MANAGERS REPORT

Hello Everyone.

As the colours of the bush change from green to brown, the temperatures too are getting decidedly cooler; already jackets and beanies are the order of the day for the early morning drives.

As is usual for this time of the year, as the denser summer vegetation gives way to the sparser winter undergrowth, we are getting some of the more unusual sightings, including a very rare sighting of a Pangolin, scaly ant eater. Indeed this way Gary’s first sighting of one, and I will leave it to him to describe his feelings of jubilation as he witnessed this amazing sight.

The Lodge

With the waterholes starting to dry up and the game having to walk further to drink, we are getting more and more visitors to the Private Plunge Pools at the Suites. Thank you to Richard Buy for the picture taken of the Elephants right outside his window at Suite 5.

We have also had a visitor of the feline variety hanging around the rooms, Makwela’s youngster has also spent time lying up on the Private Decks of the Suites, thanks to Brooks Crowe for the great picture taken from his bed, he woke up from his afternoon siesta to see a leopard drinking not six feet from the bottom of his bed.

Employee of the Month

Congratulations to Amos from the Kitchen Department on achieving the accolade of Employee of the Month; well deserved for all the hard work he has put in.

Leopard Hills Weblog

The Leopard Hills Weblog, www.leopardhills.com/blog, has really taken off, and I would like to thank everyone for their contributions and comments, the response has been outstanding. Although it is a tool whereby we can add up to date happenings in and around the Lodge, we will continue with the Monthly Rangers Reports as we feel these are a good overview of the month’s sightings.

Community Development

I have attempted to keep everyone updated with the developments on the weblog and the most current news on the building progress. Everything is going ahead as planned, and apart from a major hail storm that set the project back a bit, we are hoping to have a completion date within the next few months.

Rangers Report

Over to Gary and Hannes for this months Report, and thanks to them both for the photos in this months Report, and anyone else I have failed to mention.

This months Rangers Report comprises of photos taken exclusively by our Guests.

Take Care and kind regards.

Duncan and Louise Rodgers
Operations Director and General Manager

Rangers Report

Leopard cubs, lion cubs, pangolins, cheetahs, Cape clawless otters… This is just a few things to describe this month’s mind blowing game viewing!

As the bush is putting on her winter coat it is becoming easier to find all the animals and the light for photography is just perfect! There is colour everywhere as some of the leaves are turning yellow and red and the sunrise and sunsets are breathtaking. Jerseys and jackets are becoming a must for the early mornings and late afternoons.

Lions

We had mating lions again this month! The big Mapogo male mated with one of the Ximungwe females for a couple of days, giving us great viewing of this special lion behavior. Hannes and his guests followed them on their ‘last night’ together. After mating for the last time the male simply left the female and walked away, not showing any further interest what so ever. He then started roaring, obviously ravenous after his 4 day fast, looking for his 5 brothers. The female went back and joined the Ximungwe pride again.

The Ximungwe pride is doing really great. They also visited Leopard Hills one afternoon and drank water from room 5’s swimming pool!

On game drive one afternoon, June spotted the young male lion lying down on one of the side roads we passed. As we drove closer we got the stench of rotting flesh and found that they had killed a zebra. The Big old Ravenscourt male also seems to be spending a lot of time with them but his days were almost numbered one afternoon!

Hannes and June found him and the young male lion lying in an open grass clearing late one afternoon. The young male, about 3 and 1/2 years old, decided that it was the time in his life to start roaring. After a couple of grunts the old male showed him how it should be done and continued to roar roughly every 20 minutes for the rest of the afternoon. But unaware to both of them was the fact that the old Mapogo male lion had heard them and was making his way South at an incredible pace! Hannes heard the update about the Mapogo on the radio and decided to wait. Eventually, after about 40 minutes he made his appearance. The Ravenscourt male jumped up and the two had a standoff for a couple of minutes. Every time the Ravenscourt male moved the Mapogo male growled and as he turned and took a couple of steps away the Mapogo male ran in and started the chase! The two stared running, the Mapogo male roaring constantly on the run and chased the Ravenscourt male for a good 2 kilometers! Even though there was no serious fight it was a great, exciting sighting and the Ravenscourt male kept on running for another 2 kilometers after the old Mapogo male gave up the chase!

