MANAGERS REPORT

Dear Friends and Colleagues

Here we are at the end of October and really closing in on the end of the year. The rains haven't really started with the "bang" we were expecting with the rising temperatures recorded earlier last month. We have has a couple of minor storms and a very welcoming 18mm of rain, the first of the Season. Very shortly now we are going to see an amazing transition to the bush and the dry brown vegetation will be replaced by a carpet of green.

We will be hoping to report back on some considerable rainfall in the next months Report.

So many familiar faces back in the Bush with us this month.

It was great to see so many friends back with us at the Lodge this month. James and Debbie Monteith and Tim and Jan Warner joined us at the beginning of the month, sorry you had to put up with me for the first drive, but I had fun being out there!!!!

It was also wonderful to have Ian and Kath Botham back with us during the month with the Family; we had an amazing 5 days of great game viewing and fun and laughs, and the last evening in the Boma saw R1200 raised through fines for the Orphanage, thanks to everyone’s contributions.

A Memorable return visit with the Wells/Hossick family

The end of the month saw the return of Trevor and Theresa Wells and their family and friends for a return visit. We marked the occasion with a game of football against Exeter Lodge, wasn’t quite the result we were looking for, but at least we came second. Not a bad first effort by all concerned on the Leopard Hills side, especially as most the lads came from very different playing conditions back in England, and the Exeter side play on a regular basis as a Team together.

Much fun was had by all and we are looking at making this an annual fixture. Well done to the Team and the outstanding support shown by the Ladies.

 

 

 

Rangers Report

Marius has compiled this months Rangers Report and I thoroughly enjoyed my 4 day Safari at the end of the month, as always I keep threatening to get out more, and if this last 4 days has been anything to go by, I have been missing out. A great month, great sightings and great fun.

On finishing up this Report this morning, our night shift staff reported at 01h00 this morning, the Tegwane male Leopard and the Makwela female Leopard were observed mating in Leopard Hills Reception area on the Persia carpet, talk about a class act, I think you will all agree that Leopard Hills is truly well named. Check out blog for the full story.

Until next time.

Duncan and Louise Rodgers
Operations Director and General Manager

RANGERS REPORT

We had another month of some of the finest game viewing in Africa. The biggest news of all is that our beloved Makwela has returned and even though she has lost all 3 her cubs seeing and hearing her again on an almost daily basis brings a warm feeling to our hearts. We also had our first rain of the season and in a couple of weeks the bush will be transformed into a lush green paradise.

Leopard

Makwela female leopard made her return to our reserve and without wasting any time found the Tekwaan male leopard to mate. The Tekwaan male leopard is our new territorial male leopard and has now for the past 4 months claimed the Leopard Hills property as the core of his territory. Night after night we get woken up by his rasping saw-like call as he proclaims his territory as the new prince of the Western Sector.

All 3 our guides saw them mating and ask any guide, there is nothing more exciting than seeing leopards mating. The mating ritual last for anything between 4-6 days, and actual copulation can be about every 20 minutes. If copulation is successful, after a period of 90 -100 days the female leopard will give birth.

In the last month once again we viewed no less than 14 individual leopards behaving naturally around our game viewing vehicles as if we don’t even exist. The Tai Dam female’s youngster was found in a tree with a neatly stashed bushbuck kill. After watching her for a while a single young male lion from the Sand River Pride arrived at the scene, we were amazed to see the young lion all by himself, and not in the company of his four brothers. After accessing the situation, the lion tried to climb the tree and after a while gave up. The young female leopard left the kill and after coming down the tree disappeared in the thick under growth of the river avoiding any possible dangers that might occur later.

Gary and his guest watched the Tai Dams female’s youngster successfully stalk and catch a fully grown bushbuck. Gary arrived at the sighting, and after waiting for a while saw the leopard running up the Northern river bank in hot persuade after the bushbuck where she caught it. She left the kill and run up a massive Jackal Berry tree just to return to it and with a coup de grace killed the bushbuck. Later that afternoon she hoisted the kill and once again reminded us why leopards are the perfect animal.

Lion

If you ever had mating lions on your safari agenda, Leopard Hills was to place to be in the last month. With no less than 3 different mating pairs we had an absolute blast viewing and photographing lions mating.

When most of the mating ended we had a great sighting of four of the Mapopo male lions together. Three of the male lions tracked the oldest male lion in the coalition down that was still busy mating with one of the females. And on an overcast morning safari Hannes found them all together feeding of waterbuck kill.

The Sand River Pride still frequents the dry Sand River and as in the previous 2 months capitalizing on the amount of animals that comes down to settle their thirst. Their main prey at the moment consists of Nyala, Bushbuck and Kudu antelope and they have truly changed their hunting strategy in becoming supreme day time hunters. The Ximungwe Pride which main territory consists of the Southern and Central part of our reserve also had an extremely good month and made several impala, kudu and wildebeest kills. One evening Hannes and I watched the Pride stalking and hunting a group of 16 buffalo bulls. Unfortunately for the lions, the massive buffalo bulls were well up for the challenge and after several attempts the Pride gave up and left in search for something a “little easier” for dinner that night.

 

Cheetah

We had an absolute treat with cheetah sightings in the last month. We had repeat visits from our territorial male cheetah and furthermore had great sightings of a female cheetah and her almost full grown male cub. The two cheetahs spent several days in our traversing area and provided our guests with some amazing viewing and photographic opportunities.

 

Elephant

Almost on a daily basis we had the opportunity to view herds and herds of elephants.
On an afternoon safari my guests and I were sitting in the Sand River surrounded by more than 80 elephants. With the golden light seeping through the massive Jackal Berry and Leadwood trees the scene were absolutely perfect for viewing and photographing these majestic pachyderms.

Rhino

The Sabi Sand Game Reserve is one of the best places in Africa to view white rhinos.
We now have a crash of 8 rhino that always travel together. Furthermore we also see loads of territorial bulls and females with little calves.

Buffalo

Even though the big herd of buffalo was absent most of the month we still had regular sightings of the various bulls all around our reserve.

Special sightings:

The Leopard Hills guides had some very special sightings this month and the highlight is definitely a massive python that caught an impala antelope. We also had several sightings of nocturnal civets, genets, and a serval cat. Most of the migratory birds have arrived and the various specie of cuckoo’s can be heard during the day.

Till next month.

Marius Coetzee and the Leopard Hills guides.