MANAGERS REPORT

Dear Friends and Colleagues

I am delighted to begin this Report with news of fantastic early rains, and already as a result of this, the bush has turned green before our eyes. No matter how many years I have spent in the bush, I am always amazed at the transition that transpires when the first rains arrive and almost overnight a change miraculously happens. We are experiencing the first thunderstorms of the Season and this is creating some wonderful light shows late into the nights and the early hours of the morning. The dust has settled and by some strange twist of the imagination, even the animals look cleaner. With the early rains we would expect to see an early lambing of the Impalas this year, who knows, maybe we will have something to report back on in the Octobers Report.

The Lodge

As with the surrounding bush, the Lodge has taken on a new beauty of its own and the gardens are flourishing. We have entered the unpredictable era of Boma dinners and have already had to head for the Library as the heavens have opened, with dessert dishes in hand.

The Leopard Hills Team

Congratulations to Hannes for passing his Tracking Course this month, a great achievement and a good result. I believe we are now the only Lodge I know of that is operating will all of our Rangers and Trackers qualified with the cyber tracker qualification, well done to you all for setting the standard as always.

In addition we would like to welcome Luckson Nkuna to our Team; he is joining Eliot in the Maintenance Department and is proving so efficient that things are being fixed even before they break, wonderful to have him on board.

Employee of the Month

As mentioned last month, we have now instituted an employee of the month award, and I very pleased to announce that for the month of September, this has been won by Ronnie Mkansi from our Gardening and Maintenance Team, well done Ronnie on a wonderful achievement.

Until next month, take care and we look forward to seeing you soon out on Safari with us at Leopard Hills.

Duncan and Louise Rodgers
Operations Director and General Manager

 

 

COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT

Hello to all,

September was a fantastic month in terms of Fund raising. Megan and Kiara Rodgers, with Louise’s help, held a sale of all the beaded jewellery that they have been busy making over the last few months; this resulted in the raising of R1300 for the Crèche. Thank you too all the Guests and Staff who purchased the Products, it was a fantastic effort and special thanks to Megan and Kiara for the hours and hours of hard work that went into this.

Part of the money was used to purchase food for the children, which brings me to another fantastic surprise: Henry Haarhoff and the Team at Malelane Superspar have very kindly extended us a 10% discount on purchases made there. Thank you so much for your generosity.

Last month Duncan mentioned the rearing of the red tape. I am ecstatic to advise that this has been sorted, and we can finally go ahead with the building, and are currently sorting out final paperwork, however, we are looking at changing the location of the crèche. We will be getting building supplies at cost price, from Build It. We are currently looking to build on to the existing Crèche, Jeremiah. Originally Jeremiah was the only crèche in Dumphries A, but due to large numbers of children attending the school, an offshoot was created. However, with a number of children being moved to the Grade R class at Welani Primary School, there is no need for a second crèche as all the children can be accommodated in one central spot. The location makes such good sense, especially as Sandra has been employed full time at the Welani Primary School across the road from Jeremiah, so she can still keep an eye on the children she has looked after for so many years, and there are very qualified Care Givers at Jeremiah to look after the children moving across from Sandra’s old Crèche.

We plan to use the donations raised to build a completely new facility at Jeremiah that can add value to all the children moving across from Sandra’s old Crèche and to all the existing children at the Jeremiah Crèche. The new location is also an asset to all concerned as it is in a much more central location within the Dumphries A Community, making easier for the children to get to and from the facility.

We would also like to thank Jen from Pride and Purpose for all the help in getting the new location sorted out and for her contacts in getting approval for the building to take place at the Jeremiah location.

I would like to thank the following guests for their monetary donations – thank you very much to all of you. The money will certainly be put to excellent use. In the next few months, we will keep you updated with the building and other news.

• Tricia & Alan Sturrock
• Marilyn Williams
• Mike & Shona Price

Last but definitely not the least, regular guests and friends of ours, Ken and Ally Verdon, have donated 28 Computers which will be used at the computer centre at Welani Primary School, located in Dumphries A. Thank you both so much for this wonderful donation. I am sure the children will be extremely grateful for this.

Until next month, keep well.

Maretha

RANGERS REPORT

Over to Marius and the Team for this months Rangers Report for all the happenings out and about in the bush. We would like to thank Sepp Disch for his pictures of the Narina Trogon, the Lion versus Hyena and Makwela and her cub. I would also like to thank Mark and Andrea Scholes for the pictures of the Ground Hornbill attacking the Tortoise.

Look forward to keeping you up-dated in next months Report

Rangers Report

The month of September can be described as “simply unbelievable” with several sightings of African Wild Dog and pups and great predator interaction between lion, hyena and leopard not to mention Hannes and his guests witness two bull rhinos having a full on fight in the Sand River. Day time temperatures are really warming up and some days we even recorded up to 40 degrees Celsius. At the end of the month the heavens opened up above Leopard Hills and we received two days of phenomenal almost non-stop rain.

