November 2009
We have spent a considerable amount of time over the last month updating and – hopefully – improving our web site. I invite you to take a look and would be grateful for any feedback as we can then react appropriately to the needs of our clients. We have endeavoured to make it more user friendly as well as interactive so that the user can manage what they want to see and how they wish to navigate the site. Check it out and tell us what you think.
Only “two more sleeps” before Hilary and I wend our way back to Africa. Isn’t it funny that no matter how often we go there is always excitement at the prospect of getting back to the “bundu”. (Bush in Oz terms). I am particularly looking forward to seeing if Zimbabwe is as it is portrayed in the press. I am not of course referring to the political mess but to the view from a tourist perspective – Victoria Falls and the game reserves that we will visit are my main target. I visit the “Falls” frequently but it is important to keep up to date as it is a popular destination.
The Australian dollar has been going from strength to strength and it now allows for some amazingly cost effective travel. Air fares are still pretty low but I think that we can expect an increase in the near future. With our dollar being so high at the moment it is a great opportunity to book and pay for your next years trip to Africa. It could save thousands on a three or four week safari. There are also some great special offers being made. The soccer World Cup still makes it difficult to get bookings in South Africa during the mid June to mid July period and for a few weeks thereafter as people stay for a holiday after the event. However the adjacent countries and especially East Africa make it possible to safari during this period with little negative influence. Contact any of us for details of what is available.
News from Savanna Private Game Reserve
(With thanks and acknowledgement to Paddy Hagelthorn and the staff of Savanna for photos and text)
September has been a month of mixed weather, some gloriously sunny days intermingled with some really cold snaps. I often get asked “which is the best time of year to come to the bush?” and my standard reply has always been during the dry months when the bush is down and the animals are congregated around the water holes. Having said this, each season has its own attributes and special moments. However, this September has provided the best game viewing I have had in the past 26 years in the Sabi Sands Game Reserve.
At the beginning of the month, we had wonderful viewing of Mambiri and her cub. This cub is now over 6 months old and with the amount of nomadic males that are still moving through her territory, she has done exceptionally well to have brought this cub through to this age.
Other leopard incidences have been incredibly interesting during September. In the last Newsletter, we mentioned about the male leopard Tegwaan with Shikavi and the hippo dam female all in one sighting. This happened again this month with Tegwaan with the Metzi and Hlabankunzi females. T he difference was the male was mating with both these females. In my opinion, both females are still a little young to be sexually active and have not really established themselves in territorial areas. What was interesting was that they took it in turns to mate with the male and this happened for a prolonged period of time. However, there was a point when one female tried to come too close to the male while it was the other ones turn and a fight ensued between the 2 females. Tegwaan immediately intervened and split the 2 females up. Both females then sat shoulder to shoulder like 2 reprimanded school children while Tegwaan growled at them. As soon as the Tegwaan male went to move off, the females attacked each other again. Tegwaan once again intervened and split them up. This time, after another scolding the females ignored each other and the shared mating ritual continued. I have never witnessed this behavior before and I have spoken to the experts in the Kruger Park who also have not heard of this happening.
Staying with leopard, we mentioned the new young male that had come onto our property in the North, who we referred to as the Ravenscourt male in previous newsletters. His name has now been changed to the Shinzela male, and he had a very interesting confrontation with a zebra and the photographs taken by one of our guests, Lisette Cousins, tells almost the whole story. The zebra stallion confronted this young leopard and while he tried to take refuge behind a tree, the zebra ended up chasing him around for a good 10 minutes. These photographs have been chosen as the guest photos of the month and I sure you will agree are outstanding. Well done to Lisette Cousins!
The leopard stories continue when a few days ago, the young female, Hlabankunzi , caught a newborn steenbok lamb. She played with this little steenbok for approximately 45 minutes before finally killing and eating it. For the more squeamish guests this was not a pleasant sighting but one has to realize that this is exactly what happens out there and is an act of nature. Fortunately, it is believed that during an incident like this the prey goes into a state of shock, adrenalin takes over and there is very little pain felt.
