June Through the Tanda Tula Lens

As 2026 passes the halfway mark, we enter our first official month of winter!

Amazingly, though, the bush still looks like summer has only just ended, with greenery and water in good supply.

Yes, the areas away from the riverbeds have taken on the characteristic browning of the grasses, but some of the broad-leaved trees almost seemed to be sprouting fresh growth. The Machaton, Nyosi and Nhlaralumi riverbeds are still trickling water where they cut into the water table, and that high water table has kept the grasses lush and green along their courses. It is beginning to draw in the rhinos, elephants and buffalos that can enjoy the spoils, despite the thick vegetation that could conceal some hidden dangers. And, as you will see, there were a good number of 'hidden dangers' roaming around the Timbavati this month!

I was out of action for the first half of the month, so much of what follows is a collection of my sightings from the second half of June.

The Sark Breakaway Pride stayed front and centre of this month's lion sightings, with the cubs spending most of the month in the Timbavati. But as they grow older, the two mothers are moving them around a good deal more, which makes keeping tabs on them a little more challenging.

Their quick growth is not only a challenge for us. The two mothers and the third lioness of the pride once again had a tough month finding and providing food for the family. The trouble did not seem to be catching prey; going by the Nkombo males' permanently distended bellies, the kills were being made, the food was simply all going to the pride males.

One of the males is limping quite badly yet again. Towards the end of 2025 he injured his front right paw, and it seemed to be on the mend until earlier this month, when he was once more limping around the reserve, always lagging behind the pride. It is not life-threatening, but it is the sort of thing that takes time to heal, and there is no putting your feet up for a rest when you are a dominant male lion (or any lion, for that matter!). That constant need to move, run, hunt and fight will likely keep aggravating whatever sprain or strain he has for the foreseeable future.

This pride was not nearly as active as they have been these past months, and went through spells of 'losing' members. Towards the end of the month one of the young males was AWOL, and our fear is always that if one of the seven is not present, some misfortune has befallen them. We are keeping our fingers crossed that this is not the case, and that he rejoins the pride soon. We are also not sure whether these separations come down to simple carelessness, where one gets lost, or something more sinister, like a run-in with another pride.

Scotch was lucky enough to be sitting with the pride one afternoon when a herd of impalas came walking into view. That kicked the pride into action, and ended in a successful hunt and the very quick demolition of an impala!

June proved a frustrating month with this pride. After becoming more and more visible over the past few months, and with the realisation that they had a den site within our traversing area, I was expecting more of them, but they had other ideas and showed themselves with a disappointing irregularity through June. That said, if I were not seeing them every other day, I would also call it a disappointment!

The Vuyela male gave us the runaround a couple of times this month, but one occasion ended in a good sighting: he began roaring at half past three in the afternoon, a rather unusual time to roar. I had been watching rhinos when he started, so I set off to find him, but either I need a new compass for my birthday, or the Vuyela male was wandering all afternoon, because I ended up looking in completely the wrong place from where his next roars came. After a lot more searching, and much more roaring, Steven found him striding across Tortillis Plains, and we followed him into the darkness as he carried on roaring in a way that only he can!

This month we were introduced to three more little cubs from the Giraffe Pride. They were so newly introduced that when I headed down to see the pride and the white cub late in the month, I was not even aware of them until I arrived and found three seven-week-old cubs amongst the pride. That takes the pride up to around 25 members (I say 'around' because I am not even sure of the exact count, but I believe it should be ten cubs, eleven adult females and four males, give or take a few!).

The funny thing is that, even with these little bundles of joy running around and eating elephant dung, they were still not the centre of our attention. No, that belonged to the white cub, who is getting quite a bit bigger now, and much less cub-like!

After a good spell of absence from our traversing area, the part of the pride with the white cub began moving into the far western reaches of our concession a little more regularly, giving us a handful of chances to see this unique youngster. Both he and his sister are doing well, and with each month that passes his chances of making it improve slightly, especially with the Birmingham Breakaway males still holding the fort and steering clear of the Black Dam males to the south, at least for now.

In scanning back over last month's post to see what I had written, I was saddened to reread my section on 'two new stars', and how good it was to have two relaxed cubs for the Nkaya Dam female, imagining watching them grow up. Only now I have to report that, sadly, both cubs have been killed by a new male leopard in the area.

Despite having only seen them a few times, it was still a deeply depressing radio call to hear what had happened. This comes less than a year after the Nkaya Dam female's previous cubs were also killed by a new male, and, curiously, this latest incident took place within 500m of last year's. The culprit this time was not Xivati, who fathered the newest cubs; it was a new male who pitched up, killed one of the cubs, hoisted it up a tree and fed on it for two days. The exact fate of the second cub is not known; it has not been seen since, and we can only assume it met the same end. The new male is not scared of vehicles, but he is a little shy, and I have yet to see more than a few of his spots as he seeks out the densest bush to lie in. He apparently does not mind vehicles driving close, as long as he cannot be seen!

Xivati pitched up a day later, but rather than offering the Nkaya Dam female any protection (that is not the leopard way), he simply stole the kill she had been trying to get her cubs back to before tragedy struck.

