Africa Wild

Heksie wrote: ↑Sun Jan 26, 2014 9:34 am

Then I came upon a strange and very sad sighting, first I saw this and I thought this oke in the Volkswagen was very brave as I’m more afraid of a hippo than an elephant and he is right next to him.



But the car turned around as I didn’t want to go closer and stopped next to me informing me that the hippo is dead. Now I could investigate on this matter…





The evidence made me think of two theories but I’m leaning more to the latter: Either a family of black mambas was gatvol being squished by these seacows and decided to bite him enough times so their venom would be effective or it was a hit and run… But if a car, bakkie, combi or the smaller versions would hit such a massive beast then there would be a massive dented car next to him. So what transport vehicle was big enough not to smashed up?
I didn’t stay long and left this mystery death still fresh on the road.

Heksie wrote: ↑Sun Feb 16, 2014 4:02 pm @ Flutterby
Just got a reply from Lesego about the dead hippo I saw on the H4-1...

Good Day Anri



Apologies for the delayed response. The hippo was shot in the night by suspected rhino poachers. The animal was found in the morning, reported by staff and other tourists.

It was shot with a .375 cal. hunting rifle.

Duke wrote: ↑Sun Mar 22, 2015 1:39 pm

Got this Wow lion sighting north of Lubyelubye on 15 February at 6.00 am First a lioness walks pass us and we could see another lioness on the road so headed slowly towrds her.

We then saw the cubs and stopped


They still made off to the side of the road and hid in the grass They were really tiny. Disappointment as we thought that is it as far as the cubs were concerned. Mom called, a little peep


The brave one runs towrds mum, the quiet one not too sure yet




Come on it is OK








When you clicking away it is difficult to change lenses so this is not framed perfectly but still worth a thousand words

Duke wrote: ↑Sun Mar 22, 2015 1:44 pm The cubs then gave us a show

Bushcraft wrote: ↑Mon Aug 10, 2015 2:30 pm

Halfway between the H12 bridge and Skukuza we found a car stopped and spotted our first leopard for the day, which was a major stress reliever for me.



It was now around 4:50pm so we had time to park off and enjoy the sighting, but the sun was setting diagonally behind the leopard, so the Cow and I were battling to understand our cameras and get pics, which added a new stress dimension.

We also tried for signal to phone Gumprins, but eventually gave up on that idea as moving didn’t help with signal either.

Another car stopped next to us to find out what was potting, so the Cow explained to the lady where the leopard was.

Seconds later this lady chirped “There’s another leopard approaching the tree on the ground”

This got my attention “Where, There! Take pics!”

“#$^* it’s gone behind the tree!”

The leopard in the tree jumped up and started forward as the other leopard bailed into the tree.





Around a minute later another leopard arrived and started to climb up, which resulted in the 2nd leopard charging up into the higher branches. The 3rd leopard was a large male and seemed intent on something.

As one can imagine I was now a jabbering idiot because my out of control mindset when leopards are around was compounded big time.

“#$^* this camera won’t focus! The Sun is in my face @*#*”

The growling then started from the first leopard that was on the left which got me even more jumpy.



At this moment a car pulled up next to us.

“What do you see?” So I chirped without moving from my camera viewfinder “Leopards in tree over there!”

There was silence for a few seconds and then “I don’t see them!”

This is where the Cow fortunately took over.

“You see that large tree over there; it has a dead tree in front of it and a fish eagle in the tree to the right of it. There are 3 leopards in that tree. 1 on the right, 1 higher up in the centre and 1 on the right branch”.

Silence again.

“I don’t see them, the tree with the fish eagle?”

“No, the tree next to the tree with the fish eagle!”

This went on for 5 minutes and if I wasn’t so tense I would have been laughing as the Cow was getting frustrated, but now this chap was starting to piss on my battery as he was interrupting the adrenalin I need, so I started chirping rather abruptly.

“There’s only 1 big tree, left, centre, right, 3 leopard!”

“Cow, focus on the leopards now!”

The chap moved on to hassle the 1st car we had told and the Cow turned to me with a confused face.

“Is that guy blind or just rather slow?”

The growling and tense body language from the leopards continued.





Time was now starting to catch up with us and the Garmin was indicating we had minutes to spare. This obviously got me even tenser because there’s no way I was leaving now as this looked like 3 adult leopards so anything could happen.

The one on the left and the one in the middle then seemed to “tag up” and they both started growling and carrying on at the large leopard on the right, who then turned suddenly, paused a little and bailed out the tree.