New leopard record

I’ve had a few occasions where I’ve seen 5 leopards on a safari. It happened twice in 2008, and once last year. Now I’ve down one better. On my last safari we saw leopard 5 times with 6 individuals. This female and cub (about 8 months old) we saw on a night drive. We spotted them on a rock in the river bed. After playing a bit they stood up and walked towards the road where they crossed right in front of us. It’s absolutely amazing to get views like this of a normally very elusive cat. I wonder if I’ll ever get to beat this record.

 

Simon Vegter

Wild Wings Safaris

www.wild-wings.co.za

 

All this before elephants

The unpredictability of nature was once again proven on my recent safari. We entered the park at Kruger gate and were straight away rewarded with 2 male lions. They recently finished off a kill with only the bones remaining. The one lion was so full its belly didn’t even leave the ground as it struggled to turn around for a better position. We heard of a leopard sleeping somewhere and decided to follow up on it. On the way, we spotted another leopard moving through the bush, but quickly disappeared into the bush. We reached the sleeping leopard, but could not see anything as it was hiding in the tall grass. Every now and then we saw the grass move as he flicked his tail, but we could not actually see the animal. We decided to wait as it was starting to cool down in the afternoon and hoped it would get up. After 45 minutes we were rewarded. It emerged from the bush and out came a leopard much larger than we expected. Even more rewarding was that it came to drink from some water not far from the road giving us exceptional views. The following morning the warm road had two sleeping lionesses and 3 hyenas trotting along. After a morning walk through the bush where we glimpsed a rhino, we came along 7 wild dogs hunting. They showed some interest in a klipspringer, but this little antelope manage to run higher up into the rocks and escape the dogs. After following them for some 45 minutes we realised they were not going to be successful this morning and left them. We only saw an elephant on the afternoon of the second day. I was so surprised that we saw all these exciting animals even before we saw an elephant. I’ve been very fortunate with elephants this year and have seen them on almost every day, so to go so long without seeing even a single one was very unusual. This was a great start to a bumper safari which later produced more leopard, lion and cheetahs.

 

Simon Vegter

Wild Wings Safaris

www.wild-wings.co.za

 

Impala with bizarre horns

I’ve recently found this impala with really bizarre horns. I’ve seen misformed horns in several species before, and this is another one that really looks weird. Abnormal horn growth can have several causes including mineral deficiencies in their diet, inbreeding or injuries. In this case it does seem that injury is involved as I noticed the keratin sheath coming off in places revealing the bony horn underneath. This impala has been around for a while and although it might not manage to become a dominant male, it still seems to have a pretty healthy life.

 

Simon Vegter

Wild Wings Safaris

www.wild-wings.co.za

 

African Wild Cat

Seeing a large cat in Kruger is special. Seeing one of the small cats even more so. I’ve only had a handful of sightings of the African Wild Cat. It’s the size of a domestic cat and looks very similar (except that the back of the ears are characteristically red-brown in colour). Being that small and nocturnal makes it very difficult to see. This photo was taken on one of my recent trips and gave me great excitement. These cats are vulnerable and with their biggest threat of interbreeding with domestic cats can only truly be found in protected areas where interaction with domestic cats are prevented. What a joy to see.

 

Simon Vegter

Wild Wings Safaris

www.wild-wings.co.za

 

February sightings update

Eventually I managed to organise the February update. It’s been quite a busy month and, regardless of the dense bush, it’s been also a very productive month. One of the highlights of the month was during a heavy downpour (the downpour wasn’t the highlight though). It was so heavy that we had to put down the canvas sides of the truck (something I hardly ever do, even with rainy weather). Soaking wet, we were basically making our way towards camp when we came across a leopard. With the sides down nobody could see a thing. So I reversed out of the sighting a fair distance away to roll up one of the sides. With the side up at least we got a view of the animal (a couple of spots through the bushes). Eventually it stood up and gave us great views of it walking through the bush. It got into a tree and there we noticed a kill on which it was happily feeding for a while. Hyenas gathered underneath. Since the leopard was pretty much done with the impala (with mostly the bones left), it dropped to the ground where the hyenas noisily enjoyed the scraps. The leopard remained in the tree for a while and gave us superb views. We scanned the area and also noticed one of her cubs lying under a tree. We did not expect to see anything during the downpour, but if I get sights like this I really don’t mind getting wet at all.

 

Total tours: 5                        Total days: 17

		Elephant	Rhino	Buffalo	Lion	Leopard	Cheetah	Wilddog	Hyena	Jackal
	Tour	5	5	5	5	4	3	0	5	4
	Day	17	14	13	11	4	3	0	6	5
	Sights	Y	43	Y	14	4	3	0	8	8
	Nr	Y	85	Y	39	5	9	0	29	11

 

 

 

Simon Vegter

Wild Wings Safaris

www.wild-wings.co.za