The Big Cat Diary and a Couple of Lifers

[Pumbaa]

Always something to see, even if there aren't any ca...oh no wait, there's a leopard!!! Great sighting!

I felt exactly that way as I originally thought it was a group of people travelling together in different cars

[Pumbaa]

Loving all the bird photos Pumbaa
And a very nice leopard out in the open as well

Yes, that was in fact a nice farewell gift during the last days of that trip

[Pumbaa]

Wonderful as usual... but the leopard... Definitely the icing on the cake. Even if it was a bit further off,
at least you got it out in the open. And the rest is what those killer lenses are for

But he was still very good visible even without binoculars because he stayed out in the open

[Pumbaa]

Catching up again

I’m still green about the lion sighting and the pic of the cub half covered in mud/blood is brilliant

That honey badger on the S36 is a great find

Junior ellie having a snooze

The snake looks like a female boomslang, definitely not a mamba

Leopard at Letaba high water bridge in the open. Very lucky with that

As per normal, fantastic sightings and pics

Thanks for the correct id of the snake and that Leopard was simply WoW

[Pumbaa]

Excellent again, Pumbaa!


The vultures come to bath, I think?

saw my first ever Grysbok near Olifants, so nice that they are still there!

My favourite is the woodhoopoe pose!

That leopard is faulty and sick...same as half the leopards BC saw in the drought...what is going on?

Maybe put it up under "unusual behaviour" and we can send it on?

I guess it was because of the distance that he looked a bit sick as same was still a powerful leopard

[Pumbaa]

In fact that was more than a nice surprise and proves also that a stop on such bridges are always worth.



A group of waterbucks eyed the leopard suspiciously but same steadily walked into that direction from which we just came....



but we supposed that we might have missed same completely if we would have stayed in the very last loop on the S95 any longer.



Nevertheless after he disappeared completely we jumped back into the car, turned around and drove to that very last loop on the S95 again but as already expected no sign from the leopard.



When we then returned to the bridge same was complete empty and although we once again stopped and looked after the leopard we could not trace same any longer and so we carried on.

The H1-6 itself was also totally quiet and we were already about to turn into the Tsendze loop when we realized quite a traffic jam into the direction of Malopenyana and only after asking we noticed in the distance under a bush a pair of lions, obviously a honeymoon couple.

As same were located a bit far away we for the time being parked and waited and instead scanned the other side of the road and this did obviously also all the other people stuck in that traffic jam as suddenly all cameras swung to the other side as there a honey badger was running around.



Not a bad amusement whilst waiting for some action from the lions and as if that was not enough we also noticed another lioness walking by into the direction of the honey badger.



She flopped down under a bush and always eyed the honeymoon couple on the other side



and she was wearing a collar unfortunately the honey badger disappeared and could no longer be seen. What a more than successful day we had already although with a lot of driving without seeing anything but then leopard, lions and honey badger in fact not that bad.



Finally it also came some action into the lion couple



but for sure after the lion festival around Satara we had better sightings already but lions are lions and we even had far more worse lion sightings so we were again extreme happy to have found some in the North.

[Pumbaa]

Overall we stayed at that sighting around one hour but as nothing more happened and we still had a long way to go we now turned into the Tsendze loop and carried on.



This is also one road which can be extreme tired with very few sightings but today we also had here luck as we met along the drive a beautiful posing fork tailed drongo



and then got entertained by a couple of dwarf mongoose who curiously were eying us



and then even a squirrel appeared on the scene to check why the mongoose made such a fuss.



For sure same was also interested extremely in us at least into the unit which was making such strange click tones.



It was again one of those moments where you stand in front of a bush in this case it was a log where more and more birds do make their presence or in this case where the dwarf mongoose and the squirrel entertained us extremely.



I guess we could have stand once again in front of that log for the rest of the day but unfortunately we had to carry on after a while.



Due to the fact that surprisingly the Tsendze still carried a bit water with sometimes larger puddles left in the riverbed we spotted many buffaloes and zebras





and it even looked as if it only rained recently – must have been the dark grey cloud we could spot yesterday.



to be continued...

[Richprins]

Hey, Pumbaa...I bet you 5 Euro (about R1000) that that leopard has been kicked in the head or something...you can see it is buggered in the eyes!

Nice lions again, and badger!

Ja, lions pathologically try to kill ANY other predator, even mongoose...it is instinct it seems?

Dwarfies are difficult to photograph, so those are my favourites, and nice to sit still for a while, indeed!

[Alf]

Really stunning pictures

[Flutterby]

Wow, what amazing sightings! A very successful drive!