Flavour of the Month - March/April 2018 : H1-1 and Transport Dam

[nan]

I saw one near Skukuzza

[Richprins]

When was that, nana? They used to occur naturally near PK until about the 70s. Then some were moved to the antelope camp there from the north in the 80s for population security, and released later. They also occurred naturally around Mlondozi until the 1990s, but died out.

The southernmost now would be maybe Timbavati?

[nan]

maybe 2009 or 2011... have to search (again )

[Richprins]

Homework!

[Richprins]

From a Bushcraft story in 2013:


https://www.africawild-forum.com/viewto ... 5&start=10



Eventually the plan was finalized and we were going to head down to Transport Dam and then do a section of the H1-1 towards Napi Rocks before returning to Skukuza.

After half an hour we had only spotted a few of the normal characters and Transport Dam also didn’t produce much, so my pelican was out “This is why this section of the park sucks!”, but at least there wasn’t as much traffic on the roads when compared to the H4-1 area.

We decided to do the S11 before turning back to camp and as we arrived at Napi Rocks we found a few cars stopped and as lucky timing would have it a few heads popped up and then a few seconds later a junior and a lioness made an appearance.





A few minutes later the one lioness decided to go walkabout, which got me excited, so I started the car, which got the Cow going again “Where are you going?”, “I’m following the lioness, what do you think I’m doing?”.

The Cow started shaking her head “The others are still on the rock!!” “I know that, but they will follow her?” “Just stay where you are!”, so I switched off again.





A few minutes later the others all bailed off the rocks to follow the lioness, but now we had woken up at little late and had cars in front of us, so my pelican shot out “See, now we are stuffed”

Suddenly some lion chose their own route and popped up next to us therefore all wasn’t lost, but I had my 500mm lens on so found myself attempting to push the lens through my head to fit the lion in the frame.





All the lion eventually wandered off to a burnt section a long way off and all collapsed for another snooze, so we turned and headed back towards Skukuza.

We stopped for a lone ellie, a Bateleur and more ellies having a scrap at De Laporte

[Richprins]

Right on the eastern end of Dindingwe's stretch, just before the H-3 junction, the road passes between two koppies that are quite often used as nurseries by lion:

Spot the animal -

Aha!

Another one coming from the other side:

The baby:

Gallery:

[leachy]

from a visit in november 2010

a view of shabeni

from the H 1-1

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leopard in typical pose - just after the shitlave turn off

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used to have these regular visitors while in the transport dam parking area

drinking party in far eastern corner of the dam

ellie playing "fetch the stick" in the dam

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quite a large pride exploring the shitlave parking area

[Flutterby]

Great sightings.

[Lisbeth]

[Richprins]

Nice cats, leachy!

(That first pic may be Shabeni, though... )