You know you’ve had an excellent day when you start your day with a breathtaking sunrise and end your day with a spectacular sunset... and when everything else between isn’t too bad either...

Welcome to another edition of “A Week in the Bush”, and what a week it has been with sightings of the “Magnificent 7”!!!

The “Magnificent 7” comprises of lion, leopard, buffalo, elephant, rhino, cheetah and wild dog – and we saw plenty of each of these...

We enjoyed numerous cheetah sightings – always very special sightings, especially when you see two in one sighting!

Wild dogs have been around a lot this week and were causing mayhem amongst three zebra stallions who chased them around! Something extra special to seeing wild dogs – is seeing mating wild dogs!! Let’s hope we get to see some little pups around in about 70 days...

Something else we didn’t expect to see this week – rain! Winter is our dry season, but over the weekend we had some rain fall on the reserve – very welcome rain, in a time when the bush should be drying out.

A female Spotted hyena was seen dragging an impala kill through the bush. It seemed that she was on a mission somewhere – possibly heading to her den site to feed her cubs.

Leopards have been in abundance this week!

Maxabeni, the dominant male in the area, was on a mission this week seeking a meal. We watched him walk from termite mound to termite mound looking for any signs of warthogs at their burrows; and later in the week, we watched him stalk some impala.

The young White Dam male has been seen following the scent of a female, potentially in oestrus.

We have been treated once again with the appearance of Little Bush and her cub! Mom had provided another meal for herself and her cub. There was a young impala lamb hanging in the tree where the leopards were and they seem to have had their fill when we found them as they were lazing around having a nap in the tree.

Under a beautiful night sky, the Ntsumi female showed off her agility and impressive hunting technique as she secured herself a meal and managed to get it to safety before some hyenas moved into the area.

The Mhangeni sub-adult lions were located in the West of our reserve after their tracks were found some distance away - the young lions have been covering great distances presumably in search of a good meal. Finally, luck for the sub-adults as an African Cape Buffalo had died of natural causes, next to one of the watering holes.

Two sub adults from the Southern Pride were found on a fresh kudu bull carcass. We are not sure how long they have been there and if they had made the kill themselves. Not much is left of the kill but good to know they have full bellies.

While stopped looking at some amazing birdlife, we heard alarm calls from a kudu which was not too far away. We made our way towards the kudu and were met by two Eyrefield/Sparta lionesses and two Avoca lions crossing over the road in front of us. We followed them for a while before they rested in a nice shady area as the heat from the sun increased.

We end this week’s blog with some of the other members of the Big 5 as well as plains game and birdlife...

Until next time...