Evening Safari
April 19, 2016
We start out this early evening with Brent Leo Smith as our
Guide. Brent has lived and worked in
many areas in Africa and is a great guide for us. He is extremely knowledgeable
about the leopards, lions,elephant and pretty much all other animal behaviour.. Born and raised in South
Africa, Brent clearly loves the African Savannah and bush and all that it
holds.
We start out this evenings safari with Brent searching for leopard tracks. . As you can see Brent
is a very animated guide and his excitement is evident as we all get ready for
the live safari.
Sam is our second guide today and his knowledge base never
ceases to amaze me. Sam also comes from South Africa and was born and raised in Capetown. He has an amazing dossier of Education in Bio mimicry and for anyone who does not know what this is, I highly recommend you google it as it is fascinating.
Sam is with Tingana,
the male dominant leopard in Djuma area
and is probably most likely the father of Karula's cubs. Tingana is flat
and resting. Noticing that his breathing is quite rapid most likely due to 2
reasons. First being the heat of the late afternoon and secondly his body is working
hard at digesting his food from his kudo kill which is still hanging above him
in the tree.
Karula has not been sighted most recently possibly
because has there has been a not yet identified male leopard in the area. Karula would
not want her cubs in danger from a strange leopard and is keeping them further
away for now. Male leopards who know they may not be the father of these cubs
would kill them to protect their own blood line.
Brent has just spoken to James ( one of our amazing guides) who is out tracking
and Brent is very excited!! My guess is that we are heading to Cheetah Plains
and something there is interesting that he wants to show us. Bryan is on camera with us today and as usual
doing a great job.
Cheetah Plains has just recently acquired this area as a traverse zone to be
able to travel and see the vast amount of animals and wildlife that call Cheetah Plains home.
We will jump back on the back of Sam's vehicle while Brent
continues his way to Cheetah Plains.
We are with Sam and Dave (on Camera) who is sitting with Tingana. Tingana has smoothly jumped up
into the tree and has grasped onto his kill and is tugging and tugging at it to re position it to a more comfortable spot to eat.
A spotted hyena has arrived and is carefully scouting around
the base for little bits of the kill to fall to the ground so that he may grasp
what he can.
Tingana uses his strong jaw and massive paws to lift the
kill up further into the tree and secure it safely so that it doesn't fall and
be stolen by the hyena.
Brent is now on
Cheetah plains and has spotted a large buffalo bull relaxing in the mud and
chewing its cud.
Brent has located
"Quarantine" which is the name of a young male leopard.This leopard obtained
this name from an area previously known as Quarantine and was once used to
actually quarantine animals apart from other animals to habituate them before
being released into the open area. There
are fences in the Northwestern area and Southern area but not Eastern. The few
fences are only around local communities but the greater Limpopo Traverse area
have no boundaries.
Quarantine is high in a tree sleeping soundly.
Quarantine being as
young as he is moves around quite a bit and is not of an age to challenge for
territory so he stays away from Tingana who will not allow him to remain within
his boundary that he calls his own. Quarantine was born late November- early
December 2012
Once Quarantine
becomes 5 years old approximately he will either find his own territory or will
challenge for one with another male. A
male's territory can hold up to 5 female leopards. Quarantine weights around 70 kg. almost 200 pounds
Back with Sam and he has
come across a large bull elephant sauntering down the road. Elephants graze
almost constantly eating grass as well as leaves on the trees. Elephants have
no problem pulling down very large branches and even pushing over entire trees to get at the foliage.
Back with Brent
Still with Quarantine
who is continuing his nap up in the branches.
As the evening
approaches and the temperature becomes cooler, Quarantine will most likely come
down from the tree and go off for a drink and then go on patrol through the
area. The leopards drink out of pans
(hollowed out areas from elephants that have collected water) as well as dams
and rivers.
Leopards will not eat
horns, hooves or teeth but the hyenas
will have no problem eating these up as Hyenas have very strong jaws.
Sam has left Tingana
resting in his tree and we now see beautiful Impalas.
