Flavour of the Month Aug/Sep 2016 H4-2 Lower Sabie - Crocodile Bridge

[leachy]

in fact......

it was a member of this same pride

that was not only responsible for stealing a kill

that a leopard had stored in it's pantry (or is that pantree?)

but also killing the leopard while it was still in the tree.......

[Richprins]

Some old scans of lions there scared in trees...










This would have been around 1997, I think?

[Flutterby]

The second lion looks like a leopard.

[Mel]

Unique!

[Richprins]

Aha! Found another very old pic of one of the scared lions on the ground in the morning...a film scan, before digital!

q.gif (196.78 KiB) Viewed 113 times

[Flutterby]

Travel the H4-2 on Google Street View:

https://www.google.co.za/maps/@-25.3580 ... 6656?hl=en

Croc Bridge

Gesanftombi

Lower Sabie

[Richprins]

Here's an interesting pic from Dindingwe on the Challenge thread!

[Richprins]

From aat 2014:


viewtopic.php?f=46&t=5183&start=30

Somewhere in the south. Driving from Lower Sabie towards Crocodile Bridge.

A description of a sighting and why we like the north….

It’s 10:21 AM so Cats are sleeping and most of them taking a nap in the shadow.
But…. Not all of them are invisible. 4 cars parked near the road and following their eyes we saw this leopard


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Waiting for about an hour. What about such a sighting… you don’t want to leave because you don’t know what’s going to happen…
1st time the leopard is moving his head a bit towards us.

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Number of cars around us was increasing per minute….. the sighting APP ? (many cars coming from Lower Sabie)

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Some minutes later… Leopard standing up?

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Around us.. Some people got nervous… some were trying to park two cars at the same spot…. ??? shouting….

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Leopard on his feeth…. May be out of the tree or..?

Around us: some people were climbing on the roof of their car… small van’s and “bakkies” to make pictures or better pictures… others opened the doors to stand next to the car to make pictures. Good idea with a leopard around.
We could not move more then 50cm so enjoying the sighting and the behaviour of so many monkeys around us… well..monkeys normally leave with a leopard in the area.

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We had a great position to observe this leopard. Many did not and it was really going to be a weird situation. I guess there were about 50 cars including these “tourist vehicles” mainly from Lower Sabie.
I only forgot to make pictures of this situation… so just can describe what happened.
10 minutes later Leopard up again…. And watching all these cars and people making lots of noise.
Reason: some rangers / guides of the tourist vehicles were talking to some people standing on the roof of their cars were (talking changed into shouting and warnings). But why listening to them?

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Elly and I were just talking about the peacefull sightings we had in the north. Just you and the animals or sometimes a few cars…. Pffff…. How great it is up there…. And here?

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A beautiful leopard and great spot for pictures in this tree.

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Leopard decided to get out of the tree and getting away of the noise…. Last picture before the leopard disappeared into the bush at the other side of the road….

On the road..? engines on and people moving left and right (chaos) thinking the leopard was coming towards the road…
Smart leopard…. Did not come at all but probably looking for a nice spot to sleep

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Thanks leopard….

[Richprins]

From a 2013 BC story:


https://www.africawild-forum.com/viewto ... =46&t=3225


Around 2km south of Lower Sabie we found a few cars scattered along the road, but most were moving slowly, so we slowly approached the mix and the timing was perfect because the leopard appeared in the open just as we arrived, but she was initially rather nervous, because others on the scene had obviously been slowly driving along trying to follow or spot her, so as we stopped others piled in around us.



I thought that she would duck in seconds, so the normal shrieking for cameras, video, etc took place, but she settled down and parked still for a few pics.





A few minutes later she decided it was time to move again, gave a stretch and continued with her morning patrol.



I quickly started the car and moved forward to follow her, but she suddenly hit the deck and that’s when we spotted a herd of ellies heading towards her. This got the Cow going “There’s ellies coming, move!!”, but there’s no way I was going to move.

Then the ellies suddenly smelt her and all the trunks shot up in the air, which only excited the Cow more “They are onto her, they are going to charge!!” and a few seconds later they charged the leopard.





This caused massive commotion as the leopard ran towards us and I initially thought that she was going to duck under our car, but the ellies were in hot pursuit, so the Cow had gone into begging mode “Please, please!!”, however the crowd had grown behind us and a few cars had parked in front of us, so we couldn’t go anywhere even if we wanted to.

Fortunately the ellies lost interest and crossed the road in front of us and the leopard found a new bush to hide behind just to the left of us.

[Richprins]

From a 2015 Heksie Report:

viewtopic.php?f=46&t=5443&start=190


And then we heard as we were pitching tent that there were an older cub were just 2km from LS towards Croc Bridge. We were on our way and saw a huge traffic jam so decided to turn around and drive the Muntshe loop. And then we did the Ntwamhiri causeway and got some brilliant lions next to the road so we decided that just before gate closing time we would check out the leopard cub…





As it gets dark very early the light was very bad, but a sighting nonetheless. We went to camp very happy with all the spots. The next morning we decided to go check out if the cub might be there, we were back in the line and as we turned left people were driving very slowly down the road and we saw a long white thing going into the bush thinking it was a stork on some sorts. As we passed th car in front they asked us if we saw the leopard? And it dawned upon us that it wasn’t a stork but the tail of a leopard… EIsh… We drove on, and couldn’t believe our luck, two cars parked exactly where we were the3 previous night, and voila the cub on exactly the same spot.




WE sat there for a little while and then we saw a huge herd of buffalo coming to the river from the opposite side, the cub also checked them out.



We were there for about fifteen minutes and then moved on as it was getting crowded. We went to Skuks to have lunch with BC and family and almost didn’t make it back to camp in time that afternoon so couldn’t check if the leppie was at his usual spot.
The next morning we didn’t see the leopard again and the south was crowded with cars so we went to Tshokwane, Orpen look-out point and then take all the quiet dirt roads to camp. It was very cold so we were driving the whole day and then just before getting to camp we went to check out the leopard, and to our surprise a few metres further a car was parked next to the road, and we were treated to a great sighting when we arrived…









It was our last night in Kruger and it was a great way to end it. The next morning we packed up and just for luck went to check this area again and you wouldn’t believe it…