May Through the Tanda Tula Lens

For the first time in eight months, I did not need to adjust our monthly rainfall figures for the year. A rainless May brought our summer rainfall total for 2025/6 to a whopping 1270mm, almost three times higher than the long-term average for the area!

As a result of the summer's rains, it definitely did not look like a dry month, and whilst the grasses started drying, the lush greenery still abounded along the many shaded areas of the dense riverbeds.

Many of the deciduous trees, like the marulas, red bush-willows and raisin bushes, began shedding their leaves for the approaching winter, but it almost seemed that they were 'confused': the temperatures felt like winter was coming and the daylight was getting shorter each day, but with so much soil moisture around, many decided to hang onto their photosynthetic apparatus a little longer than usual, and that made our herbivores very happy!

I blogged recently about why autumn is one of the nicest times of year to do a safari, and this past month made me realise that May is actually one of my favourite times in the Timbavati. The sun is rising later, which means we get a little bit of an extra sleep-in, but are still able to get out on safari before sunrise. Yes, jackets and hot water bottles are out, but it would be a stretch to call it cold, and by the time we stop for coffee on the morning drive, the layers are off and the daytime temperatures are perfectly warm! This year, with all the moisture around, we also enjoyed many a morning in my favourite conditions: a misty autumnal start to the day! The scenes it creates, the red ball of a sun rising through the water vapour, and the dew settling on all the grass and vegetation, definitely make for one of the most scenically beautiful periods of the year!

I'm going to break tradition and not begin with the lions this month. Whilst they remained the dominant force this May, they did not give us the biggest of surprises! No, that honour belonged to a character we wrote about last month: a very rotund female cheetah that we saw walking around the open areas of the east. When we saw her last month, teats full of milk and a very rounded belly, both Jack and I thought she was pregnant. This month, she proved that we were wrong. She was indeed producing milk, but the roundness of her belly was only due to a recent meal. We know this because this month she pitched up with four small cubs of about three months old! I almost couldn't believe the radio call when it came in: 'stations, I have a female cheetah with four small cubs on Cheetah Plains'. The unbelievable part was not that she had four cubs, but that there was actually a cheetah on Cheetah Plains! I jest; over the years it has given us a few surprises, but none bigger than this!

I was conveniently the closest vehicle, but the guide who found them mentioned that the cubs were a little unsure of the vehicle, so we opted to keep it to just one vehicle at a time. Even though the mother was feeding on an impala kill, we also made the decision not to drive off-road to get a closer view, for fear of disturbing her and the cubs. I arrived, and all one could see were their little heads popping above the dry grass, their white mantles still clear and distinctive on their backs. They didn't move off, but you could see that vehicles were new to their world.

It was during this time that I heard another guide had actually bumped into them while I was on leave a couple of weeks before, in the south-east, but experienced the same issue: the mother was completely comfortable, but the cubs moved off, so they also rightfully decided to leave them in peace. What wasn't right was that nobody had told me about this! The last cheetah cub I saw in the Timbavati was back in 2009! There was a mother with three cubs in 2023 that was seen several times in the east, but as we were operating out of Plains Camp, I never got to see her. Sadly, her cubs did not make it.

Cheetahs have tough lives, especially when they are so small and occupy an area used by three different lion prides. This does not bode well for these youngsters, but their mother survived, as did her mother, and the mother before that. It is a tough task, but clearly not an impossible one! We will keep our fingers crossed for their survival, and I now enter the east with renewed vigour and a desire to find this mother and her cubs again! We have caught up with her every few weeks leading up to this sighting of her cubs, so we hope that this trend will continue over the course of winter!

To round off a nice month for cheetah viewing, Jack managed to track down the Ximuwu male cheetah on Sunset Plains one afternoon. I think it is the first time I have ever had a tracker find a cheetah on foot for me! He was coming from the east to the west, which meant that he had probably been in the area for a couple of days before we found him, but at least we caught up with this beauty!

The cheetahs may have stolen the headlines, but the lions remained the dominant force this May, and all our prides gave us something to follow.

The female cheetah wasn't the only cat to surprise us this month; the Mayambula Pride did the same thing, although not quite to the same level. After tracking them down in the east one morning, Steven told me he had found the whole Mayambula Pride together: 14 lions. I thought he had lost his ability to count, as to the best of our knowledge there should only have been 13; nine females, three cubs and one male. Turns out Steven's maths was just fine, and a tenth lioness had emerged. We have not seen more than nine females for the past ten months!

What was also good to see was that one of the lionesses has just had a new litter of cubs in the Machaton Riverbed. The area is quite inaccessible due to the dense foliage and sensitive soils, but with another lioness very pregnant and close to dropping, we are excited about the prospect of having more bundles of fur running around the eastern areas again. As the pride continues to be more active in this part of our concession than they have been for a couple of years, we are holding thumbs that they raise these litters within our concession this year. This adds to my dreams: not only of finding four cheetah cubs in the east now, but also of learning that the Mayambula Pride are going to give us some more white lion cubs. Four, if my dreams are to come true!

