Posted 23 March 2010, for the period 01 – 15 March 2010
Greetings from Arathusa!
The start of yet another month and the onset of autumn for us here in South Africa. This also means that it is almost the end of the wet season. This is not good news as we have yet again had a very poor rain season. We are watching some of our smaller waterholes dry up already, but thankfully the game viewing has been fantastic. As is usually the case.
Large herds of elephants are still frequenting the area, even though the marula season has come and gone (their original draw card to the area). We have also had a fair number of large bulls in musth that have been following the breeding herds, which have given us some excellent quality sightings.
Buffalo were scarce for a short time, but a few large herds have made their way through the area and our old males have moved back to their usual mud wallows. A lot of the cows have given birth to their calves recently and so there are a lot of little ones in the herds.
Rhino sightings have been good, with both our dominant bulls putting in regular appearances. We have also had a group of five moving around with a new young male (who is not very relaxed with us just yet and has given a few of us a good run around).
The lions have also been good to us. We have had the Styx, Kahumas, Mapogos and Kagimas here over the last two weeks. The Styx pride was joined by the two lionesses that went missing for a while after the buffalo kill they made with the Mapogos. The Styx pride was nine-strong for some time, but the two lionesses have moved off again – possibly to find males to mate with as they have both lost their cubs. The Mapogos came in for a few days heading further east and north than they have for a long time. They are most likely looking for the Kagima males that have been encroaching on their southern boundary. The Kagima males themselves followed a herd of buffalo onto our property, where they managed to kill a young buffalo during the night. We watched them feed on the carcass for two days. We saw two of the Kahuma lionesses only a few times, but one looked to be in a lot of pain as she had a bad bite wound on her back leg. Although initially it did not look promising, the wound has gotten a lot better due to her fastidious cleaning.
Leopard sightings…brilliant! All of the leopards have been around and we have had awesome sightings with all of them. Safari (our old blind female) has been around a few times. She has killed every now and then, but has been avoiding her granddaughter (called Shadow) as much as possible. It looks like Shadow is slowly taking over Safari’s territory. Ntima has allowed us to see her now three-and-a-half-month-old cubs a few times. We were lucky enough to have them on an adult male impala kill for three days where we got to spend some a good deal of time with them. They are still very small, but are already getting relaxed with the vehicles, which is good news for all of us.
Our old male, Mafufenyane, has been around as always. Walking long distances and then turning up when we least expect him. Ryan was fortunate enough to name Salayexe’s cubs at the beginning of the month. He’s called the young male Rhulani, which means ‘relaxed’. He was named for his easygoing nature around the vehicles. The young female is christened Nsele, meaning ‘the one with no sympathy’, as she’s already successfully hunted a number of small animals quickly and efficiently. We’re hoping she’ll grow up to be just as good a hunter as her mother is.
We haven’t had any luck with either wild dog or cheetah in the last two weeks, but with winter fast approaching we’re keeping our fingers crossed. We’ve had some good smaller sightings, including porcupine, serval and ground hornbills to name a few. As the long grass of summer disappears we’ll hopefully see even more of these small creatures.
We are all looking forward to the change of seasons and are eagerly anticipating the arrival of another action-packed dry season ahead.
We hope to see you soon.
Warm regards from the team at Arathusa Safari Lodge.