With the impending summer season, a lot of the migratory birds have come back and the Wahlburg eagles have started building their nests. The conditions have been such that a lot of the birds of prey are finding it easy to catch their prey and on one day we saw 2 Dark Chanting goshawks catch firstly a fairly large yellow bellied sand snake and then a dwarf mongoose.
We have had the lions camped on Savanna property for most of the month. This was initiated by the Ximungwe Pride and 4 of the Mpogo killing 3 buffalo just outside the camp. With full tummies, mating commenced with 3 of the Ximungwe again. For the past few months, we have been saying that we are anticipating lion cubs from the Ximungwe Pride but this is obviously not the case as they are still mating on a regular basis. Let’s hope that they will fall pregnant soon as we can again view small lion cubs in our area. With this mating, there was quite a lot of interaction between the males and on one morning, a huge fight ensued between two of the males over a female who was trying to play the field. However, more damage was done to the males’ pride (excuse the pun!) than bodily harm.
Just to keep you updated on the baby hippo, it continues to ride on its mother’s back and provides a great sense of amusement as it tries to balances there. It is getting far too big to carry on with this practice for much longer and I am sure that the mother will start throwing it off and getting annoyed in the near future.
There has been a new pack of wild dog that have utilized our property this month. This is a pack of 4 males that have obviously had a fair amount of exposure to game drive vehicles before as they are very relaxed and we were treated to a 45 minute play session around our cars the other day. This was a phenomenal sighting and possibly some of the best wild dog viewing I have ever had. It is so good to see wild dog frequenting the Sabi Sands Game Reserve again as there were times in the past where we would not see the dogs for up to 2 years.
We have had regular viewings of cheetah this month where the old male with the funny mouth who has now been named Makumisa meaning “droopy lip” in Shangaan has visited us on numerous occasions. We have not seen the other dominant male cheetah his month and one wonders whether this is because Makumisa has taken over this section of his territory. However, we have had a new young male cheetah with a slightly shortened tail that has visited us on 2 occasions. This young male is busy marking territory but as far as we know has not come into contact with the older males as yet. He has become the notorious tree climber and just when you have told your guests that cheetah do not normally climb very well, he proceeds to go straight up into a tree blowing one’s credibility out of the window.
News from Orient Express - Botswana
An interesting and somewhat disturbing phenomenon has been taking place in the Okavango Delta. A fast-growing Kariba weed (Salvinia moesta), which entered Botswana via the Zambezi River as far back as 1945, has slowly started invading the country’s river systems, and more recently has begun to impact the flow of the Delta’s waterways. It has also severely hampered the fishing industry, as the weed covers the surface of the water, blocking the sunlight filtering through. This in turn kills all living matter below and so the fish swim away to another place where there is food.
Authorities struggled to keep the Kariba Weed under control, its growth spread further by hippos, elephants and boats moving through it, until the Department of Water Affairs discovered a weed-eating weevil (Cyrtobagous Salvinia). These particular Weevils love Kariba Weed, in fact they feed exclusively on the weed. The adult weevils eat the leaves while the larvae eat the root and thus the weed is destroyed.
As there are no known significant wild populations of this particular weevil in Southern Africa, they can only be acquired by breeding them in weevil pools. And so two weevil breeding pools were set up at Khwai River Lodge by the Bio-Okavango Project. The project’s aim is to breed and release the hungry weevils into infested areas. At Khwai River Lodge there has been a tremendous decline in the infestation of Kariba weed since the weevils were introduced into the Khwai River. We are pleased to be able to be doing our bit towards keeping the Okavango Delta healthy and happily flowing.
Now for some more news from our three camps – there has been great excitement as the first puppy of the Savute wild dog litter has been spotted and the Savute Lion pride just gets bigger and bigger.
Large herds of buffalo are seen regularly around the Savute Marsh. It looks like they won’t be going anywhere this winter as there is enough water to last many more weeks. With so much water around, lone male elephants are scattered all over the place as there is less need to hang out in herds. The Candle pod acacia attracts journeys of giraffe as large as forty and are a marvellous sight from the heights of the helicopter game-viewing flights at Eagle Island Camp.
