20 March - Cats & Dogs!

Photo of the Day

Morning Drive

(Andrea)

Lion (x2 Jacaranda sub-adults) / Ingwelala – Argyle Road

Elephant (Breeding Herd) / Vielmeter – Back Nine

Elephant (Kambaku) / Vielmeter – Hide Dam

Wild Dog (Pack of 3) / Vielmeter – Hide Dam


Afternoon Drive
(Herold) 

Elephant (Breeding herd) / Vielmeter - Back Nine
Leopard (Male) / Vielmeter - Hide Dam
Wild Dog (Pack of 18)  / Kings Property - Coles Drive
Wild Dog (Pack of 3) / Vielmeter - Hide Dam

Before we had even left the car park this morning, Grant radioed to inform me that he had seen the two sub-adult lion on the tar road on his way back to camp. We piled into the Landy and sped off, knowing their tendency of moving north into Klaserie. We got to the spot Grant had described but couldn’t find them. Luckily, the one male flicked his tail and we were able to spot them about 5 m off the road but lying down in tall grass. It was not a good visual, so instead I have posted images from two days ago of the exact same pair in the same place! 

Chris from Simbavati had spotted male lion tracks on Western Cutline so we decided to follow up on that, Johannes took one road and I took the other. Johannes found the tracks and continued to follow into Karans but unfortunately the lion had crossed our boundary. I continued on my way responding to the 18 pack of wild dog. Instead we found the small pack of 3 wild dog at Hide Dam. They were wonderful to watch. The one dog got right into the water while he drank. An elephant made his way to the water but took fright when he saw the dogs and quickly moved off. 

 

Thinking that these three were part of the larger pack, I continued to try relocate the rest of them. On the way, we found a breeding herd of elephant slowly feeding. Sinut from Kings radioed to tell me that in fact this was a just a small group of 3 wild dogs often seen together and that he had found a leopard kill that the dogs had chased the leopard away from. We turned back to view the dogs near the kill one last time before heading back to camp! 

 

Both myself and Grant are going on leave tomorrow so unfortunately there will be no full blog posts for the next week but Dave will continue to post daily sighting reports and I will see you all in a week’s time. I am off to Kruger so hopefully I will get a couple of good shots I can share with you.

Until then,

Keep well