MANAGERS REPORT

Dear Friends and Colleagues

I don’t think I can remember a September that has hit us so hard with temperatures soaring into the high thirties so early on in the month. We have already hit 39 degrees mid month and we have some forties predicted for the beginning of October already. Despite these temperatures, the game viewing has been amazing as you will see from the following Rangers Report.

Employee of the Month

Sam Makansi has been nominated as Employee of the Month for August, well done and well deserved. Sam tends to light up a room with his smile, which is almost as big as he is.

Leopard Hills Team

We bid farewell to Carmen in Reception and wish her well in her future endeavours, thank you for all the hard work you have put in to the Lodge in the time you have spent with us.

In turn we would like to welcome Debbie to the Team who will be replacing Carmen in Reception, wonderful to have you on board with us; we hope this will be a long and happy relationship.

Leopard in the Gym

For those of you who are avid reader and contributors to our weblog, you will have already read the exploits of the Hlaba Nkunzi female Leopard who paid us an early morning visit. She wandered into Camp during morning coffee, before the game drives had even departed, and made herself at home. Gary managed to get some outstanding pictures that followed her progress as she drank out of Suite 5 swimming pool and then proceeded down the pathway right through the middle of the Camp, and unbelievably sauntered into the gym for a good look around, as you will see from the pictures below, she was particularly intrigued by the treadmills.

Community Development

Thank you as always to everyone who has contributed so generously to the Day Care Centre, we have put these donations to good use and the children are doing exceptionally well at the facility.

Special mention of Ken and Ally Verdon and Simon and Michelle Orange who have contributed so much in getting the Day Care Centre up and running, it was a great privilege for us to be able to show you around the finished Project during your recent visit to the Lodge. Thanks to Ken for the pictures taken out in the Village on your last trip, they really capture the essence of what we are trying to achieve out there, and with you help, making it possible.

Thank you also for persisting in getting all the computers brought over from Australia, I appreciate how much “red tape” you had to go through to get them here. It must have been very rewarding to see them being out to good use at the Welani Primary School across the road from the Jeremiah Crèche.

Rangers Report

Over to Gary and Hannes for this months Report, some outstanding and unusual sightings this month.

Duncan and Louise Rodgers
Operations Director and General Manager

RANGERS REPORT

With the arrival of spring we were all awaiting the hotter weather that usually accompanies it but the days stayed cooler than usual. There were some really cold days when cold fronts blew in across the snow covered Drakensburg Mountains. Only now at the end of September is it finally warming up and will we be able to dive into the swimming pools again.

The bush is getting very dry now as our previous rainy season ended a little earlier than usual and if it arrives late this year we might run into some problems. Hopefully it will arrive middle to end October as it normally does. But the lack of rain has not kept the spring colours away! The Weeping Boor Beans are covered in red blossoms and even the beautiful purple flowers of the Apple Leaf are starting to make their appearance.

Leopard

The Tegwane male killed another one of our residential bush bucks in camp. He caught her in the early ours of the morning and dragged the carcass past the top swimming pool, under the deck and treed it in a branch overhanging the walkway to room 8! It was quite a hair raising experience walking under the kill towards room 8 to escort the guests to morning coffee knowing that the male cannot be far off. For safety reasons we moved the kill to the base of a tree about 40m away from the deck and at afternoon tea time the male returned, claiming back what was rightfully his and dragged it south towards the camp pan. Gary and Hannes had a great sighting that afternoon as we watched the Tegwan male take the kill up the big Jackal berry tree close to the waterhole. And then Makwela showed up the next day! We were very relieved to see her again as sightings of her had been limited this month due to the fact that she spent a lot of time on the mountain outside the game reserve where she had hidden her cubs.

As everyone knows Makwela has lost two of her cubs (see www.leopardhills.com/blog) but is still doing well. She seems to have had a fight and has a few injuries but they are only flesh wounds, sure that she will pull through.

The Hlaba Nkunzi female is also still trying to establish a territory and is still regularly seen in Leopard Hills camp. On one morning she walked straight through camp and into the gym, unbelievable!

Hannes, Gary and Raymond all got to see the Tegwane male leopard mate with the Hippo Dam female! This is a very rare sighting and we were very fortunate to see them mate on several occasions.

Mambiri and her cub have separated and are both still seen regularly down in the south. On one occasion Mambiri’s cub was found on a duiker kill. She very quickly hauled the kill up a nearby Marula tree; not even 2 minutes later a hyaena pitched up on the scene and as usual sat at the bottom of the tree waiting for the scraps.

