The joys of seeing Wild Dog puppies in the wild…
Reported by: ');> Chris Roche (7/9/2001 3:30:09 PM)   

So where to begin? The three new born lion cubs ensconsed in their thickly foliaged lair on the banks of the Timbavati? Ngala's first record of a Bronze Mannikin? The Giant Eagle Owl swooping down next to the Land Rover and catching a scrub hare? The two Honey Badgers ganging up and attacking a Spotted Hyena in the camp? A Booted Eagle? The Wild Dogs?!

Well, no prizes for guessing where my loyalties lie at the moment ... The dogs have been providing exceptionally tender moments, scenes of excitement, thrill and tension and a satisifying sense that something must be right in the conservation world.

Access to the den is still restricted to only one vehicle at a time and usually only one or two vehicles visit on any given day, making the experience a private and intimate one. The den itself is a prime piece of real estate situated on a beautiful drainage line in a remote area of the property. A tall Weeping Boer Bean grows up from the termite mound in which the den is placed, and the whole of the eastern side is shaded by a grove of mature Tamboti trees. Two entrances give the puppies some security from predators in that, whether they are sunning themselves on the western side or relaxing in the shade on the eastern side, they are always close to an entrance. The typical morning sighting results from an early trip to the den from the lodge and a quiet wait for the adults to come back from their early hunting exploits.

This hunting activity usually starts just before sunrise and almost like clock work, the adults typically arrive back at the den between 7.00am and 8.00am. Quite remarkable given that this sometimes involves a round trip of up to 10km. The adults are incredibly efficient hunters and every morning are quickly back to the den to deliver regurgitated meat to the demanding pups. Their arrival at the den is immediately greeted with excited twittering and whining, with the eight puppies exploding from the recesses of the termite mound, where they have been obediently hiding in silence. The puppies' begging is soon reciprocated with the adults regurgitating food for them and slowly the festivities die down as the pups take the opportunity to investigate their surroundings under the watchful eyes of the adults.

This vigilance is not without good cause and recently the adults were seen to chase a male leopard away from the den. His narrow escape was effected with the help of a conveniently situated Marula tree, from whose safety he sat hissing and snarling at the four wild dogs below. Leopards, spotted hyenas and lions are all significant causes of wild dog pup mortality and one of the overriding reasons for the particular placement of the den imust be that it is in an area of low lion activity.

A more benign, but equally distressing event for the puppies happened on Friday when they experienced their first rain ... We were sitting watching the pups huddled up together outside the den on what was a particularly blustery and ominous afternoon. The adults were nowhere to be seen, although a collection of about 50 White Backed Vultures in a single Marula tree on the opposite side of the valley hinted at their contented whereabouts. The unseasonal rain that had been threatening all afternoon suddenly came spitting down - cold and unpleasant - causing those in the Land Rover to scramble for raincoats and the puppies, after an initial confusion, for the cover of the den!

A special offer has now been organised by the kind people of Ngala for all those of you who can't make it out here to see our dogs ...Should you get out to the Pretoria Zoo you too, for the specially negotiated price of R30.00, can also see wild dogs (at this time no special rate has been negotiated for the Joburg Zoo) ... But wait, there's more ... Should you chose to visit the Pretoria Zoo you also stand a chance of seeing the Dhole (an Asian species very similar in appearance, habits and end???

The silence is golden…
Reported by: ');> Chris Roche (5/28/2001)   

Highlight of the week…a fleeting sighting of a female cheetah and her fluffy month-old cub? An African wild cat stalking a cane rat in broad daylight? Seven spotted hyenas on an impala kill?

Perhaps it was the following 45 minutes... We had been tracking two of the resident male lions for about an hour. The tracks were not fresh to start with and we had been able to see just how much ground the two had covered in their night's patrolling. Eventually though we knew we were getting close and we tried to speed up the process by splitting up our efforts - some sticking with the actual tracks and others trying to anticipate the end point. In the process we spotted two elephant bulls feeding leisurely along the riverine fringe of the Timbavati river and stayed with them as they demolished a red spike thorn thicket. In the meantime the trackers that had stayed on the tracks, had found one of the males lying on a clearing and we left the elephants to head there.

