July 2018

Game Sightings

Lion (Panthera Leo)

We’ve had some really great lion sightings this month and even an close encounter with the young lioness of the southern pride. She has become very inquisitive of the vehicles and is coming very close, the one drive it looked like she was going to jump into the vehicle. The Dinokeng and Thembe male finally met up on Lilly dam road where there was a big fight and the Thembe chased the Dinokeng back into the south. The cubs of the western pride have really grown a lot and the young males have started to grown their manes, the sightings of them however have not been so great this month as they have moved to the north western part of the reserve making it really difficult to find them.

Leopard (Panthera Pardus)

This past month unfortunately there were only two sightings of leopard and they were both very brief. The one was a female that was hunting impala at our access road, she was successful in the hunt as we found the carcass of the impala the next morning. The second sighting was a young male in the Sterkstroom valley which crossed the road in front of us on an afternoon drive back to the lodge. We got a good view of him but he didn’t hang around for to long.

Buffalo (Syncerus Caffer)

There have been some good buffalo sightings this month and the two old dagga boys have been hanging around broken bridge at the mud wallow where we often found them wallowing in the mud. These old boys love to wallow and keep cool in the mud but also the mud helps with removing irritating parasites such as ticks. The reserve is however getting another herd of buffalo which will be released into the reserve as they are used to lions and will not be easy picking for the lions.

Elephant (Loxodonta Africana)

Elephants have been all over the reserve, the main breeding herd has been around the Taaibos area and as well as Leopard and Rhino dam. We had an amazing sighting of over 45 elephants around leopard dam the one afternoon where they were drinking and taking a swim. The reserve has put out game blocks to supplement the animals and the elephants love them and can often be found in the areas where the management place these blocks.

Other interesting sightings

We had a great sighting of a small herd of Nyala in the Taaibos which was a first for me as there are not many of them in the reserve. Nyala do not naturally occur this far up but seem to thrive in the Waterberg region as you find many of them in reserves in the area. We also had some good giraffe sightings around the central part of the reserve.

From and around the lodge

Our resident Klipspringer have been hanging around quite a bit lately and we often have them around the rooms and staff quarters. The baboons have also been around coming down to the lodge in the early mornings and afternoons when the guests are out on game drives. They often check for a open door or window to try and get in and steal something out a room.

Birds

One morning we were extremely lucky to witness a juvenile fish eagle attempting to catch fish in the Sterkstroom river. Unlike most true eagles fish eagles do not have feathers on their legs and you will see in the photo that it still has its juvenile plumage. Unfortunately it was unsuccessful at its attempt to hunt.