28th Dec
Evening drive, with Mark Kiki and family
Cheetah! We saw the cheetah at a distance in grassland. Soon they lay down and we could only see their heads. There’s a mother and two cubs of a year old. Siya knew they were in the area, and we had a clue when we saw the herd of wildebeest and zebra running. Something must have spooked them. The mother cheetah is an excellent hunter, but the cubs are still learning. Good work!
We later has a good sightings of a white rhino mother and baby. Several fork tailed drongos were competing for the rights to eat their ticks / flies. In the movie you can clearly see that the mother’s horn has been removed to protect her from the risk of poachers. The baby still has his horn for now.
We visited the usual 3 lions and watched them very close up for a while. No change there! M1 still keeping a close eye on his female.
Also on this drive: African black Cuckoo. It’s a bit smaller than “our cuckoo” and stays in Africa where its host is the fork tailed drongo – see above
Our ranger Siya’s full name is Siyabonga Kheswa. Siya wrote a paper on the effects of rhino poaching on tourism. He was an excellent guide and a really nice guy.
29 Dec
Morning drive. We’d arranged with Siya to have a later drive this morning so we had a lie in until 5.30 and a two hour drive from 6 to 8. It worked out really well. We found the large group of elephants in the new part of the reserve and we’re able to stay and watch them for a long time. The elephants spent a lot of time playing with and eating tree roots. We also saw them uproot a tree, and we got a glimpse of a small baby.
Later we found a group of lions. They killed a zebra last night. Siya found them in a thicket doing some serious sleeping. Not much movement but we got a good close look. We got wiffs of dead animal too.
Also on this walk: three jackals, dideric Cuckoo, a female kudu.
Long movie – for elephant lovers only!