The previous night's exertion showed in the male and he lay fast asleep until a White Backed Vulture flew low over his head. It was an overcast morning and the flight of the vulture was unusual. We and the lion tracked the low glide of the bird into a Marula tree about 800m away where it landed next to another vulture. The lion then slipped into slumber again and we thought perhaps the males might have finished a carcass there in the early morning. Knowing what distance they had covered though we knew that couldn't be the case and we left the lion and drove over to investigate the vultures. Driving cautiously through the bush we headed towards the grove of Marulas where the vulture had landed and from a distance spotted a young male leopard crouched in the crook of a tree. The blood on his chin showed what we had suspected was true...there must be a kill nearby. We scanned the trees but couldn't see anything and had to wait until the leopard came down the tree and wandered over to where his mother lay concealed in the grass with the impala she had killed only 20 or 30 minutes before. She began to drag the carcass into a thicket to conceal it from the vultures and we decided to leave her to her meal and return in the afternoon. On the way to a suitable coffee stop we bumped into three buffalo bulls emerging from thick bush along the riverbed and decided that we had had enough luck for the morning.

Several interesting observations of unusal bird behaviour were also noted this week. The first was of a Red Billed Hornbill who purposefully wandered between each antlion cone-trap it could see, each time flicking through the sandy soil to expose the antlion which was then eaten. The second was of a Fork Tailed Drongo perching on the back of a single impala ram and hawking insects that were flushed as the ram moved through the grass. A Southern Black Tit also seemed to mimic a Fork Tailed Drongo and a Puffback Shrike and a Single Black Stork was seen soaring above camp. Also of major significance this week has been the culmination of a four-year- long project to provide Ngala with a source of electricity other than the generator. The actual physical process began in November last year and in order to reduce the visual impact of overhead powerlines and to comply with the Department of Environmental Affairs specifications, the cable was buried underground (a 14km trench.) This process was finally completed with the switching on of Eskom power on Saturday night ... the silence is golden.

Lion dynamics
Reported by: ');> Chris Roche (5/20/2001)   

The lion dynamic at Ngala continues to be just that ... dynamic ...

For the most part, lion territories at Ngala focus on the Timbavati River with the two main prides - the Xangana and Lamulla prides - using the eastern and central area of Ngala respectively. Both of these prides are currently lorded over by the same coalition of five adult male lions, who, despite mating regularly with all of the lionesses have as yet only impregnated one female. This relatively new development has meant that the lionesses have once again drawn a definite boundary between their two territories (in order to provide the best for their new cubs) and have been been extraordinarily vocal with the Tented Camp being treated to nightly choruses of lion roars (this camp lies in an area where the two prides overlap).

Recently, three of the five males joined forces with the Xangana females and crossed the whole of their territory in order to evict some trespassing lions and usurp their buffalo cow kill. The males and females all took the opportunity to roar and scent mark extensively before they settled in to consume the last of the carcass. Very little physical contact appeared to take place, with the intruders quickly giving way and retreating further east into the Kruger Park. The resident males in fact sustained far more serious injuries after fighting amongst themselves over a wildebeest cow carcass that the females from Lamulla pride killed a few days later. All three of the males present emerged from an Acacia thicket where they had fought over the carcass. They looked battered and bruised and it appears as if the hierarchy amongst them has changed slightly, with the previously dominant male now having to look on jealously while his erstwhile second in command guards the pro-oestrus females.

These are not the only lions on Ngala though, and sightings of the Birmingham pride and their one dominant male have increased in regularity in an area to the west of Lamulla pride. Last week the discovery of a 'new' pride in a remote area in the west of Ngala provided some excitement. Confusingly, the two adult males with the pride both displayed empty stomachs in contrast with the bulging middrifts of the females. All was revealed however, when a Bateleur eagle swooped low over the nearby clearing and, in an impressive display of controlled acrobatics, suddenly plummeted to the ground. A closer investigation yielded the lower jaw of an impala that had been killed and picked clean by the pride females before the adult males could arrive.

