Monday, July 4, 2016

7/3 - A Date With the King of the Jungle and Mating Leopards

We headed out on our early morning game drive, and after we had been gone about 15 minutes, got word that a leopard had been sighted near our  lodge, so we hightailed it back and saw it crossing a road ahead of us -- with heavy cover on either side, we didn't see it long, but at least we got a photo (mine were blurry and I accidentally deleted Jim's).

There really is a leopard there.

We spent the next half hour or so trying to anticipate where she was headed and getting there before she did, but she had other ideas, and we eventually gave up and headed south (I think) to an area close to a primitive air strip where a pride of 7 female lions had been sighted.

We had a long fruitless search, but in the meantime, found zebras, giraffes, wart hogs, and more before heading back toward the airstrip, where two young females were laying about. They had killed a water buffalo and left it abut 200 yards away, and even though they had a kill they could work on, they were hanging out near homes where more buffalo were grazing happily  on irrigated lawns, and apparently thinking the fresher the meat, the better.

Cape buffalo

Male Nyala
Rhino

Sky shortly after dawn

Impala

Nyala male and 2 females




We were past time to head back to the lodge and were looking for a vantage point to photograph nearby mountains, which were clearly visible after yesterday's wind blew away all the haze but learned about more lions in the area. There were three of them: two females and the only adult male in the area who controls about 22,000 acres and is in his prime, who is in danger of losing his position due to a challenge from a coalition of 4 males (probably all brothers). When this happens, all his offspring who are not sexually mature (including the 4 lions we saw yesterday) will be killed to bring all the females back into estrus so the new king can take control of the gene pool.  On the way there, we saw more birds and a crocodile

Grey heron and yellow-billed stork

Nile Crocodile


They were not far from the road, and all appeared to be sleeping. Liam decided to back the truck up close to the male so we could get a better look, and we ended up a matter of feet from him. He sat up while this was happening and posed nicely for us for some time, even hanging out while we backed still more to get a better view. He got sick of us, however, got up and walked away to a shady spot further away and laid down for another nap. All this time, the 2 females never moved and were positioned behind vegetation that made good photos impossible.  Liam was thrilled that we had gotten to see this guy so close up and we were pretty happy about it too. 


We got back to the lodge more than an hour late and had breakfast around 10:45. Liam suggested another walk, this time driving a truck to a watering hole and walking from there to see what we could see. We left at 11:30, and saw a small group of impala near the watering hole, who left rapidly before we could approach. We were approaching the watering hole from upwind, hoping not to scare everyone away with how loud we are (even when we were told not to talk), when Liam spotted a herd of elephants and hustled us out of the area quickly. On foot is apparently a very bad way to encounter mother elephants. A bull will back off to a man, but moms protect their babies from every threat, real or not. We walked uphill and away and found a shady spot on an overlook and pretty soon the elephants wandered into view. Apparently they could see we were there, but we were not  moving toward them and were pretty far away, so we had an awesome time watching them browse and wander on.




Our friend Bill Deyo, told us about the 'little 5' -- small critters
with names borrowed from the 'big 5'. This is the home of the
one called an 'Ant Lion', which becomes a dragonfly type of bug.
In an earlier stage, it lives at the bottom of the little burrow and
feeds on ants that slip and slide into its hole.
We walked back to the truck and got back to camp just in time for lunch at 1:30. Yesterday, we had been chastised for skipping  lunch because our itinerary only listed breakfast and dinner, and we figured breakfast was brunch. Au contraire, so we dutifully showed up for more food. I sure hope the rest of the camps are not so eager to feed us!!

After an hour or so to catch up, we started another game drive, which was going pretty slowly. Then we got a call that a male and female leopard had been sighted and that the older female was trying to seduce a younger male, who had apparently beaten her former boyfriend in a fight. We took off, heading north, hoping to arrive before sunset. After hunting for this female for a couple days, we seriously got lucky. They were sort of wandering around together, though  he was  somewhat clueless, even though he had won a fight for her. He settled down in a spot where we  had good visibility and waited for her. She wandered around,  playing coy, then joined him and started growling before it all fell apart and they separated. He walked past our truck almost close enough to touch. We moved, they crossed the road, and came together, growling and tried to get it on, but apparently there was some kind of mismatch. They moved off out of sight, we started to return to camp and the subsequent growling led Liam to tell us that the merger was in process. We went back to camp happy, with dynamite photos and lots of memories.



Their first abortive move at mating - he is on the left and you
can see her backend as she starts to walk away.

There were two or three trucks of viewers, and he walked
between us and another truck. He was no more than 10 feet
away at one point.

He walked across the road and the female joined him. We
repositioned the trucks to get a better view.


He looks like he knows what he is doing, but they break apart again.
She (I think) walks away, but he pursues and the roars
confirm that they have figured it out.
We have one more drive tomorrow AM before we leave for Johannesburg to start the main trip and seriously wonder how Liam will top any one of our adventures today. The day concluded with another wonderful dinner with our travel companions.

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