Dzindza remained elusive this month, and her movements were impossible to predict, which may well be down to the fact that she was looking to mate. She did eventually find a partner, and was found with a young zebra kill hoisted up a tree. After being a little shy around the kill, the male suddenly relaxed once Dzindza went to sleep up the tree, and rested below her!

Earlier in the month we also found Rihati following what was presumably the same male, trying to mate with him. We had been following up on the sound of hyenas fighting over a kill, and eventually found them finishing off the remains of a baby giraffe. When the mother giraffe kept staring in one direction, we went to investigate, expecting more hyenas, but instead found not one, but two leopards!

After this honeymoon, we began seeing Rihati more regularly around camp, and she even popped in one evening; we watched her walk along the pathway and out into the bush. She is getting better at night, but still does not feel as comfortable with the vehicles as her sister. We did manage one lovely sighting of her resting near a kill of hers one evening.

With so many of the trees still holding onto their leaves, the leopards are not being found up the marula trees as often as we usually see in summer. Luckily, Dzindza does still like them from time to time; after a frustrating morning of searching for leopards, then finding and losing her, we managed to track her down resting in the most perfect tree!

The still-unnamed female we have been seeing for a while now also gave us a lovely show, found resting up a large leadwood on the banks of the Zebenine riverbed one afternoon, just as the last light was leaving the day. She really is a beauty, and so comfortable with us when she is up a tree.

On a crisp, cool morning with a dense mist hanging in the valleys, I stopped to look at a silhouetted eagle in a tree. While I was chatting to the guests, I suddenly stopped mid-sentence as a sound caught my attention: a loud growl. I hushed everyone, and heard it again, a massive growl coming from the east. I knew Tristan was around that side, so I told him to head over, as there was the sound of a pride of lions fighting over a kill coming from the direction of Machaton Dam. He was close. He heard it too. I shot off to help with the search, but the sound kept moving, and we soon worked out why: it was not lions, but leopards. And they were not feeding, they were fighting. Of all the leopards around, I did not expect to find Nyeleti back in her old haunts after such a long absence. The problem was, this was her daughter's territory, and N'weti was not happy that mom had returned. The two carried on their spat in the mist, and we struggled to keep up as they ran off and fought again, before finally parting company and walking off roaring. Luckily, both cats came away with no more than superficial wounds. Exactly why Nyeleti was so far south while her own cubs were still up north is a bit of a mystery, but time will tell whether they are still safe and well; they had been seen in good health three days before the fight, so there is no reason to suspect anything has happened to them.

This is not a typical winter. By now the waterholes should be pulling the crowds, but with so much surface water still around, the game is widely dispersed and not concentrating in any one place.

We have had occasional visits from large buffalo herds, one in the north and one in the west, but they never stay too long; it does not take the lions long to latch on and try their luck. That said, aside from the Sark Nomads taking a buffalo in the middle of the month, the other lions did not have much success, and with the buffalos in such strong, healthy condition, that is entirely understandable!

Elephants continued to move in and out of the area, though their numbers are starting to hold a little more steadily. We are still enjoying a fine group of big elephant bulls in the east, but there is still no sign of Apollo; we are keeping our fingers crossed for his return this winter!

The remains of last month's dead elephant kept the vultures and hyenas busy for the first few days of June, and it is quite something to watch how these scavengers clean up an entire carcass. Aside from a few leg bones and the skull, the rest has been eaten or carried off!

One afternoon we enjoyed what began as a seemingly playful spat between two zebra stallions, but grew into something more prolonged and, though still friendly, showed off their potentially vicious side!

We continued to have sightings of a klipspringer in the east. This is not a rare antelope in the Kruger, but it is an uncommon one in the Timbavati, mostly because of its need for rocky outcrops, something we sorely lack. This individual has found a good patch in the gabbro belt in the east, and seems content to call it home for now!

A high point of the month was welcoming our newest rhino to the reserve, when one of the females showed off her weeks-old calf. After a day of viewing, the little one grew extremely curious of us, and gave us some heart-warming sightings!

The rest of the cast played their parts too, always giving us something to watch, photograph and enjoy. We can expect plenty more of this as winter settles in.

It is worth stressing again that, although our summer migrants have all moved back north, our winter birds are not to be sniffed at! This month once again proved there are more than enough species to keep novice and serious birders alike delighted. As always, my favourites among the winter birds are the small ostrich population that moves into the area at this time of year; we appear to have at least three males and a group of females making Tanda Tula their home this year.

Well, aside from the fact that their blood is not actually cold, our 'ectothermic' friends do not need to hibernate in our sub-tropical climate. With the winter being such a mild one so far, we have seen better reptile activity than we usually do at this time of year: from the terrapins sunning themselves at the waterholes, to the chameleons still being expertly spotted at night by our trackers, to my highlight of the month, an eight-foot African rock python slithering around a dead tree before the birds found it and chased it off!

And that is about it for the month that was! I trust you have enjoyed catching up, and be sure to check in again next month to see what other magic has been waiting out there for us.

Until next time!

Cheers, Chad