The remaining Vuyela male continues to be the only coalition member we see, further confirming that he was the only one to survive last year's outbreak. Despite being a solo male, he is by far the biggest male in the area at the moment, and an amazing lion to lay one's eyes on. Long may he remain ruler of the Mayambula Pride!

As rosy as the picture looks for the Mayambula Pride at the moment, there was a worrying sighting earlier in the month that could drastically change things. Guides found two male lions in the heart of the Mayambula territory. My first thought (another dream, I guess!) was that it was actually two Vuyela males! Sadly, the guides confirmed that the lions were not big enough to be Vuyela males. The next logical explanation would be the two older Sark Breakaway males; this seemed plausible until the Sark Nomads were found in the far west, with both of the young males present. So who were these new males?

I headed there in the afternoon and found the duo resting in the same spot they had spent the whole day. I could see that they were definitely not Vuyela males, and far from their once-great size. These boys were younger, but beautiful, and not unfamiliar. I suspected they were the same two males that killed the Sark Breakaway cubs on Nkhari last year before disappearing back south: the Avoca and Black Dam males. We spent the evening with them as they began stirring, before they got up and walked off to the west, a good direction for the safety of the Mayambula Pride.

The worrying thing was that this duo walked around with confidence and scent-marked on every bush they passed, acting like this was land they owned! During the night the pair carried on far to the west and were not seen again during the month. But will their visit be a one-time affair, or will they decide that a pride of ten lionesses is worth fighting for? Only time will tell. The Mayambula females walked past this area two days later and stopped to investigate the scents, but did not seem put off by the smell of new testosterone.

Before panic sets in, the struggle for the Sark Breakaways came not from raising their seven cubs, but rather from finding enough food, especially with the constant presence of the Nkombo males in the pride. The pride has been based in the same area for over four months now, raising their cubs, and this constant predator pressure is taking its toll on the plains game in the area. Yes, they have fed on a lot of the game, but the constant pressure quickly pushes the herds out of the area, and this meant a tough month for the mothers. The fact that the third lioness is often off mating with the Nkombo males makes things even more challenging, as it leaves only two hunting lionesses. When the third lioness joins, she is usually accompanied by the males too, so any meals that are caught are usually commandeered by the muscle in the pride.

We saw this first-hand one evening as we watched the five lions on the hunt; they came across a herd of impalas, and we sat in the dark until we heard the unmistakable death bellow as the pride caught an impala. Barely a meal for five lions, and less so once the two males managed to wrangle away the majority of the carcass, leaving the lionesses with little more than a few mouthfuls.

The pride did manage to get a large zebra in the eastern reaches of their territory, but the distance was too great to bring the cubs to, so the mothers simply went back and forth to give them milk. One mother did decide to bring the cubs a little closer and settled in the Nhlaralumi riverbed close to Tanda Tula, the cubs' first sojourn to this part of their world. This move confused the other mother, who could not find her cubs where she had left them! One can only imagine the internal panic she felt! Luckily, the next day they were back at one of their old den sites, and all seven cubs and both mothers were happy and content.

All seven cubs are still doing well enough, and although a little skinnier than they should be, they are in a good place. Towards the end of the month the pride moved west into Klaserie, and we now await their return.

The two remaining members of the Mawondane Pride, brother and sister, appeared to be doing their bit to grow their family. I doubted the reports of them being a 'mating pair', knowing their relationship, but three days later they were in the same area and he was still trying! She was an unwilling recipient of the attention, but whether it leads to anything remains to be seen. A few days later she was on her own, looking for the male, before they eventually reunited.

We saw the River Pride with pleasing regularity over the course of the month, and on every occasion they were looking in good condition. There was a scare in the middle of the month when the old, injured lioness was sporting fresh wounds on her bad leg and appeared unable to move; the pride moved off in the morning and she didn't follow. That afternoon she remained unmoved, and things did not look good. Fortunately, the pride reunited, and after a few days she was hobbling around like she has for the past 18 months. The pride continues to stay strong!

The eleven members of the Sark Nomads stayed true to their nature, but were seen within our area a few times during the month, ranging from the far western reaches all the way to the east. The pride were seen on a couple of kudu kills during the month, ensuring that all eleven members stayed strong and healthy, and for now, out of trouble!

Winter is known for a pleasing increase in the number of leopard sightings around Tanda Tula, and this month started to show signs that the trend is beginning to kick in.

My month started off half-heartedly, following up on male leopard tracks around Nkhari, when alarm-calling impalas ahead alerted us that we were close. We rushed over, and Jack soon spotted a shy male leopard moving off into the bush. I was not going to follow, due to his seemingly shy nature, when suddenly another male leopard came walking past the vehicle: a much more relaxed individual. We followed the pair as they walked close to one another, exchanging growls, but nothing more materialised from the encounter. Tristan saw the less relaxed male in the area a few days later.

