Kgalagadi Cheetah Sightings - CURRENT

[Mel]

Ekon
17/08/2015 at around 2.35 pm - between Melkvlei and KijKij

He was very aware we were there and he was keeping a close watch on us as well as the around him. He did not want his hard work wasted by something stealing his lunch.


it didn't take very long before he was back and tucking in to his meal.




With the shadows moving he decided to display his strength and dragged his food to the other side of the tree.


Puffing and panting after all the exertion of dragging his meal through the dirt, he lay down to take a bit of a breather.



before long he had his breath back and went back to eat some more.


At this stage of the game, his belly was almost dragging in the dust, but he was determined to eat as much as he could stuff down his throat before he lost his kill.
Time to move on, once again, as we had spent a long time with the cheetah watching him watch us in between eating and resting.

[Mel]

Corinne with Casper, Chase, Carina & Cora
19/08/2015 at around 4.50 pm - Samevloeiing

Not far from the entrance to the game viewing area was a bit of a traffic jam. We could see some springbok and wildebeest on the dry riverbed and they were all on full alert. There was no doubt in our minds there had to be a cat on the prowl.

We drove round the waterhole then slowly headed towards the traffic. We pulled up behind the last car and Jax could just make out a cheetah lying flat on the ground. At this point I could not see any cheetah. It soon became obvious the news had spread resulting in more cars arriving. Everyone was very good about pulling up behind the last car - but you always get one - A car came past the stationary vehicles - saw the cheetah and slammed on brakes. This resulted in said cheetah getting up and moving away. I could now see the cat.


I don't know what was said to these people by the people in the car next to them, but they reversed a bit and forced their way in between us and the car in front of us. This is what happens if you try and do the decent thing by not parking on top of another car. They had obviously lost sight of the animal as they started jostling for a view.
We ignored them totally because what they did not see or know was that there were four more cheetah in the distance under a tree!

Unfortunately they were a good distance away and getting shots of them all together was not working to plan.



The cheetah took turns in moving to different spots - it seemed like two at a time.


The original cheetah made it's way to join the others, casting longing glances at supper on the hoof. For now it had given had given up the hunt.




He/she greeted each member of the coalition and then settled down in the grass next to one of the gang.


All of the cheetah were lean and mean - they would be hunting again very soon. Jax and I debated sticking around but decided to head back to camp. We were almost positive the cats would not hunt until most of the vehicles had left and we believed the ambush would happen closer to the waterhole. The herd we had seen where heading further and further away and we were sure the cats would have to wait for some unsuspecting supper to come in for an evening drink.

[Mel]

Bedi with Wesco & Elzette

30/11/2015 - 9 km north of Polentswa

At first only one cheetah was spotted and then two other followed. They were two far apart to get them all in one photo:

[Mel]

Ekon
10/05/2016 - 5 km south of Rooiputs

[Mel]

Zander plus two cheetahs (presumably Corka and Gorib)
11/05/2016 near Jan se Draai

Near Jan se Draai, we were told about 3 cheetahs in the river-bed hunting. Initially we saw only one, which after walking along the river bed went towards a tree on the far side of the valley. It’s family members were flat under the tree. We were lucky enough to capture these very zoomed in and cropped photos of the first cat as it walked along the river bed.

[Mel]

Caster
15/05/2016 at Polentswa

We were about a kilometre past the turn off to the Polentswa campsites, which in turn is about a kilometre south of the waterhole, when we came upon a procession of two or three vehicles heading in our direction. The reason for the congestion was this cheetah walking along the road.



With a fully laden bakkie, reversing along the road was not the easiest task to undertake. So eventually I had to do one of those 8 point Kalahari turns
The cheetah found it much more amusing than I did.



Now ahead of the cheetah and the following entourage, we decided to go back to the waterhole, and take our chances that she would come down and drink, in which case we would be parked in a good position.

After what seemed an eternity, and not without quickly going back to the road to check on her progress, our plan paid off.

She cautiously made her way down to the waterhole.





And finally after a lot of checking around to ensure all was safe, she came to drink.



We watched her in awe as she drank, thinking how fortunate we were that our cheetah drought had finally been broken.







Having sated her thirst, she then left Polentswa and headed back to the road and carried on north.

[Michele Nel]

Catrin

So here are the photos of the first cheetah adult that we saw....unfortunately we could not stay with this sighting as we had to get back to camp before gate closing time.

Seen 10km's north of Rooiputs Waterhole on the 16th July.









There we go Mel...it is the best I have for ID purposes. The cheetah didn't really stand up or move much ..too intent on stuffing it's face. :)

[Mel]

Precious

30/10/2015 just south of Houmoed waterhole



It was actually quite an interesting find: There were a few cars parked next to the road around a bend and we coulnd't make out what they were looking at.
Then I looked up to find this one:



I got all excited because it was late in the morning and the owl wasn't supposed to be out anymore. Only when I followed the owl's glance, I realized that there
was a cheetah on the ground munching on a springbok lamb.

[Michele Nel]

Corinne

We saw this adult cheetah with 4 cubs between Kij Kij and Melkvlei - 23/07/2016
Her four cubs were scattered all around and I never really got any decent photos of them...they were quite far away. They were walking towards the dune when we came across them and continued to walk and disappeared from view.

[AstroMatt]

2016-07-07 Caster and Cubs
During my recent July trip to the kgalagadi we had a brief and very unexpected sighting of a cheetah 1km before gharagab camp. We'd stopped at the turn before heading to camp and after a couple of minutes we suddenly realised that there was a cheetah standing directly ahead about 150m away. The grass was very long but we could make out that she had made a kill and even had at least one cub with her. Unfortunately we couldn't see them from the camp observation deck and they didn't come to drink at the waterhole whilst we were awake.
I wasn't sure an ID would be possible but in a couple of the shots I could make out enough of the face spots to match the mum to Caster.





One of the cubs.


I've also just received another sighting of her between Geinab and Unions End on the 27th July 2016. She had 4 cubs with her