Browns in Kruger September 2024

[Lisbeth]

The hyenas sure have extraordinary jaws Those horns must weigh a lot

Lots of lions around

Perfect speed

[Pumbaa]

Thanks Bushcraft,

quite an exciting sighting you had and normally around Satara the roads are often very productive anyway which you took

Quite a lot of lions on nearly each roads there

[Flutterby]

Great lion/hyena sighting , and you were so lucky to see Casper...still haven't had the pleasure!

[Bushcraft]

Thanks Lisbeth, Pumbaa & Flutts for commenting

Flutts, the clock is ticking on finding Casper unfortunately as some of his brothers have TB, so it's possibly a matter of time before Casper also has it Besides the TB issue, Casper is over 10 years old.

[Bushcraft]

2nd September Satara continued

Over the next 10 minutes another 2 males also decided to move to the shady bush, but we waited another hour with the hope that Casper would also move, however he just readjusted his position a few times and eventually went back to sleep.

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[Bushcraft]

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We had been with these lions for a long time, therefore everybody needed the loo and we were all hungry, so we decided to leave Casper in peace and to return to camp for brunch.

All 4 of these lions are getting on in years and I have since heard that 2 of them, Casanova & Mfowethu have tested positive for TB, so their condition is deteriorating rapidly, but Casper & Footloose results came back negative, however for how long that will remain the case is anyone’s guess, so there may be some new male lions taking over the Satara area in the near future.

After a bacon and egg bun breakfast we decided to explore Satara a little and went on a long walk around camp to check out a few units, etc, and then just relaxed at our unit for the early part of the afternoon.

At around 3:30pm we packed the car again and decided to visit the H6/Sweni Hide, to stop at N’wanetsi picnic site, and then to do the S41/S100 back to camp.

The H6 was rather quiet with only the odd local popping up and I have to admit that it isn’t high on my list of roads to drive in KNP, but one never knows as we have hit a luck on it in the past, however never at this time of day.

There was only one other couple parking off at Sweni hide, so we decided to relax there for a while and watch the kingfishers that were trying to nail fish, but photographing them as they hit the water was a bigger challenge than expected and we ended up with half a bird or water and no bird, however the sun tanning crocs proved to be less frustrating.

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We stopped at N’wanetsi picnic site and it was quiet people wise, so we cruised up to the lookout point and parked off there for 10 minutes just watching and relaxing.

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[Bushcraft]

The S41 stretch up to the S100 produced a few more of the usual locals, but the excitement only rocketed around 6km down the S100 as we found a few cars stopped and a leopard in a tree fairly close to the road chowing on a small kill.

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This leopard was on the north side of the S100, so it was a mission once again to take pics directly into the setting sun, therefore I was frantically playing with camera settings, but as per normal, it caused frustration and a few mini tantrums as I don’t fully understand what settings to adjust and to make matters worse, the leopard dropped the remains of it’s kill and moved with pace to try and catch it while I was fiddling with settings, so I duffed most of the movement and only got a shot of the last part of the action as the remaining leg was disappearing in front of the leopard.

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[Bushcraft]

A hyena instantly came out the bush, so it must have been watching and we hadn’t seen it, and stole the remains of the kill after exchanging a few looks with the hissing leopard.

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The leopard parked off staring at the disappearing hyena for a few seconds and then jumped to another part of the tree to sleep. This added to my camera tantrum as I stuffed up the pics of the jump because of a wrong shutter speed selection, so the pics were blurred.

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We now only had a “bum” view of the leopard and time was ticking on us, so we continued down the S100 back towards camp and stopped a few times for other locals, but never took pics due to the time constraints.

As we pulled into Satara the Cow spotted an AWC in camp just casually parking off watching the cars and people. This must have been the local AWC that cruises around camp trying to steal and beg from visitors. Unfortunately, it seems as if some people feed the in camp AWC and it’s fairly tame, because I got out the car to take the pic below and it didn’t bolt off.

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[Bushcraft]

After our braai we again took a walk to the fence line behind the BD2N’s and found a jackal and hyena cruising around as per the previous evening.

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It was quieter than the previous evening though, so we eventually decided to cruise towards the camping area fence line and as we neared the north eastern section, the area near Rudy Frankel guest house, we noticed a strange setup of “campers”. There was a large gazebo with like a communal dining arrangement, some “film crew” signs and the odd Sanparks branded vehicle parked off. I have taken a google earth snap of the area I’m writing about below. I’m not certain what they are filming, but it was a fair size team of people.

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Rudy Frankel seemed unoccupied so we cruised down the “road” between Frankel and this film crew crowd to the fence line and confirmed that Frankel was all locked up, so they must have been on a night drive, therefore we snuck down the fence line to look at the water hole in front of Frankel and we were lucky with the timing as an AWC was drinking.

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We were stoked to witness an AWC drinking, even though it was difficult to get clear pics with our lighting, as we had never seen 1 drinking in KNP before, but we wanted to duck quickly from the Frankel fence line before the occupants returned, so we called it and went off to shower and sleep.

To be continued

[Richprins]

Catching up, Bushy!

Ja, you have slowed down a bit!

Wow, a constant lion/hyena/leopard/jackal/AWC frenzy!

It is nice walking around Satara as the veld is so open outside!

Love the hyena with the SANParks embelm, those horns are HEAVY!

Nice pic of you guys at Orpen Dam and Nwanetsi.

That looks like a huge elephant indeed!

(Let's not debate spelling... )