You have to fight through the bad days in order to earn the best days.

Tension is running high in the bushveld as we have only had minimal rain. Animals are starting to clash around waterholes and the competition for food between herbivores is high. We have been seeing a lot of hippo in some of our little dams which just means the rivers are very low and competition down there is even higher. We can only hope for some rain soon.

With the dry weather, it seems to have slowed down a few animals as there are not many nutrients left in the grasses and trees, thus making it a bit easier for predators to hunt. One of the leopards on our reserve, Little Bush female, has been very successful the last week with her hunts. We found her the one day with a fresh bushbuck kill, with her two cubs up a tree.

The next day on afternoon drive, I made my way to where she had the bushbuck kill and in the riverbed she pulled down a female impala about 40 meters from her previous kill. She called her cubs from the old kill and they started feeding off the fresh one.

Over a period of 3 days she gave us some of the greatest sightings of her and her cubs.

White Dam female eventually made her appearance in a tree, with her cub on a waterbuck kill. It was great to see the two of them together again as for the last 2 weeks we have only been finding the cub and then mom on the complete other side of our property.

One more surprise for the week was getting to see Kigelia female when she moved away from a kill she finished and showed of her beauty at a waterhole. We really hope to see her more often as it seems that her mom, the Little Bush female, has moved more to the east of the reserve.

Warthog Wallow seems to be doing well and her eye is looking a lot better than before. It might still affect her hunting ability as she is a bit on the skinny side but she did surprise us when she moved under a fallen over tree and came walking out with a duiker in her mouth.

The Southern Pride, with the two Charleston males, have been doing a lot of traveling in the last week. We have had some heart stopping moments as the two males were seen a few times not too far from where the one female is hiding her cubs. We hope that she can keep those little ones safe but the chances of survival are very slim as they might not be the offspring of the Charleston males.

The rest of the pride is looking good except for one female who seems to be very skinny and she has a bad right hip. She has been keeping up with the pride and had two meals that we know of in the last week, so we can only hope that her condition improves.

There is nothing better than seeing the whole pride together, especially when they make their way down to the water for a drink.

Now all we need is for the rest of the females to go into estrus so that the two males can start mating with them and hopefully result in some more cubs being born in the coming months.

It’s been a jam-packed week, full of cat sightings, something we are not shy of sharing as they are always a firm favourite amongst guests coming to Sabi Sabi. We hope this next week brings some much needed rains and more fantastic sightings!