Social distancing in the Kgalagadi Oct/Nov 2020

[GavinW]

Good idea.

The cheetah had come back down and was walking along the road

We watched, excitedly as she neared the springbok and spotted it

[GavinW]

She stalked the buck using the road and bushes on the side of the road as cover

We were sure that we were about to witness our first kill so we move off closer to the springbok and waited

Slowly she came closer and closer, the springbok was totally unaware of her presence.

[GavinW]

The springbok was slowly moving up the road towards the lookout point near Monro, further and further away from the cheetah

[GavinW]

And the cheetah lost interest

Lucky, Lucky Springbok. It survives to live another day


And went off to the waterhole for a drink

By now it was getting pretty close to time to leave in order to get back to camp in time, so we left her at the waterhole and returned back to camp, for a nice steak supper.


The Kgalagadi had at last decided to come a bit closer towards us.

[Lisbeth]

Strange behaviour of the cheetah, because she looks rather skinny. Maybe just not feeling like running Also seeing a springbuck all alone is not a very common sight

[Richprins]

Lovely sighting, Gavin!

She looks very skinny...

[Mel]

Your cheetah sighting at KTC on the 29th Oct is Hannah - Hanri's previous offspring. I'm very happy to see that she is still around and hasn't vanished after the critical dispersing phase. Let's hope Hannah will fill the void when Hanri won't be around anymore like Hanri (and Corinne) did with Lisette.

The mum at Marie's on the 2nd Nov is Catrin. Another successor of a great mum

The two males on the 3rd at Maries don't really have a name yet. Not sure where they came from but they seem to have made their home in that area because there have been quite a few sightings of them since September 2020.

11th November near Batulama - that was Corinne again. As was the female between Munro and Houmoed two days later. She probably made her way to the Nossob side again. The last sighting of her I know of was end of February in the Rooiputs area (and she was definitely nursing at that point )

Did Wanda ID the leopard at Langklaas? If so, who is it? If not, I'll look into it.

When you flip through the pages and get all the pix at once, I'd say it was a pretty successful trip with what you got to see - all the owls, the number of badger sightings, lions, Miera & cubs, cheetahs and so on and so forth. But at times I couldn't help myself feeling frustrated for you when especially the spotted cats keep their distance and you don't manage to get the awesome shots you'd like. Or having to pass a cheetah because you cannot maneuver with your trailer.

Great breakfast you had there at Lijers We got the Cruxland at home too. Tasty

KTP staff always has a plan for difficult situation. Very handy to use the grader to lift up your car to get the tire changed!

[GavinW]

Mel, thank you so much for all the id's.
We still do not have an id of the leopard at Lanklaas.



Saturday 14 November 2020

For our last full day in the park we decided to head up the Nossob riverbed up to Melkvlei and back to see if anything was happening along that section of the park.

Not far down the road a family of Verreaux’s Eagle owls were trying to get settled down for the day. The youngster was up in the tree while one of the parents was more visible out in the open

We had a really nice sighting of a fork tailed drongo at Samevloeiing

And a bit further on of a secretary bird

[GavinW]

At Leeudril the usual suspects were out and about

South of Rooiputs we were flagged down by the ranger from the Rooiputs Lodge.
We stopped and he asked if we had a compressor to assist him with a flat tyre.
I had purchased one just before our trip, so I was happy to try it out for the first time.

This also made the guy from Botswana happy and as he drove off, thanking us he said that nature would reward us that morning.
We don’t believe in that sort of stuff, but we were happy to assist.


There is a tree with a big sociable weavers nest half way between Rooiputs and Kij Kij, and we had noticed what we thought to be an empty nest in the weavers nest.
Today it was not empty, a barn owl was peeping out.

[GavinW]

At Kij Kij, a few cars at the waterhole alerted us to two lions, a male and a female lying under the tree just south of the waterhole.
Chilling


We decided to stay a while and see if they would get active