More lions have been sighted in Savute this month. There are signs that the Savute pride that we once knew may be on its way back – for the first time in three years it has welcomed a new lioness from outside the area. A few new males have also been spotted and it will be interesting to see what happens when they encounter the pride’s dominant males, as they themselves are also quite new to the area.
Both the lions at Savute and at Khwai have been spotted mating regularly. And there was a big feast at Khwai when a hippo died of natural causes near the lodge - our guests had a great time watching the lions fight off the scavenging hyenas and vultures.
Leopard sightings continue to top the list in Khwai with at least one spotted on each game drive. The resident female with her almost fully grown cub has established a home very close to the lodge. In Savute, the female Leopard at Kudu Hill has not yet moved her cubs from the rock den and she is only spotted in the afternoons when she comes out to hunt.
The wild dog puppies in Savute have arrived! After disappearing for almost three weeks, the alpha female was spotted at Harvey’s pan accompanied by one puppy, and we suspect that she is moving them one by one to a new den. Khwai River Lodge’s wild dogs were also spotted regularly.
Birds
Groups of the rare and endangered wattled cranes were sighted in the Khwai and Eagle Island areas. Although they are normally spotted in two’s, this month Eagle Island Camp had spectacular sightings of groups of up to twelve Cranes. Birdlife continues to be fantastic at Eagle Island with good sighting s of the near-endemic slaty egret, the elusive Pel’s fishing owl and the world’s largest heron, the goliath heron with an average wing span of over six feet and weighing five kilograms.
Reptiles
Due to the cold weather, crocodiles were the only reptiles to be seen this month.
NEWS FROM GOVERNORS CAMP – MASAI MARA KENYA
September Migration and Game Report Masai Mara
The weather & the plains:
Whilst Kenya is going through a particularly bad drought this year, the Mara has at least had some relief. We have received localised afternoon rain showers, greening the parched grass that has been grazed and trodden down by the migration. Mostly the Southern and Western part of the Mara has benefitted from the rain, whilst northern areas towards the Aitong hills and beyond still remain fairly dry.
The new green growth has brought all the grazers together in large concentrations and the Musiara Marsh area around us is full of life. At the start of the migration into the Mara, the grass is long and the grazers move more or less in a particular order depending on how they evolved or developed. The bulk grazers (the zebras) and to some degree the wildebeest come in first, eating the larger leafy mass of the grass stem. They are then followed by the topi and gazelles who are more specific about what they eat, preferring the shorter sprigs at the base of the stem. In this way the animals compliment the other species instead of being in competition with each other.
The Marsh has started to fill up, much to the delight of the River frogs, Reed frogs and Guttural Toads who have added to the chorus of night sounds.
The Migration:
This month has seen large concentrations of wildebeest and gazelles mostly in the Musiara area, continuing down the Mara River to Paradise plains and over to look out hill. After some initial indecisiveness and a little rain, large herds of wildebeest have decided to spend considerable amount of time with us.
The Mara River runs North to South from its water shed the Mau Forest into the Serengeti, then deviates West into Lake Victoria which in total is a 395km journey. A large portion of the migration move westward towards the river in search of grazing, even though there is still grass where they have come from there is an unexplainable driving force to cross the river.
The viewing from the balloon has been exceptional this month as their flight path takes in the Mara River, the Olpunyata swamp and the Eluai plains in the Mara triangle. They have had great sightings of the migration, lion, leopard and the occasional rhino.
The main herds of zebras numbering somewhere in the region of 200 000 have remained mostly to the East of the reserve, with scattered herds along the river.
New arrivals:
During September we have been lucky enough to have seen the birth of a variety of species in the Mara. The zebras have their fuzzy brown foals, two topi calves have been seen up at the air strip following their mothers very cautiously, tiny piglets following the mother warthog in a train, tails high in the air and the gazelles who lay low, ears flat in the grass hiding from their predators.
We are still awaiting the ostrich chicks which, often hatch in large numbers as they have communal nests. Some of the eggs have however been targeted this season and eaten by lion and hyena.