The Othawa pride also moved back into our traversing area and gave us great sightings of their 7 new 3 month old cubs!

Wild Dog

Hannes and his guests were blessed with an unforgettable wild dog sighting. These dogs must be one of the most difficult creatures to follow through the bush as they always trot at an incredible pace, but this day was different! There was one male and he had caught an impala. Wild dogs have to eat as much as possible as quick as possible in order to get enough meat before other predators come and steal it from them. This male gorged himself and moved away a couple of times, regurgitating meat and burying it, trying to hide it so that he can return again later when there is space in his belly. They also heard the male calling his mate, a sound that we do not get to hear often here in the Sabi Sands!

We also had a pack of 4 adults that popped in for a day. Wild dog is an endangered species of which only about 300 are left in Southern Africa!

Elephant

As the bush is getting drier and drier the elephants are visiting the water hole in front of camp more often. We have also had a few occasions where they drank out of the swimming pools at room 5, 6 and 7!

A group of 8 bulls that are hanging around in the area were spotted regularly as well as a few herds with very young calves! These are always fun to watch as they are constantly busy shoving and pushing each other around!

Rhino

On an afternoon game drive, Hannes decided to go and have a look at the big 4m crocodile that had been released in Wallingford dam. Arriving at the dam, they found a skittish rhino cow and her calf drinking water. The crocodile was sunbathing not far away and was almost trampled by the two rhinos as they made their quick retreat away from the water!

The crash of 6, very relaxed rhinos, including the cow with the extremely long horn, is still in the area and always provide excellent sightings as they do not seem to mind the vehicles at all.

Leopard

Hannes was having lunch with some of his guests up on the main deck overlooking the water hole one afternoon. All of a sudden a herd of impala that had been grazing around the water hole, bust into flight and broke the afternoon silence with their alarm calls. One of the impalas was not running away with the rest of the herd and when he fixed the spotting scope on it he saw that there was a leopard hanging on to it! Makwela's youngster had done it again! Right in front of camp, at lunch time with all the guests present!

After tea time they went on game drive and went down to have a closer look. She had caught a fully grown female impala! All the previous kills had been young animals so we were all very proud of her. It also proves that, even though she only became independent a few weeks ago, she will have no problem taking care of herself.

Makwela has a new litter! We have not seen the cubs yet but Themba, the ranger from Ulu Lapa (the self catering lodge on the same property as Leopard Hills) said that he heard the interaction between mother and cubs happening right under the pool deck! This will be her 9th litter!

Shangwa brought her new cubs out for only a few days to show us. They are estimated to be about 7 weeks old. Gary and his guests were privileged to see them crossing the sand river within 20 metres from the land cruiser.

Makubela, another one of Shangwa’s youngsters, seems to be pregnant so we should be expecting a new litter soon.

Buffalo

The big herd of +- 400 animals has been popping in and out more and more in the last month. Gary and Hannes with their guests were lucky enough to have been in the middle of the herd when 2 bulls broke out into a serious fight which Gary and Hannes had never seen before. The 2 bulls went at it tooth and nail as if their life depended on it. After about 5 minutes one of the bulls gave up and ran away.

We were also fortunate to see a stand off between 2 buffalo bulls and the Xhimungwe pride of lions. There wasn’t much of an effort for the buffalo because the pride wasn’t keen for that fight.

Pangolin

This month has been unbelievable; Gary and his guests have seen 2 pangolins. This is a once in a lifetime sighting and it happened twice this month. The first of the two was quite shy and didn’t really open up to us, but the second was up and parading just so we could take photos. Hannes and his guests were lucky enough to join in on this one!

Both of these sightings caused a big stir and rangers were coming from far and wide to see this amazing animal.

Bush Greetings,
Marius Coetzee and the Leopard Hills rangers.

Sightings totals for the Month

Elephant:43 Rhino:33 Buffalo:19 Lion:41 Leopard:30 Cheetah:10 Wild Dog:5 Pangolin:2 Cape Clawless Otter:1

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.