Bushcraft wrote: 7th October 2015 Satara to Talamati continued
We had been allocated unit 5 at Talamati which is closer to the main gate hide than the hide opposite unit 15 at the end of the camp, so we packed drinks, torches, cameras and headed for the “waterhole” hide just before 7pm.
The clan was excited to get moving and I fell behind due to an alcoholic mix I was making, so by the time I got onto the road the clan were a long way ahead of me. A few seconds later something moved in the road right next to me which caused some tap dancing as I had my camera in 1 hand, the dop in the other hand and a small pencil type torch between my teeth.
My brain took a few seconds to register what this strange looking creature was and at first I nearly ran as I thought it was a giant steroid type rat as I certainly never expected to encounter a fat dassie in camp.
Once I registered what it was I had another mission on to get a pic. The clan had seen my torch flashing and were heading back, but the overgrown rat, which was only 1m from me, was starting to get nervous, so in panic I dropped my dop and tried to fire with the camera at the same time, which only resulted in the dassie switching on a built in turbo and the #$&^%* camera wouldn’t fire due to some focus safety feature thing which requires a light on the subject for focus to be achieved before the camera will fire. (If anyone knows another way on a canon 550, please share it as it’s very frustrating)
The net result was no pic, a temper tantrum and nearly a camera thrown into the bush after the dassie.
I was still muttering as we entered the hide, but there were a few hyenas popping up beyond the waterhole, so I got distracted quickly.
Seconds later a lady screamed from the direction of the other hide, which got me muttering again about the lack of respect some people show in Kruger. Minutes later another guest entered the hide and excitably chirped about a wild dog which had just taken out an impala right in front of the other hide. (That would explain the scream)
I was out the hide and heading that direction before the aunty could finish the story.
We arrived at the other hide to find 2 excited Americans and a hyena chowing the impala right in front of the hide, but no wild dog. The cool American dude informed us that it was only 1 wild dog and the hyena had chased it off the kill.
We have picked up on a pattern with the resident Talamati leopard and he normally arrives between 7pm and 8pm for a drink, so I chirped jokingly “A leopard is going to pull in”
Minutes later we all spotted a movement and something approaching which we initially thought was another hyena, but seconds later I was squawking “leopard!”
The leopard was cautious, but once he spotted that it was only 1 hyena he charged in and surprisingly the hyena bolted.
I was now frantic and torch instructions were getting rapidly issued because my little pop up flash only has a range of about 8m with a torch backing it up.
I then commented to the American dude that normally a lone wild dog would hang around once chased off a kill to see if it can sneak back in and steal a piece. Minutes later the leopard jumped up and a wild dog charged out the bush, but hit the brakes big time when faced with the leopard.
There was a standoff between the 2 of them for a few minutes and then the hyena came charging back in, but with 2 other hyena as backup.
The leopard immediately grabbed a large portion of the kill and took off up a tree in front of the staff quarters and the doff hyenas charged off after the wild dog.
The bashing through the bushes continued for a few minutes as the hyenas tried to make sure the wild dog was educated in the pecking order, but to our amazement the wild dog side stepped the hyena, confused them properly and pulled back in to steal a piece of the kill.
The leopard spotted this from his tree and decided that he could take out the wild dog, so he bailed out the tree and charged the wild dog who took off in another direction.
The leopard ate in peace for a few minutes until the hyenas realized they had been given the slip and came shrieking in, which set the leopard off to his tree again with the hyenas in hot pursuit.
The wild dog had obviously been watching from a distance and suddenly came charging in to scoop the foetus.
One of the scallywags spotted this, sounded the alarm and the chase after the wild dog was on again.
Minutes later there was another movement in the distance, so I chirped the American dude that I wouldn’t be surprised if a jackal pulled in and seconds later a SSJ charged in to grab a piece.
The American dude had eyes like saucers and was now looking at me as if I was a clairvoyant, but made the mistake of gulping my dop instead of his to calm his nerves, which resulted in one of the funniest faces I have ever seen and his eyes looked like they were going to blast out of his head. (I knew we were going to spend some time in the hides, so my “mix” was 90% whiskey 10% coke)
“What the heavens is in there!”
This relieved the tension and everybody started laughing
This circus seems quick by the way I have described it above but if I look at the time stamps on the pics it carried on for more than an hour.
At about 9pm there was nothing left and the 4 different predators wandered off in different directions. The rats by this stage were completely overexcited and sensed that it was now ok to jabber and all started at once, so I started with the “predators in camp” war stories which seemed to catch the American dude more than the rats as his eyes got even bigger.
Minutes later we decided to head back to our unit for more drinks and came face to face with a genet in camp, which nearly had the rats climbing up my leg and I was very happy that the American dude was still in the hide or he may have climbed up my leg also.
20 minutes later we decided to head back to the hide where the action had taken place, but everybody had ducked and things were quiet, so we decided to walk along the fence line to the waterhole hide on the other end of camp.
Halfway between the 2 hides I spotted a movement in the bush next to the fence, so stopped and started signalling for the torch, but we all got a massive skrik when I switched it on, as a leopard was cruising along opposite us.
It was obvious that the leopard was heading to the waterhole, so a Brown clan stampede to the other hide started.
As I charged into the hide I chirped all that a leopard was about to arrive for a drink, which got others in the hide who had missed all the action at the other hide rather excited, but then I spotted that an ellie, buffalo and hyenas were hanging around the water so we decided to wait it out.
About 20 minutes later the other animals cruised off and the leopard popped up and went for a long drink at the waterhole. It was just out of range for my camera flash, so we decided to just sit back and enjoy the sighting.
The leopard then walked between the water and the hide towards the camp entrance, so we bailed out the hide and walked along the fence opposite the leopard until it disappeared across the road at the camp entrance and down into the dry riverbed behind camp.
I forgot, we also got a scops owl and a scrub hare during our trips between hides. The hare was too fast but the scops owl just parked off.
It was now close to 10pm and the rats were starting to collapse, so we decided to head back to our unit and came across a scorpion in the road which caused another drama.
I sat outside in the dark alone for half an hour enjoying the memories of what we had just witnessed.
To be continued 
I got some problems in unit 2... once again a lonely girl 
