When the Lions are away, the Leopards come out to play (April 2019)

[Mel]

13th to 19th April 2019 Urikaruus - Continued

One of our finds around Urikaruus were some kudu bulls at Kamqua. We saw them on several occasion - sometimes two, other times three of them. But almost always the dust got in the way of clear pictures.

[Mel]

We amble along towards the south, nothing major happening. The meerkat colonies were all either still asleep or foraging on the far end of the riverbed After having passed Gemsbokplein, we agreed on taking a toilette break at Auchter before heading further south to Houmoed waterhole. About a Kilometer before the picnic site a movement in the concrete on the other side of the riverbed caught my eye. A cheetah!!! Finally

[Mel]

Actually it was even two cheetahs And they were coming down to the riverbed We were able to trail them almost all the way to Auchterlonie, watching them mark their territory. They also kept turning around and calling, although I'm not really sure who they were missing. I managed to ID them as two boys from Gina's last litter. Gina is (or maybe "was" by now) a female that calls the area from Nossob up to Union's End her home. That's quite some way off from where I found her boys. Anyway, Gina's last litter consisted of four cubs. She lost one after a few months. The three remaining were one female and two males. So I'm not sure who these two were looking for. But maybe they have made a friend on their journey. Who knows.

[Mel]

Eventually the boys crossed the road and disappeared into the red dunes.

[Mel]

And all the while, these cuties had been watching just like us

[Mel]

Of course we were pretty happy campers after this encounter. Once again we had been at the right place the right time And once again, traffic was building up only when all you still got from them two was their backsides while they were walking up the dunes. We felt blessed and decided to push our luck further and travel the whole nine yards. That means going down to Twee Rivieren, up again along the Nossob and crossing back via the lower dune road.

On the way we found the only ostrich chicks of the whole trip. And while the parents were ogling us with suspicion they were quite cool and let their chicks forage pretty close to our car.

[Mel]

At Rooiputs we had another heartbreaking encounter of a dying lion.

People were actually parked in to take photos of him. I really don't get that. There is nothing joyful about a lion sighting like that
We learned that he had been shot by SanParks staff the next day. Another thing I don't get since I don't think this lion had been suffering
because of a human. So no need to interfere On the other hand: there is a new lion project running in the KTP. Maybe they wanted
the data for that. Oh, and there is a lot of controversy about the huuuge collars the lions were fitted by the new project. I haven't seen
even one lion with such a gadget but we were told they look ridiculous.

[Mel]

Back in the camp our new best friend came for a visit.

And the springbok were play rutting in the riverbed

Just a typical scenery at Urikaruus

To be continued with the best sighting of this trip

[Lisbeth]

Lovely cheetah sighting The more I see them, the more I love them.....and then they are up and about during the daytime

The ostrich chicks look really ridiculous, but they are great company, because you always get a good laugh

Beautiful pic of the springboks

There did not seem to be many birds or did I already ask that?

[Mel]

There were a few birds around actually. We watched the white-browed sparrow-weaver (another local in the tree just in front of unit 1) the bush tomato (aka crimson-brested shrike), black-chested prinia, chestnut-vented babbler, lark-like buntings, bee-eaters, yellow-bellied eremomela, Cape sparrows, masked weavers, various doves and the sandgrouses, red-necked falcon, lanner falcon, giant eagle owl, barn owl, some sort of nightjar, plover… and these are just from the top of my head.

But I don't take photos of them all the time because they are either in the shade or try to melt into the little shrubs I do have one or two new birds though that have still to be IDed