great weekend at Motswari