September Through the Tanda Tula Lens

Welcome back to your monthly update from Tanda Tula, our home in the central Timbavati.

After our last two monthly updates, and the tragic losses our four-legged friends suffered, I am sure there is some trepidation about reading this month’s blog! Fortunately, aside from the ‘normal’ predatory behaviour of our cats, there were no major upsets this month, so this should make for happier reading.

With spring having sprung, the bush is quickly springing to life, and donning the early shades of summer much earlier than we typically see. This month saw a decent start to the rainy season, with 31mm of rain falling on two days, and we ripped off the ‘September’ page of our calendar as the rain was still falling outside, meaning that October should be a month of even more noticeable change. We are not going to get too excited just yet, as we are also likely to start experiencing the effects of this season’s El Niño soon, and that means hotter, and likely drier than usual conditions. As we wrapped up with jackets, gloves and beanies, and even dusted off the hot water bottles again towards the end of the month, it is difficult to believe that we are going to be sweating it out very soon!

This month saw a continued blooming of flowers, with the strikingly coloured tree wisterias joining the long-tailed cassias, and even some persistent knobthorn trees! This imbued the bush with splashes of colour that contrasted against the tawny tones of the bush; the green grass popped up in the burnt areas, and remained relatively lush along the riverbeds too, riverbeds that continued to flow in certain spots. Some sections don’t even look close to stopping this trickle of water anytime soon! It has been an unprecedented year in that regard, and I hope that this means that even with the upcoming dry spell, there will be sufficient moisture in this environment to make it easier on the animals.

But, with several cold and windy days around this month, it did not feel like we were going to be getting the hot summer that has been forecast!

The windy weather might have brought out the big jackets again, but it also brought out the cats, and our lions made full use of the ideal hunting conditions during the dark, cloudy, windy nights. With the wind covering their scent, obscuring the sound of their footfalls and the lack of starlight allowing them to blend invisibly into the background, the odds were all in their favour. And they reaped the benefits.

Following the first windy night, Steven found five members of the River Pride finishing off a wildebeest on Giraffe Plains (even the open areas didn’t help the prey); and that afternoon, we found where the Sark Breakaway Pride and their cubs had not one, but two zebra kills hidden under one of the bushes. They feasted there for almost two days.

A week and a half later, more clouds, more wind, and more successful lions. This time it was the Sark Breakaway Pride again, without the males, that caught another lone male wildebeest in an open area. With this constant pressure, it is no surprise that we saw another annual decline in the wildebeest populations of the Timbavati, and our lions weren’t done!

Even when the conditions were not so in favour of the lions, they still used the unusually dense bush to their advantage, even in the daylight. We enjoyed an incredible sighting one morning when we were heading up north to see the River Pride. It had been my plan to follow up on the Sark Nomads that had been harassing a buffalo herd the afternoon before, so when another guide found some lions in a similar area, I was convinced it was going to be the Sark Nomads. He was adamant it was the River Pride. As I was approaching the area, a giraffe came running out of the thickets. They tend not to run like that for no reason, but upon enquiring if the ‘River Pride’ were still in the same place, I was informed that they were still watching some nearby zebras. I was thus very surprised to look up and see a young male lion emerge from the thickets. Surely these had to be the same lions that Remember was watching? I drove off road to get a closer look, and slowly more and more lions began appearing. This was the Sark Nomads, and they were no more than a few hundred metres from where the River Pride were still very much stationary!

The young pride, six members that I could see, were watching into the thickets where the giraffe had run, and to where we had earlier seen a bunch of zebras and wildebeest. It was getting late in the morning; it was getting warm, and the lions weren’t overly hungry, so they slowly peeled off into the shade, believing that with the giraffe having run off, the hunt had ended. Little did we know.

