Blog - Page 11

Summer time is generally considered a bit of a low season in the bush when it comes to sightings due to the thick vegetation and abundance of water that lies around from the rain, summer time is also baby time for many of the prey animals which means the predators don't have to move far to find food. That being said one would think that it is impossible to find anything, let alone the most elusive big cat in Africa but what we don't realize is that the summer is leopard time and over the last few weeks we have been treated to superb leopard sightings especially when it comes to the females that call our patch of the Greater Kruger home.

It's been an exciting month here at Umlani Bushcamp, from the threat of a tropical cyclone to amazing sightings. We had some much needed soaking rain that transformed the bush yet again, even though we had better rains this season we still find ourselves feeling the effects of the drought as the fresh green grass already began to brown and die off under the relentless African sun. So when we heard that there was potential for a cyclone moving over the area we hoped that it wouldn't be destructive but rather replenish the bush, this was thankfully the case and we have in turn reaped the rewards when it comes to the sightings in the month of February.

Lately the Hercules pride have been seen a lot on our traversing area, one of the reasons could be that there are new males in the north that pose a threat to the young males of the Hercules pride or perhaps they have picked up on the void left by the Machaton pride and are just making themselves at home. Whatever the case may be, having a lion pride around means that not only do we have more frequent lion sightings but also the quality of lion sightings increases.
This was the case last week when the Hercules pride was found on a fresh buffalo kill.

The month of January has produced, yet again, an incredible amount of wildlife sightings. From dusk till dawn, day after day, the animals have flourished and are relishing the newly transformed landscapes that the rains have brought. It has been a joy to observe the constant fluctuations of game passing through the various sections of the Timbavati from East to West and North to South. Although the bush is now lush and thick it is hasn’t hindered the potential to experience incredible wildlife sightings, if anything we are experience a mini boom. We have been graced by the colorful presence of Carmine Bee-eaters all the way through to the magnificent Wild dogs.

Being part of an open system reserve, we are fortunate to have a lot of animal movement into the reserve, be it from the Kruger National Park or our neighboring private reserves. Often we get huge herds of elephants and buffalo that one can only experience in these vast wilderness areas.
But more noticeably we will get the arrival of new individual big cats, especially leopards. Now every leopard has its own individual spot pattern, and after getting to know the leopards that have spent years in our traversing area it is very easy to see who the new comers are, some...like in this case are more easily recognizable than others. In this blog post we will be introducing you to one of these new leopards and hopefully one that will provide us with many hours of viewing in the years to come.