Of even greater excitement have been the return of the long lost black rhino bull (whose tracks tantalised game drives last week) and the suspicion that a pack of four wild dogs have chosen the western side of Ngala for this year's den. We estimate the pups to be less than two weeks old and have resisted the almost overwhelming temptation to track the dogs back to the den until they are at least one month old ... we'll let you know what transpires in June ...

On the birding front, unusual sightings of Malachite Kingfisher and Common Waxbill were had this past week, as well as a sighting of a single Yellow-billed Oxpecker seen foraging on warthogs and impala in association with a flock of Red-billed Oxpeckers.

Black rhino, wild dog and Yellow-billed Oxpecker are all classfied as endangered or vulnerable in South Africa. There are only about 2 600 black rhino and 3 000 - 5 000 wild dogs in the whole of Africa, and Yellow-billed Oxpecker numbers in South Africa are estimated at 150 - 300 pairs. Their presence on Ngala's traversing area and indication of their breeding here (wild dog and Yellow-billed Oxpecker) highlights the importance of the property to South Africa's conservation effort and CC Africa's contribution to that effort.

Hippo courtship and lion coalititons
Reported by: ');> Chris Roche (5/3/2001)   

It's the early morning at Ngala Tented Safari Camp that are so spectacular: The bushbuck browsing on the opposite bank of the Timbavati river, the baboons and banded mongoose foraging and playing in the riverbed, impala and waterbuck wandering across on the periphery and the chance of seeing lion or elephant from the deck (all of which happened to be there on Monday morning).

The hippo visitor to the camp is still a regular fixture and in the nearby dam the hippo calf of just over a year old has been temporarily displaced by the resident bull who has taken a fancy to its mother. The two were seen engaging in a courtship display about a month ago and all this foreplay paid off last week when the two were seen to mate. This is great news for a new arrival in about eight months but in the mean time the yearling youngster is looking forlorn and lonely in a completely unsuitable pan about a kilometre away from the honeymoon couple (although he will soon rejoin his mother).

The Timbavati river continues, as ever, to be a magnet for game activity and downstream from the Tented Camp this week both the S-Bends and Clara female leopards have cached impala kills which they have fed on with their respective cubs. Upstream from the camp, one of the remaining pools in the riverbed has played host on a couple of days to the Xangana pride of lions, the senior lioness of which is now heavily pregnant. This is a welcome sign that the turbulent transition of male lion takeover has passed and with any luck the dominant coalition of five males will continue to stabilise the local population dynamics. It seems, though, as if a split in the coalition is imminent with three of the males most often seen apart from the other two. These three are most often with two adult lionesses and the five were watched yesterday as they gorged on a wildebeest carcass. This morning they were still in the same area and the most aggressive of the males did his best to chase down the scavenging hyenas.

On the birding front at Ngala, two interesting sightings from the week past have been that of a Booted Eagle (there have been only a handful of records of this bird here) and one of a Tawny Eagle pair which were seen feeding on a freshly killed Gymnogene. The larger raptors, notorious pirates, are presumed to have killed the hapless Gymnogene after having caught it on the ground with its own prey. One of the rangers also swears blind that he saw a 'spotted creeper' this week. We'll keep you updated on his psycological evaluation.

Beautiful riverbed wedding and tangerine sunset
Reported by: ');> Chris Roche (4/14/2001)   

The tracks of six lionesses patterned the sandy floor of the Mapone riverbed and glancing up, one might have expected to see the pride lounging in the shade-fringed sand. Instead, you would have been met with an expectant congregation awaiting the arrival of a barefoot bride . . .

Forty guests waited expectantly in the shade as the bride and her father alighted from the Land Rover and walked down the riverbed to the melodious accompaniment of Ngala's Shangaan choir. Cameras flashed and eyes moistened as the bride gripped her groom's hand and the couple turned to face the minister. The hush was punctuated only by afternoon bird song and the crunching of sand underfoot. The backdrop to the altar ... a huge temite mound on the riverbanks, umbrellad by a Black Monkey Thorn and a lush tangle of riverine vegetation.