We were just about ready to leave the lions when the sound of rushing hooves erupted to our south. The lions clocked onto what was going on far quicker than I did. The sound was getting closer, and quickly. It was also coming straight towards us, and the six lions that were seconds earlier dead to the world were now very ready for whatever was rushing towards us. They set themselves up in the shrubby bush, and within seconds we heard a little bellow. Not loud. Not definitive. But enough to get us rushing in that direction as other wildebeest rushed past us to safety. We rounded a group of shrubs, and there we found six lions on top of an unfortunate wildebeest, doing their best to subdue it.

They had no sooner got the wildebeest down when Allied and I, as well as the lions, all paused and swung our heads to the north. There was the distinctive sound of something else getting caught! I had told Remember to come and join us at our sighting, but then told him to rather turn off and listen. I was sure the River Pride had made another kill not far from us. He hurried into the area and soon found five members of the River Pride killing a zebra, not 300m from where we were!

We were still trying to figure out what had happened when a seventh member of the Sark Nomads, very out of breath, walked up to the group from the south, and the penny dropped. The hunt had never stopped. The oldest lioness had been the one that had broken off from the pride and herded the zebra and wildebeest towards the others. She had no idea that her pride had settled in the shade, but only knew the last place that she had left them waiting in ambush. She ran in, the wildebeest turned and ran from her, and she had successfully herded them straight into her waiting pride members (I’m sure they never told her that they had actually given up and gone to sleep!).

What none of those lions, and especially not the zebras and wildebeest, had realised was that there was a second pride of lions that had been drawn to the same commotion of rushing hooves, and they had taken full advantage of this situation and grabbed a zebra of their own. Fortunately for the River Pride, the Sark Nomads had gotten their own meal, as if they hadn’t, they would have run in and stolen the zebra off them straight away. As it turned out, the meal was stolen later in the day, but only after the Sark Nomads had finished off their wildebeest. A real feast for the predators, and not a good day to be a prey species in the Timbavati.

The Giraffe Pride continues to do well, with the pride maintaining its split nature and popping up in different areas and at different times. I got my first glimpse of some of the newer cubs one afternoon when we headed to the west to see three lionesses and seven cubs, all incredibly cute and showing a playfulness when the lionesses were only interested in sleeping!

The white lion and that portion of the pride were a mixed bag during the month, spending extended periods beyond our borders. The pride finding a dead elephant off the concession didn’t help, but after a few days of sitting trying to get into the carcass, they left it to the scavengers and made a return to the area. As expected, they lazed off smaller-than-expected bellies as the morning heated up. A few days later, the pride was still in the area for the third day running, and I headed down, and for the first time I have experienced, there was no one else interested in coming to see him, so we got to spend a good part of the morning watching the pride resting. Annoyingly, the reason there was no one else coming was because with me being as far west as I could possibly drive, the east came to life! Nkombo male lions roaring on Tortillis Plains, almost twenty hyenas finishing off a giraffe carcass, the Sark Nomads close to a herd of buffalo, and three cheetahs! I never thought I’d be sitting watching a white lion on our own, wishing that I was somewhere else!

Later in the month, we got to spend another afternoon in the presence of the white lion without other vehicles coming to see him, but I am starting to think this guy only sleeps! For the first time, as the sun set, I got to actually watch him moving with the pride, and it coincided with one of the Birmingham Breakaway males coming to reunite with the pride, which made for an enjoyable afternoon with the Giraffe Pride.

One of the biggest developments in the lion world was the realisation that the Nkombo males are indeed making a push for the Mayambula Pride. Venturing into the east with purpose on more frequent occasions, the two Nkombo males seem to want to make their presence known. At the moment, their calls and this challenge remain unanswered by the Vuyela male. One morning, five members of the Mayambula Pride were reported with a giraffe carcass, and we were informed that they were with a male. I naturally assumed it was the Vuyela male, but this was soon corrected to there being two males, both Nkombo males, resting close to the lionesses. We arrived to find that only two lionesses were around, and one was feeding while the males lay not far off, seemingly content with their presence.