The Thai Dam female and her cub have also been seen quite frequently, mostly near the Sand River, and she seems to be getting more relaxed with the vehicles.

Lions

The Mapogo’s are still around causing havoc wherever they go. Gary and his guests were fortunate enough to experience a once in a life time sighting of 4 of the Mapogos attacking and killing a baby rhino.

We got into the sighting just after sundown expecting to hear them at least roar, well weren’t we in for a surprise. The 4 big males got up and started walking south into the wind. All of a sudden they got serious; little did we know that there was a mother and calf rhino on the other side of the ridge. After a tense few minutes all 4 burst off into the darkness.

All hell broke loose and amongst all the madness they tackled a rhino calf, of course the mother rhino wasn’t too happy with this. After about half an hour of watching the feast we left the sighting and not a word on the way back to camp./>

The Sand River pride is going great guns; the 5 male cubs are growing up at a rate of knots. They ventured far out of their territory and were found lying at Leopard Hills camp pan. As lions do, they found a shady spot to lie down and were there the whole day.

Hannes, Raymond and their guests had a great sighting of the Sand River pride chasing the Thai dam female leopard up a tree. She had killed a bush buck and was looking for her youngster, calling out every few minutes. The lions were in the area; hearing her calling for her cub, they came to investigate. As soon as they saw her they charged but luckily the leopard was quick enough and shot up one of the big Jackal berry trees on the river bank. The lions soon lost interest and started to move east down the river. After following them for about 400m we came across a very unusual sighting; a big male hippo was also walking down the river and the young males started chasing him! The hippo ran as fast as his stubby legs could carry him but after a hundred meters he turned around and faced the lions. Luckily for him the males are still young (not even 2 years old) but it shows us that once they are grown up we will be able to expect some unreal sightings from their part!/>

One of the Ximungwe females was found mating with one of the Mapogos. This is a 5 day affair so we had some great viewing. If all went well she should be expecting in about 90 days from now. Watch this space!!!!!!

Thanks to Paul Distefeld for the images.

Rhino

Other than being 1 rhino less, the sightings have been great.

Gary and his guests went out on a mission to find and view rhino. At the end of the morning and afternoon drive a total of 23 different rhinos had been spotted. This I hear is a record for Leopard Hills. Not too bad.

The female with the extremely long horn is now allowing us to get a little closer to her and her youngster.

Buffalo

The big herd of buffalo was seen a few times.  It seems that the 400 odd have now separated into a few different herds of about 100 strong.

The last time they were around they brought some yellow billed ox peckers with them. These birds are very rare to see.

Elephant

A lot of smaller herds have been around, not moving too far from the water holes.

Our camp pan has been a source of water to them, needless to say that they have been keeping our guests entertained through out breakfast and lunch.

The big old bull with the one long tusk is also still in the area. Gary saw him lying down a couple of days ago and almost thought that the big giant had met his end… Luckily he was just taking his weight of his legs. It is a very unusual sighting since big elephants rarely lie down; they even sleep standing up!

Wild dog

The 4 dogs that were around 4 months ago have grown to 9, with the addition of 5 pups. They have been seen on a couple of occasions. Gary and his guests were lucky to have seen them all on a duiker kill, running around our land rover for 20 minutes.

On another occasion the pack of dogs was seen well into our traversing area digging in a termite mound, this meant that they were going to be around for a few days making this their den. One of the pups seemed to have a gash on its back, hopefully it will pull through.

This is a very rare sighting with an estimated 250 dogs left in the greater Kruger area and about 300 left in the whole of South Africa.

Cheetah

The single male cheetah still made his usual rounds into our traversing area this month but we were also blessed with a couple of sightings of a coalition of 3 young males! The males entered our traversing area in the north and made their way straight through the middle towards the south, walking right through Leopard Hills! The poor cheetahs got the fright of their life as they walked past our camp and through the Mabrak River towards our camp pan; as they came up the bank and close to the pan they walked straight into the Tegwan male, Makwela female and one unknown male leopard! They stopped dead in their tracks, gave one loud hiss and high tailed out of the area at top cheetah speed before any of the leopards had time to register what was going on!

Special sightings:

Gary had a “LIFER” at the river: a Squacco heron.

Hannes and Gary had a sighting of a Civet each.

Till next month.

Marius Coetzee and the Leopard Hills ranger team

Sightings Totals

Leopard : 37
Lion  : 30
Rhino  : 37  
Buffalo : 41
Elephant : 17
Cheetah : 6
Wild dog : 5
Serval  : 2
Civet  : 2
Hyaena : 7