African Wild Dog

The long wait for African Wild Dog the second rarest predator in Africa is over but this time it was not the 2 wild dogs that we wrote about earlier in the year but a female with 3 pups. All of the Leopard Hills rangers spent some quality time with these fascinating animals over several days. Duncan even took the staff out one afternoon to show them the Painted Wolves feeding off a duiker, for many of our staff even for those that has worked at Leopard Hills for several years seeing wild dogs for the first time was an experience not to be forgotten.

Leopard

Not only did we see an astonishing amount of different leopards in the month of September but we also saw some phenomenal behaviour from the “Perfect’ animal. My guests and I were fortunate enough to witness one of natures most special sightings, that of leopards mating.

On an evening drive I got a radio call from one of my colleagues telling me that he was watching two leopards mating and I needed to come quickly. As we arrived at the scene we saw a young male leopard unknown to us. After about 20 minutes a female leopard appeared out of some thickets, she immediately started to flirt with the male and the two leopards mated right in front of our Land Rover a very special sighting indeed.

It is well known that the territories of female leopards overlap and the Mambiri female leopard was seen closer and closer to our Lodge. On an afternoon safari Hannes and his guests saw the Makwela female leopard steeling an impala kill from the Mambiri female leopard and her cub .On another occasion my guests and I saw the Mambiri female and her cub playing for more than an hour while guarding there reedbuck kill high above them hoisted into a Leadwood tree.

On a rainy evening my guests and I had another awesome sighting when the Shangwa female came across her now fully grown youngster lying in a massive Jackal Berry tree. It is widely recorded that once a female leopard becomes independent from her mother all bonds will be broken and being extremely territorial the resident female leopard will fight with any other female leopard that she may come across in her territory, off-spring or not. The young female leopard that was feeding of a nyala lamb kill got a massive surprise when her mother jumped into the tree, in a split second the young female jumped to the highest possible branch and was growling and snarling at her mother. To our surprise the Shangwa female didn’t take the kill and moved away from the scene shortly after.

Lions

The two unknown lionesses that we wrote about last month once again had a run in with their old age enemies, hyenas. In the southern part of our traversing area my guests and I had a sighting for almost two hours as the hyenas tried to steal a wildebeest kill from the lionesses and their single approximately 1 year old male cub. The hyenas kept on calling for back up and in no time at all there were 14 hyenas on the scene. Every time the hyenas regrouped and launched an attacked the lionesses challenged right back. Eventually the hyenas gave up and went to lie down with the hopes that the lionesses would move away from the kill.

Our beloved coalition of 5 male lions made a return into our area in the end of the month. On one of our evening game drives we were very fortunate to see the 2 Sand River female lions introduce 3 of the males to their new cubs. The males weren’t too phased and after a while moved away from the females and cubs. The Sand River females had a phenomenal month and all of our guides spend lots of time with them and their cubs.

In contrast the Ximungwe Pride of lions is experiencing one tragedy after the other. Our game scouts told us one morning that during the night the Mapogo male lions killed another one of the youngsters, we really hope that this pride of lions can recover from all the misfortune they have had in the last two years and once again rule the southern part of our area.

On a good note, for the first time in a very long time we have seen lions at the pan in front of our lodge.

Elephant

We are still seeing a phenomenal amount of elephant in our traversing area and herds up to 80 animals are a common site all along the Sand River. We also had several sightings of 3 massive bulls in the Southern part of our area; all three the bulls weighed more than 6 tons. One of these bulls is probably the biggest ‘Tusker’ that I have seen in the Western Sector of the Sabi Sand Reserve with both tusks weighing at least 60 pounds each.

Rhinos

Hannes and his guests saw two massive male rhinos having a full on territorial fight in the Sand River one morning. The two bulls who almost fought to the death nearly took out Hannes’s game drive vehicle. It was definitely an exciting experience for those on board his vehicle.

In the southern part of our traversing area rhinos are almost guaranteed and rhinos were almost seen on a daily basis at Leopard Hills in the past month.

Buffalo

The big herd of almost 500 individuals spend almost the whole month of September in our traversing area. The good news is that the herd has split in two and the different herds are seen often in our area. Seeing these massive animals moving in and around the Sand River was indeed a treat.

We also still see numerous sightings of the big bulls all around our reserve and especially around the lodge where they frequent the now very green and lush clearings.

Specials

Hannes and his guests were treated to the rare sight of two crocodiles mating .Something that is a rare sight to see. We also had numerous sightings of the lesser known nocturnal creatures including civet cat, genet and several sightings of serval cat. On the birding front the Narina Trogon that arrived last month was seen frequently in the beginning of the month, and Gary and his guests saw 6 Ground Hornbills killing and eating a tortoise.

Till next month ranger greetings

Marius, Hannes, Gary and Raymond

Sightings totals for the Month

Lion:37 Leopard:52 Elephant:96 Buffalo:14 Rhino:38 Cheetah:1 Wild Dog:3

Note: The above sightings totals reflect the number of individual sightings of animals, not populations of animals in the area. e.g. If we see a herd of 12 buffalo this is noted as one sighting. These sightings are then tallied to get the figure reflected above.