It has been a very exciting week, seeing the change in trees and plants and watching water disappear into the ground. Animals are now slowly, but surely moving more towards the bigger water sources, making these a hive of animal activity. We have been treated to some amazing sightings of wild dogs, buffalo, leopard and elephant in front of our lodges and out on safari with our guests.

It’s been really good to see the Southern Pride split females join up with Floppy Ear and the other two females. They have successfully been hunting and stealing food from leopards, showing us that they really need each other and that this will be the best way to successfully raise any new cubs as there will be a few extra females to help with hunting. The biggest question is “Will the Sand River males accept them?“ Let’s hope for the best as we have not yet seen the males with the females in a while.

The Lower Sabie pack of wild dogs have really lived up to their reputation as phenomenal hunters and have kept us all on our toes for the last few days. There has been a lot of conflict in the pack since the alpha pair started mating. There were a few moments where we thought they were actually going to kill each other and a few of the dogs are looking really bad, but as all of us know them, they are really strong and recover very quickly.

The leopards have been on some surprising missions the last few days. Little Bush has been seen deep inside of Nottins’ territory and Nottins was found the one day far south into Warthog Wallow’s area, causing Warthog Wallow to now push more to the east into the White Dam female’s area and she has cubs at the moment. We are not sure how many at this stage, but this could make the fight a lot worse when one of the females push their boundaries too far. Hunting has been successful for the Little Bush female, but her first kill of an adult impala earlier this week was stolen by the Southern Pride lionesses and at the end of the week we found both Little Bush and Nottins in one sighting with hyenas that has stolen a kill from either one of them, although we are not absolutely sure from who.

General game has been more than plentiful and the herd sizes we are seeing are getting bigger! Zebras are pretty much around every open area and they are joined by big herds of wildebeest too. This is really good as it attracts more predators. There is a bit of a worry in our eyes as this year looks to be a very dry year and with these big herds of general game moving through will the grass and trees last them till the end of winter?

There is a lot to look forward to so let’s hope all works out well for everyone, we will keep you updated daily on our social media platforms.