That evening, there was more action, and every time the lionesses came to feed, the males would approach, chase them off a little way and roar! It was exciting, but you could see that the females were not afraid, and were trying to evade the males. This is the sort of ritual that precedes a takeover. I suspect a similar situation will unfold, where the Mayambula females that don’t have cubs form a breakaway pride that the Nkombo males will take over, and those few lionesses that do have cubs will likely move off to protect them, possibly still under the protection of the Vuyela male. If this likely scenario does play out, how long will those females evade the Nkombo males, and how much longer will the Vuyela male hold on to the last bit of his once great kingdom? Time will tell!

As expected, the third lioness of the Sark Breakaway Pride left the pride to go and give birth. For over a week we were convinced she was only a day away from dropping, and then on the 26th September, whilst feeding on a zebra kill, she broke away from the pride and disappeared into a thicket in the middle of the Nhlaralumi. She didn’t return to the pride for a few days. We now have to wait for her to reveal the cubs, which could be as early as next month, but likely only in November.

Her pride mates continue to do well raising the seven cubs, and they continue to grow. The pride fed well this month, particularly with the Nkombo males off in the east, and this allowed them to look in good shape throughout.

The two mothers began moving over bigger distances, and this again brought them past the camp a number of times, but it did also take them out of the area for a slightly extended period in the early part of the month. Hopefully with the new litter of cubs, the pride will again be anchored to the dry Zebenine riverbed in the central parts of our concession, and we will continue to be spoilt by them.

Our group of Sark Nomads lived up to their name this month, and popped up in all corners of the reserve, amidst times of complete absence. They did such a good job of being elusive that each time they pitched up with different numbers of pride members, and seldom in the same composition, so I don’t even know how many pride members they have, but it could potentially be as many as 11, and is definitely at least nine. The two older boys are growing increasingly impressive!

After the run of predator-on-predator action of late, I was fully expecting that Dzindza had become another kill chalked up to the lions. There were no signs of her for several weeks, and that is incredibly unlike her. When young female leopards were seen in and around Tanda Tula Safari Camp, it usually turned out to be her sister, Rihati. Then, one morning, Tristan called to say that he had a very relaxed leopard sleeping up a tree close to our camp. He was sure it was Dzindza. I was not going to believe it until I saw it with my own eyes. I arrived, and as I saw her from a distance, she stood up, and my heart dropped. This leopard is not that relaxed; it had to be Rihati.

Luckily, she lay down again, and I made my way up to the bank to join Tristan, and it was then that I realised he was indeed correct. Dzindza was still with us! And she put on a lovely show; she yawned, stretched and then descended the tree to go and stalk some impalas, giving us a great ending to what had until then already been a pretty good drive!

She then surprised us a week later, as I came through the riverbed crossing towards Machaton Dam in the early morning. Jack excitedly pointed forward and said “leopard”! I thought it had to be N’weti coming in from the east, but as she got closer we soon saw it was Dzindza. What on earth was she doing out this side of the reserve? Was this where she had been hiding, or was she off looking for a mate? Either way, it was lovely to see her, and after that, sightings of her continued through the month, making up for lost moments with her over the past month!

I feel like we have had a few new male leopard faces over the past month: Lebombo male, Serondella, and now Bongha. Although, he is not actually a new face. He appeared as a new leopard in the area just over two years ago, a young male passing through, and not very comfortable with the vehicles. He disappeared, and then two years later made a reappearance. And not just a reappearance, but a reshaping of his behaviour. He has become completely relaxed with vehicles! He was first found with a warthog kill, and no one could figure out who he was, but one thing was for sure, he didn’t care about the cars! For once, we have a new male leopard that doesn’t just run away. A colleague did some digging and found out that it was not only the same male, but a male that had been given a name in the northern Umbabat nature reserve: Bongha, to be thankful. Very apt, as we are most thankful for his appearance!