Another encounter between two of our leopards seemed inevitable, considering the movements of two of our females. Dzindza has set herself up around the Zebenine and hasn't been moving to the east nearly as much. Over the past months she has had to share her space with the young female, but out of nowhere the Airstrip female returned to the area. It appears as though she has cubs hidden in the Nyosi Riverbed to the north-west of our area, and this happens to overlap with where Dzindza has been hanging out. With cubs to protect, the Airstrip female will no doubt be more defensive of her territory. We followed her one morning as she scent-marked and eventually ascended a marula tree.

A few days later we saw Dzindza ascending the same tree! With the two cats in close proximity, it was only a matter of time before they bumped into one another, and sure enough, that evening the two almost came to blows! Luckily, it appeared to be much more about posturing and showing dominance. Due to her bigger size, I am assuming that the Airstrip female won the encounter.

Dzindza suddenly started appearing much further east within her territory and, for the first time in a while, was seen around Tanda Tula Safari Camp. This new arrangement could work out nicely for us, and we got to see her feeding on a fresh bushbuck kill close to camp for a couple of days.

The leopard viewing in the west has been very good of late. The Nkaya Dam female has moved back into her old territory with her two cubs and was seen with a number of kills. My first sighting of the cubs showed them to be a little shy, but a couple of weeks later the three of them were sitting in a marula tree with an impala kill, and the two youngsters were very relaxed with our presence. Hopefully a good sign of things to come!

Reports are that the Savannah female has also had cubs in the west, and the Sunset female is pregnant; this could provide some welcome genes to our leopards in the west. The presence of both the Lebombo males and Xivati (who we saw a couple of times, including resting up a tree at sunset) should do their bit to help share their genes and protect the next generation of leopards in the western Timbavati.

There was not much activity from Nyeleti in the north this month, but interestingly there were tracks for another female with at least two cubs in our north-eastern corner. This year has a lot of potential for new leopards in the area!

The elephants continued to enjoy the bounty of food around the reserve, but as the eastern sections appeared to dry faster than the west, it led to more consistent elephant activity in the west and slightly more sporadic periods of activity in the east. What I did notice was that when the herds were present in the east, they were in big groupings, sometimes numbering over 80 elephants, as we experienced one morning.

There is still an abundance of water in the area, so the elephants do not need to be limited to the larger water bodies just yet, but this will slowly start changing as winter progresses.

The good water will begin to draw the buffalo herds back, and whilst the month started off with them being scarce, the herds did reappear in the west in the middle of the month before making an appearance in the central regions towards the end of the month. This herd stayed reasonably sedentary in the area while the Sark Breakaways were busy on a zebra kill, but as soon as the lions found them, they bee-lined straight to the north and did not return!

We always talk about the best birding being seen in the summer months, but this month again proved that even in winter there are some wonderful birds to be seen in the Timbavati.

My favourite winter birds are the ostriches that return from wherever it is they disappear to in summer. So far this season we have had two males and a single female return to the open gabbro woodlands.

A couple of southern ground-hornbill families continue to use the area, and whilst they didn't breed this past summer, they remain active around their nesting sites.

We have also enjoyed good sightings of black-winged kites. Not a common bird in the area, but one species that seems to be enjoying the bounty of rodents running around in the bush; as a specialist rodent hunter in grasslands, these birds are often seen hovering over grassy patches looking for their next meal. The Verreaux's eagle-owls are no doubt enjoying this too.

While the migrant birds are gorgeous, our residents are not too bad either. The late fruiting of the guarris and raisin bushes has been good for the frugivores like brown-headed parrots and green pigeons.

Towards the end of the month, we had a rare and unusual scene when a large elephant bull died in the north. The enormous meal drew in a host of scavengers, with over 200 vultures (of all kinds: lappet-faced, white-backed, hooded and Cape vultures), more than 20 hyenas, seven lions and a couple of jackals.

The River Pride arrived at the carcass twice, and on both occasions spent a few hours there after chasing off the hyenas and vultures, but they soon realised that they just could not get into the carcass and left it for the experts.

Even after five days, with all the jaw strength and ingenuity of the vultures, they were only just getting into the internal cavities of the carcass. It was a treat to see nature's clean-up crew in action!

That just about wraps up the month that was, but as always, the whole experience would not be the same without the usual actors of the play: giraffes, zebras, impalas, kudus, hippos, crocodiles and many more.

This month also saw the re-emergence of processionary caterpillars, the larval stage of processionary moths that move from raisin bush to raisin bush in a long, straight line. Either this emulates a massive, long worm or snake, or it simply keeps them and their irritating hairs close together.

And that, folks, is that! I hope you enjoyed it, and be sure to keep a lookout for more updates next month. Until next time! Cheers, Chad.