With the new year in full swing the fauna and flora of Sabi Sabi has not disappointed us. Enjoy our experiences with us of the exciting moments that unfolded this past week.

SP

The Southern pride were moving close to Little Bush Camp as they searched the wide-open plains for a potential meal, unfortunately for them these plains weren't as active as they hoped and they settled down to sleep off the rest of 2018 and Carried it through to 2019. All five are still together and have been moving around quite a bit during the evenings which enables the guides and trackers to show off their incredible tracking abilities and great team work in order to find them for guests to view.

African Wild Dog

A pack of ten African Wild Dog were seen in our Southern property resting off the hot and humid day that we experienced. Later in the afternoon the pack were moving towards Earth Lodge where they came across a rather large herd of impala. With the reputation of being one of the most successful predators on the reserve, they were in luck and managed to bring down a fully-grown impala ewe. During all this commotion, they upset a leopardess, sending her up a large Marula tree and she only ventured down well after dark.

Maxabeni & Vine Snake

We spent some time with this large male leopard as he moved through the vegetation searching Warthog burrows for his next meal. As we did so, we stumbled across two very seldom seen Vine snakes who were perfectly camouflaged on a Sickle bush.

Ntsumi

Ntsumi was found lying up on a termite mound as a vantage point, ensuring her the best view of any meals which came to follow. A day later she was found with 2 impala kills. They were however too large for her to hoist up a tree, so we will have to see if anything came by to steal them during the day. As hyenas would, they claimed the meals for themselves and she was found later that day with a warthog piglet in the forks of a marula tree and later that evening caught herself a young impala lamb. She must have been pretty hungry to attempt all those hunts.

Hippo

A sneaky Hippopotamus bull appeared out the bushes in search for a larger body of water.

Rain

We have received some good rain over the reserve! Here, the Msuthlu River in front of Selati Camp is seen flowing for the first time this season! a few days after the rain we were treated to thousands of Alates (reproductive termites) leaving the protection of their mounds to create a castle of their own.

Scotia

We spent some time with this lovely leopardess as she took a rest on a termite mound. A few days later guests got another glimpse of her as she made her way through some thick vegetation.

Wildebeest

New life is coming with the changing of the season as many wildebeest cows have given birth.

White dam & Kigilia

We found Kigilia with a kill in the southern parts of our reserve having a wholesome meal one evening and to our surprise she was found again 2 days later around Little Bush Camp. One of the rangers noticed that she had made a kill and hoisted the kill in a knob thorn tree that was hanging over the fence at the staff village, which later fell down on the wrong side of the fence. We sat watching as she was taking a rest in the shade when the White dam male appeared and sent her scrambling up a tree where she constantly stared at his every move as he went in search of where the smell of the fresh meat was coming from. Later that morning the bushbuck was removed from the staff quarters for safety reasons. A hyena was found trying to snatch the kill from white dam but he did not seem to be interested in losing his meal. A great video was taken showing the interaction and persistence from both parties trying to claim the meat with the leopard emerging victorious, but only by mere inches as he managed to climb a large marula tree and keep his meal all for himself.

Zebra

This Zebra seemed to be running away from the monday blues.

A few bull elephants were having a drink on a warm day and decided a bit of friendly nudging was how they would leave the water hole.

It is also the little ones that matter and Louise and her guests got to spend some time with these dwarf mongoose as they all got ready for the evening.

Until next time...