He arrived again a week or so later, initially reported as Xivati. It didn’t take me long to recognise him (and this was confirmed when Xivati was found whilst we were watching him), and we spent time watching him up a marula tree before he descended and stalked towards a burrow in a mound. My thought was that he had seen a warthog family in there, but when they still hadn’t emerged, and he hadn’t moved, by the afternoon, I began wondering if he hadn’t maybe chased an aardvark into the burrow.

When our central leopards weren’t playing along too nicely, I opted to head up north to see Mashangaan male, a young male I last ventured north to see over a year ago! He had an impala kill, and was resting up a nice tree as a light drizzle fell. With belly full and out of the way of the lurking hyenas, he posed beautifully for us before the rain got too much and we had to retreat to put on some warming ponchos!

Other leopard activity this month included Sunset female being seen in the west a few times, especially when she was found with an impala kill. Additionally, there were several days when Nkaya Dam female was seen mating with Serondella male. This is interesting as he is a different male to the one that sired her last litter (Xivati), but a good sign that he has pushed Xivati out of that region of his territory. This could account for why Xivati is being seen further north and east than usual.

Rivala female leopard was also seen on several occasions, but not as regularly as she has been in the past months. And most interestingly, Kisimusi female was found on Nkhari by Scotch one afternoon, and aside from being somewhat relaxed with the vehicles despite no sightings of her for a while, she was showing clear signs of lactation, suggesting that she has a new litter of cubs stashed away somewhere!

At the end of the last blog, I commented that our small pack of wild dogs, the bad luck pack, had, aside from losing all eight pups and an adult the month before, also seemingly lost one more adult. We knew that the individual wasn’t dead, as we could hear the occasional contact call, and saw tracks for a single dog running around, but it was always far from where the rest of the pack was. Until one day, it wasn’t! After almost three weeks on its own, the lost dog reunited with the pack and they ended the month with all four members intact, giving some promise that maybe, just maybe, they can pull through these tough times.

The other pack of around eight adults and three pups continued to roam widely, and popped up into the western sections more than they did the central block. Having guests that had seen everything else they wanted, we headed west one afternoon to see if we could get lucky with the pack, and we were rewarded with some good time following them as they hunted across the freshly burnt woodlands of the west. Sadly they didn’t have any luck until we left them, but it was still a treat to spend some time with them!

Interestingly, we also had a splinter pack of five wild dogs move through the area during this month. They were part of a pack of wild dogs in Mozambique that dispersed through Kruger, covering some 75km of direct westward movement in just over a week! Needless to say, they did not hang around here for long.

Now a trio that I was most upset about missing last month was that of the smaller-spotted variety. Last month a female and two seemingly adult male cheetahs spent a couple of days around before heading into the far south of the Timbavati, and this time we were rewarded when they were picked up resting on a burnt area one afternoon. I scrapped any other plans I had and headed straight towards them. Despite it being a good time of day to be active, the trio rested off as sunset approached. It was a real treat to have them in the area, but I was no closer to figuring out what sort of composition they had, as the males did not look like sub-adults.

It was the next morning when I was sitting at the other end of the reserve that I heard that the trio had been found resting in the same spot, and despite checking for them in the afternoon, they had disappeared.

My next set of guests arrived from the Serengeti, and amazingly had not seen any cheetahs, so this was their number one request. I headed out on the first morning explaining that we were going to go look for cheetah. After checking some of the open areas, and hearing that the Sark Breakaways had a fresh kill, I was inclined to cut my optimistic cheetah search short. But Jack told me to turn left and check a bit further south. I explained to my guests that this was entirely Jack’s decision, and it’s a hit-or-miss area, and if we missed, it was on him! We were missing in a big way! After not having much luck with anything, I conceded that I was the likely reason for our lack of luck, as I never find cheetahs. Someone had already checked the last road I could drive, so I knew the cheetahs weren’t there, but I headed along it anyway to head towards the lions. It was as we got to the burnt area that movement caught my eye in front and the guests exclaimed “cheetah on the right!”. But I wasn’t looking right, I was looking ahead at another cheetah, and then another! It was our terrific trio, and they could not have picked a better time to show themselves! Sadly after that sighting, they moved off south and were not seen again, but it is promising that they did make a return a few weeks after their initial showing. I still need to get an ID on the female, and see if we can work out if it is just a mother and her two adult sons. It seems the most likely, even if it is a slightly odd situation.

