Big cats

Will the great food, great weather and great animal sightings ever end?  After a fairly relaxed morning we managed to borrow a spare 4WD and headed off for another couple of game drives in the afternoon and evening.  Elephants, giraffe and rhino were the order of the day, though not in the same volumes as Kruger and Ngala (Phinda is only one percent the size of Kruger, after all), and we were extremely fortunate to see both lions and cheetah, adults and cubs alike.

There were nine cheetah in total, split into two packs in close proximity, and as the light faded a few of the cubs managed a kill a baby impala nearby – we only missed it by a few minutes but did get to witness the messy aftermath.  Once it got dark Vic’s telemetry gear came out (used to track the leopards via the VHF collars that they have all been fitted with) and the tracking began.  Have to say that going looking for predators during the day time is one thing, but doing it at night is something else entirely – every breaking twig and rustling leaf takes on a totally new perspective when you know there’s a hungry leopard out there … somewhere …

Many people that come to Africa leave without seeing a leopard – they are far and away the most elusive of the Big 5 (which also includes lions, elephants, buffalo and rhino).  I was lucky enough to see a couple of them during the daytime when I was in Kenya a few years back, either sleeping or disappearing into the long grass, but the sighting that we had was a whole different story.

After tracking Frodo (a male leopard) to an area of dense bush and getting a quick glimpse, we came back to the same general area a couple of hours later and were rewarded by finding him walking down the road towards us.  Illuminated only by our red-filtered spotlight, he walked straight up to and past the 4WD, at times only a matter of a few metres away, and carried on as if he didn’t have a care in the world.  Which to be fair he probably didn’t.  Unlike Bec and me, who I think were left both exhilarated and in fear for our lives in equal measure!  No photos unfortunately – I didn’t feel the need to encourage our feline friend to take a closer look at what was inside the (open top) 4WD via the use of flash photography…

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