The horns are amazing. The rutting season will
be beginning soon as male impala will want to mate with as many females as
possible and will corral his females into an area away from other males. He
will closely guard to borders of his females in order to keep them to himself.
Brent is showing us a
Hamerkop. The Hamerkop is of the Heron species and their nests can weight up to
200 pounds. . Their favourite source of food is frogs.
Sam is with 2 large
buffalo beside the watering hole. It has been a very hot day and the buffalo like to ease themselves into
the mud which cools them and helps keep the bugs off of them.
Large male buffalo's can be quite aggressive
and must always be treated with respect. They are very used to the guide
vehicles and usually pay them no mind but these fellas are not to be toyed with
when out walking in the bush.
Temp is about 86
today
Sam is off now to
head into the drainage line so lets go back to Brent.
Quarantine is staring
off at something and we soon see that it is a herd of elephants.
Entering into the dry
season (winter in Africa) there will be less grass and elephants will eat
mostly brushes and leaves on trees. When the leaves are too high for the
elephants, they will just push the branch or in some cases the entire tree over
to get at the foliage.
We are back with
Brent as Quarantine has come down from
the tree and is getting a drink at the pan.
He is careful to find a fairly dry area as he doesn't want to get his
paws muddy.
He is moving off now listening intently for any
potential prey that might be close by.
Quarantine's top speed is approximately 24 meters
per second. They will to creep close to their prey before
commencing their attack as they cannot keep up a high speed for a great length
of time and need to make the kill quickly and efficiently.
Quarantine is being
lighthearted and playfully chasing a few birds. Now he hops up into another
tree and looks wistfully out over the Savannah. Perhaps looking for a group of
impalas. Leopards will almost always
take an opportunity to catch more food. He will eat what he wants and haul the
carcass high up into a tree in order to protect it from Hyenas and other scavengers.
Then he can leave it and come back and feed at his leisure.
Quarantine is sitting
quietly listening and watching for what the night might bring. He easily slips down from the tree and plops himself down
into the grass and has a huge yawn and begins to wander away into the
"block".(dense bush).
It has been a long
while since we have seen Quarantine and we are hoping his brother kunyuma
comes around for a visit soon
Back with Sam
Sam
is showing us the massive size of this
Tamboti tree which the Elephants have pushed over. This tree will still provide life for many
insects before it once again becomes part of the soil. The Tamboti is well known for the milky latex
it secretes which is poisonous to humans, but not to animals. It is a very
popular food source for many species of antelope, for
elephants and monkeys; black rhino are particularly partial to the Tamboti and
porcupines enjoy the bark to such a degree that they sometimes ring bark the
trees causing them to die.
Sam has found a wonderful caterpillar to show us. And even
though we think of the excitement of Lions and Leopards, there are so many
wonderful creatures of all sizes to be seen and experienced here in Beautiful
South Africa.
And we are back with Brent
Quarantine spends a few minutes grooming and now is heading
off into the night.
Going to night vision now . Quarantine has moved close to
the boundary so this might be the last sighting this evening but there is
always tomorrow because day is a new adventure on safari live.
Quarantine continues to move off into the darkness. He does
not do any scent marking because he does
not "own: a territory and is
still to young to mark a territory as his own.
Quarantine is in almost complete darkness now. Using ambient light only as to not illuminate
potential prey as that would be unfair in the wild. Quarantine is obviously stalking something.
and moving stealthily through the night.
As Quarantine leaves us for the evening, we are left
listening to the many sounds of the night in this beautiful moonlit night
And that brings us to the end of our live safari in the
heart of South Africa on Djuma , Arathusa and Cheetah Plains. April 19, 2016
Thanks to Brent(our guide) and Bryan (on camera) They have proclaimed
-The FIRST sighting of Cheetah on cheetah
plains and the FIRST Quarantine sighting on Cheetah plains. WE call Bryan and Brent "The killer
BEES"
And thank you to Sam (our guide) and Dave (on camera). We hope you enjoyed spending time with Tingana as much as we did.
Another fun packed day on Safari live.
Special Thanks to
They make it possible for us to view a live
safari twice a day live and unedited.
Stay tuned for another fun filled update.
This is a comment test... nice pictures!
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