Our little hyena den remained active early in the month, but after a couple of weeks the clan appears to have moved off to another den. It won’t be far from the original den, but we will need some luck to find it!

After a quieter than usual winter for the elephants of the Timbavati, we did start getting more regular views of the herds around Tanda Tula waterhole, and it almost became their traditional daily visit for a drink. But again, with water abounding, they are not tied to our waterhole as they normally would be. We had pretty decent elephant activity across the reserve, and on warm afternoons, the herds could be found along the Nhlaralumi riverbed, or close to the remaining mud wallows.

Arriving at one such wallow on a hot day, we spotted some elephants muddying themselves; in their midst was a small calf slipping and sliding around. It looked small, but it was only when it came onto dry land and still couldn’t walk too well that the penny dropped. This calf had just been born! Looking at the mother, she still had some placenta hanging out, and wet blood on her hind legs. The calf was likely less than an hour or two old.

Over the remainder of the month, we managed to see the herd regularly and keep tabs on the little one who had now found her feet, but still needed to move quickly to keep up with mom! What a privilege it is to watch something so small and be completely accepted by the mother, her knowing we posed no danger at all.

Elsewhere, herds became daily features of the game drives, be it herds grazing as the sun set, being there to welcome our guests, or rushing to a nearby waterhole as the mornings heated up.

We once again had a sizeable buffalo herd (250 to 300) camping out at Marco’s Dam to the south of Tanda Tula for an extended period in the early and latter parts of the month. They would simply feed in circles around the dam, and always return there for water.

The Sark Nomads may have caused the herd to venture north, but when the Sark Breakaway Pride did find them, they did little to disturb the herd and another month passed without the lionesses getting a buffalo meal. With the buffalo being so strong and healthy, this was not really a surprise.

With the knobthorn trees flowering so profusely this season, it was no surprise that it drew the giraffes into the area in good numbers, and we had regular views of some good gatherings of the world’s tallest animal. It was common to find groups sometimes numbering over a dozen individuals!

Even more interesting was watching the bulls stretching up as far as they could to reach the almost-out-of-reach flowers of the knobthorns, extending their tongues by almost a foot to get to these nutritious morsels.

And as always, this round up wouldn’t be complete without taking a moment to appreciate the other inhabitants of this part of the Greater Kruger. We had some regular viewing of warthog families across the month, especially on the freshly burnt areas with the green grass budding up. The zebra herds were a little more in evidence too this month, and some of the groups even included small foals.

We enjoyed sightings of porcupine in the camp too, the first I have seen in camp for many a year, as well as a number of honey badger sightings, including this one that was doing its best pangolin impersonation!

The birding remained good, and with the windy and cloudy weather, we had particularly good raptor viewing (the larger birds of prey couldn’t take to flight, leaving them ‘grounded’). We continued to see the cutest of owls, the pearl-spotted owlets, on a regular basis, as well as sightings of Verreaux’s eagle-owl, spotted eagle-owl, barred owlet, white-faced owls and scops owls.

Ostrich sightings were common, and we also started seeing more migratory species arriving: Klaas’s cuckoo, European bee-eaters, wood sandpipers, yellow-billed kites, and a couple more swallow species.

And lastly, as a last view, the abandoned baby hippo was still alive, but he seems to be facing a tough time with the hyenas and was sporting more fresh wounds. We will keep our fingers crossed that he will have the strength and determination to make it through this tough period.