There are a few hyena dens out on Paradise plains, one of which the pups have become very accustomed to the vehicle and come right up to investigate, sometimes chewing the tyres to see whether they are edible or not - no punctures yet!
The Cats:
The Marsh pride of lions have been spending their days under the shade of the trees around the Marsh, lying out on the grassed termite mounds or sleeping in the shade of our airplane on the airstrip! They have no need to move very far at all as the wildebeest have been in the area all month. The pride is doing very well and is stable with the two big boys ensuring the territory is safe from other males and the cubs nearing adulthood are secure. The younger members of the pride had an interesting encounter with a porcupine this month. After about half an hour of trying to discover whether the porcupine would make a decent meal the lions gave up and left the terrified porcupine to escape!
Photos courtesy of Stephen Mutua and Richard Long
The Paradise pride is fat and happy too. With the arrival of 8 new cubs into the pride in August their numbers are increasing rapidly and with plenty of antelope coming down to the crossing area; they seem to be very content. Notch remains with his one son in the paradise pride; the two other sons have moved across the river and have been seen with other lionesses. The remaining two sons are still nomadic and have not been seen with females.
'Shakira' the female Cheetah and her 3 cubs are doing very well. Her cubs almost fully grown (20 months old) are learning very quickly and will soon leave their mother and forge their own way. As the cubs are females they will split after some time and become independent of each other, each having to raise a family alone.
'Malaika' the other female, Kikes daughter is in the area and has been seen less regularly...
The three Cheetah boys have been roaming the plains with their usual confidence as they have a strong coalition. They, like Shakira have to hunt daily as there are more mouths to feed and the success rate is not normally that high.
The mother Leopard 'Olive' out in the Talek river area has been seen most days. She has been bold enough to bring out her cubs which were born mid August from hiding and lead them to various resting and feeding spots along the river.
The young male leopard which has mostly been across the river in August whilst the river was low has been spotted a few times above the Little Governors crossing along the forest. He is a fairly relaxed young chap, posing perfectly on the fallen logs in the forest giving our guests some great sightings.
The leopardess that frequents the river line between the camps has been seen frequently as well as the odd sighting of the rather large male that resides near the rocks past the main crossing point.
We have had a couple of rare sightings of Caracal, once a mother with a cub. The cub was very curious and ran right to the vehicle and then returned to its shyer mother; an incredible sighting.
The Caracal is a smaller, tawny coloured cat with long tufts on its ears resembling a lynx.
Serval cats have been spotted periodically as well, a beautiful animal with extraordinary markings. It has long legs and large elongated ears aiding them in hunting birds and mice in the grass.
Elephants have been travelling longer distances in search of food as the grass has mostly been grazed and plants are less nutritious. We still recognise some of the characters that come through the camps, sometimes spending the whole night if they find a few trees worthy of their attention.
The elephant sightings this month have mostly been matriarchal herds with few bulls moving through the area.
On the whole, it has been an amazing month with the Mara continuing to support huge amounts of wildlife despite the droughts in Kenya.
On the community front we are delighted to announce that water was pumped to Aitong Primary School for the first time ever on the 16th of September. This was done thanks to a new windmill purchased by Mararianda Charitable Trust working in partnership with Governors Camp. We have also built a water distribution system at the school. This is a momentous moment for the school as previously the school had no running water and all water was collected by hand from a spring on site. If you would like to visit or get involved in any of our community projects whilst you are on safari with us then please let us know and we would be happy to arrange this.
We hope to share the magic of our corner of the Mara with you sometime soon.
The Outbound Migration
The migration in the Mara is drawing to a close as anticipated. The wildebeest have been trickling back to the Serengeti this past week, where they are seen to concentrate on the recently burnt patches in northern Serengeti. Only a handful of herds remain in isolated pockets in the Mara, and these are mainly in the south Mara triangle. Looking around driving through the Mara plains, it is easy to understand why these animals have left; most of the plains are bare of grass.
Close
The next edition will be after our return from Africa so we should have lots of news for you.
Happy Safaris!
John
61 (0)2 4984 9747
61 (0)411 749 627
jma@destinationsafrica.com.au
www.destinationsafrica.com.au