Spots and stripes

It felt almost impossible that I was going to be able to top the mornings drive after our close encounter with the pride of lions, but with unwavering optimism we set out on the afternoon safari. My aim was take the guests through to the kill that our female leopard, Nottens, and her cub were on and maybe see some rhino and other general game.

First to grace us with its enormous presence were three rhinos that were grazing around a mud wallow. As we watched they all took turns to go into the wallow and cake them selves in mud. Each one leaving the pool and heading to trees to use as rubbing posts. While watching them a buffalo had the same idea in mind and approached the wallow with caution making sure that the rhinos were not going to do anything unexpected. Once he made it into the wallow his demeanour changed from that of an old man to a child…he was rolling and horning the mud as if he had never encountered something so amazing!

Unfortunately on our way to the rhinos one of the other vehicles went to relocate on Nottens and her cub but could only find the cub lying in long grass, mother nowhere to be seen and the visual of the little one not worth the effort in going to see. However, I knew that as it neared darkness the cub would be forced to seek safety in the tree so we went to try our luck. As we drove in, the little guy jumped onto the trunk of the tree, stared at us for a second and then ascended. He then proceeded to pose like a super model for our cameras. He was not the only one there and we soon saw the ominous looking hyaena waiting patiently for some scraps to fall out of the tree.

This mornings plan was to see if we could find some giraffe and zebra and then just enjoy the smaller things. Unexpectedly we found a herd of 19 zebra on one of the open areas. This is by far the largest herd I have seen in my year at Sabi Sabi. With them were some wildebeest and impala and they seemed way to interested with something other than the usual feeding and grooming. We went to go investigate and saw a number of vultures in the trees and assumed that there must be something there. We headed out on foot to see if we could find what had attracted the vultures or find whatever predator had attracted the attention of all the herbivores. It wasn’t long before we saw a male leopard slinking off into the long grass. We only got to see him for a short while as he moved towards a major thicket in the river and there was no way to get in.

We had one last animal to find before my guests left and that was the giraffe. Fortunately some had been spotted and we headed out to see them. These majestic creatures were far off but still worth the sighting and this left all the guests smiling and ready for breakfast.