FEBRUARY 2009 MANAGERS REPORT

Hello from a very wet and humid Game Reserve. To date we have experienced roughly twice our annual rainfall and it doesn’t look like it is over yet. Despite this, we have had some extraordinary sightings this month, mainly of the Wild Dogs, who have been spending most of their time on our Traversing area this month.

The Sand River has been up in flood most of the month, making access to the North a little difficult.

 Having crossed the Causeway early one morning to venture into the Northern Sector, the river began to rise. On returning to the Causeway on our way home, due to extensive rain in the catchment area, the river had raised a little bit, but not substantially. Having crossed half way, the vehicle unfortunately cut out, leaving us in the middle of the Causeway, but the water level was still not excessive, so we called for another vehicle to transfer onto and left our vehicle on the Causeway while we organized a Tractor to come and pull the stranded vehicle across. Due to a delay in being able to locate the recovery vehicle, we noticed that the river had risen substantially in the 10 minutes we had been waiting, and it became apparent the river was coming up in a flash flood. We had to sit helplessly while we watched the water level rise about 5 feet in 15 minutes and eventually the inevitable happened, the vehicle was washed off the side of the Causeway into the river below. By this time the river was a raging torrent and our Game Drive Vehicle was completely consumed by the river, no where to be seem.

It took 24 hrs before we could even locate the vehicle, and unbelievably it was sitting upright facing up river just below the Causeway, with only the top of the canopy visible. I spend hours a day travelling up and down to the river to see if the river had subsided enough to get an idea of how we were going to extract the vehicle and how much damage it had sustained. It took over a week for the river to have subsided enough to get to the stricken vehicle; our recovery was hampered by some pretty large Crocodiles who had taken up residence in the pool where the vehicle was sitting. With the use of a very long step ladder, we managed to walk across safely and attach the winch cables needed to pull the vehicle out.

Unbelievably, when we got the vehicle onto dry land and it must be remembered that the vehicle had been totally submerged for over a week, there was not a scratch on it, and I mean not even one scratch. As if this was not enough, I heard from the Land Rover dealership yesterday than once everything was cleaned out, the vehicle started first time, incredible to say the least, and a pretty good endorsement for an amazing vehicle.

I think the pictures below will tell their own story.

 

Staff

We would like to welcome Izanne to the Team; she joins us in the Food and Beverage Department as Senior Sous Chef.  Jessie has moved over to Djuma Game Reserve in the Northern Sabi Sands, which is now part of our Seasons In Africa Group, and is heading up the Food and Beverage Department up there. We wish Jessie all the best and thank her for all the contributions she made during her time with us at Leopard Hills.

Familiar Faces

February saw the return of so many familiar faces, Sepp and Megan Dish paid us a visit for eight nights mid month, as did Trevor and Teresa Wells who were with me on the morning our Land Rover became a submarine, thanks for being there, it made the experience so much more worth while, sharing it with such good mates, hopefully we wont have any similar escapades on our shark fishing adventures down in Plettenberg Bay in a couple of weeks, see you soon.

It was also wonderful to have Tom and Enid Taylor with us again, always special to spend time with you in the bush, we all wish you special blessings for your milestone anniversary coming up later this year.

Rangers Report

This months Report has been compiled by Marius and his very soggy Rangers Team!!

Duncan and Louise Rodgers

Operations Director and General Manager

duncan@leopardhills.com    louise@leopardhills.com

Rangers Report February 2009

Greetings from an extremely wet Leopard Hills, we have had an immense amount of rain and all rivers and streams are flowing strongly. The pack of wild dogs which now has been reduced to 4 dogs, due to predation on them from lions, were present most of the month. We also had an immense amount of elephants in our traversing area and seeing several herds during a single game drive wasn’t an uncommon sight at all.

 

Wild Dogs

Africa’s second most endangered carnivore was viewed on numerous occasions in the last month. For the first time in more than 10 years have you had consistent sightings of these super predators and we can almost call them resident. On a morning safari my guests and I once again followed the pack on their morning hunt. Minutes later they spotted a herd of impala nearby and within seconds successfully caught one.

Leopards

At least 12 individuals were seen in the month of February. 

The best news by far is the fact that Makwela female leopard has been seen lactating and frequently going up Bruce’s Kopje where we expect her new born cubs to be hidden. Further great news is that the Tai Dam female leopard has also got new cubs. On a rainy afternoon safari my guest and I were lucky enough to find her, the Tai Dam female, walking towards the Sand River. She stopped on the Southern bank and slowly started to call her cubs. Our hearts were beating fast in our chests with the idea that we might get to see new born leopard cubs. Unfortunately she then moved into the thick riverene bush and even though we could still hear had no luck in seeing the new born cubs.

Bad news is the fact that the Wallingford male leopard is looking very skinny and at approximately 14 years of age is coming to the end of a remarkable era.

Lion

In the month of February we yet again had some great sightings of lions in our reserve. The Mopogo male lion coalition was seen frequently and the Ximungwe pride of 4 females spend most of the month in our traversing area. We are awaiting the males to start mating with the Ximungwe females soon. The oldest female of the pride was seen frequently on her own. She is in oestrus and was heard calling for the males a couple of nights in a row. My guests and I viewed her one evening where she roared 3 times in 20 minutes, the next day we saw some amazing interaction as she showed classical mating behavior, but with one of the females in the pride.

 

Cheetah

Once again we enjoyed some great sightings of a single male cheetah coming into our traversing are from the Eastern part of the Sabi Sand Game Reserve.

 

 

 

Elephants

As I mentioned in the introduction of my report we have seen an amazing amount of elephants in the last month. Every where we drive we came across elephants. With the summer vegetation being so lush and water all over the reserve the elephants have no reason to move out of our area. One herd numbering more than 40 individuals was seen for almost a week around the lodge and due to these herds placid nature allowed us some great up close and personal sightings of these magnificent pachyderms.

Buffalo

Still no sign of the big heard of buffalo’s moving into our traversing area. We still have had numerous sightings from the big “dagga boys” especially around the Sand River. Another herd of about 20 buffalo’s are seen frequently in the Southern part of our reserve.

Rhino

Another month of some phenomenal rhino sightings, especially from the central and Southern part of the reserve. We see at least 3 different crashes (collective noun for a group of rhino) most of the time. The female rhino with the massive horn is now completely relaxed around our vehicle and we have had great sightings of her and her calf which is now almost a year old.

Specials

Due to the extreme amount of rain we have seen some very interesting birds in our reserve. In the Southern most point of the reserve we have had sightings of two very uncommon birds a Corn Crake and an African Crake. We also had several sightings of Lesser Moorhen, a first in at least the last 10 years for the Western Sector where Leopard Hills is situated. The amount of electric blue Woodland Kingfishers in our reserve is unbelievable, this inter-African migrant, moves down South from Senegal in our summer and then head back up to West Africa in our winter. My guests and I had an amazing sighting of an adult catching a massive Grasshopper and feeding it to her young chick.

 

 

Hannes also had a great sighting of 2 honey badgers.

Bush Greetings

Marius Coetzee and the Leopard Hills Rangers team.