The heartfelt and genuine words of the minister accentuated the moment and by the time the vows (sensitively and lovingly written by the groom) had been exchanged, the register signed and 'confetti-butterflies' released, (friars and mocker swallow tails) the clouds had mirrored the dramatic build-up and framed the setting sun in a spectacular finale.

The wedding was a culmination of three days (and many months planning) of game drives, relaxation and celebration by the family and friends of Mike Marshall and Jill Daly. The weather always looked tenuous and satellite photos were consulted on a daily basis, but the rain held off (until the last evening) and some of the game viewing highlights included sightings of eight different leopards, including a female devouring a not-yet-dead warthog, four wild dogs, new-born elephant, herds of buffalo and the resident coalition of five male lions and two lionesses. Even Ngala's white rhino co-operated and showed their faces.

Comment of the wedding weekend: While watching a juvenile Giant Eagle Owl perched in the Marula Tree above the Land Rover, we spotted a butterfly with a rich splash of orange in the green leaved sourplum tree next to us ... 'An Apricot Playboy ...' pronounced the ranger to the sceptical guffaws of the guests behind him. 'More like a tangerine sunset!' wisecracked the groom ...

Here's wishing the newly married and very happy Mike and Jill Marshall plenty of tangerine sunsets to come!

The owl and the pussycat
Reported by: ');> Chris Roche (4/10/2001)   

The owl was all at sea. The three lionesses had walked down the Timbavati riverbed in the setting sun, 12 soft paws padding across the sand towards the shimmering water that had collected in the outside of a river bend.

The lead lioness suddenly turned purposefully from her course and headed towards a shape on the nearest sandbank. In the fading light we couldn't make out what it was but as we drove closer and the lioness stretched out a paw knocking the object from its perch on the sand we realised it was a juvenile Giant Eagle Owl. The owl slumped almost lifelessly down the bank, its outstretched wings ploughing through the soft sand. The bird now lay in a crumpled heap as the other two lionesses gambolled up and sniffed and pawed curiously at the shape. At first it appeared as if the owl had pulled off an oscar winning sham of death but as he weakly tried to fend off the lions with feeble movements of his talons we realised that he was in fact nearly dead. The lionesses soon left him though and carried on up the riverbed in the near dark, huge jackalberry trees silhouettted against the fading sky, and continued on their evening's quest for richer pickings (We checked the carcass of the owl in the morning and a blood stain on his talons revealed where he had been bitten by a snake, his inexperience as a recent fledgling presumably proving his downfall).

A couple of days later a young male leopard, still dependent on his food providing mother, was not so picky and dragged a still gurgling vervet monkey through the long grass to kill it in peace. Once the gurgling stopped we drove closer and watched as the young leopard playfully tossed his prey through the air and rough-and-tumbled with his lifeless adversary. Soon enough the commotion attracted his smaller brother from the other bank of the Timbavati. Cautiously stalking up to his sibling, the smaller cub was instantly rebuffed with an aggressive charge and he bounded away to hide in the riverine vegetation.

Conflict of a much more serious nature erupted when two mature elephant bulls met recently. The two bulls - both approximately 40 years old - were independently trailing a breeding herd with a young elephant cow in perhaps her first oestrus when they first noticed each other. The larger of the two carried on nonchalantly grazing, his freshly broken left tusk and a wound in the centre of his trunk indicating an earlier scuffle. The pungent scent drifting downwind revealed that he was in musth, a condition mirrored in the urine dribbling from the penis sheath of the second bull. This second bull halted in his tracks as he noticed his competition and almost immediately started to give him a wide berth. An anticlimax we thought and moved into a position to view the first bull better. The second bull however had sneaked through the bush around the back of the first and all of a sudden came charging out, intention written all over his massive wrinkled trunk. With no hesitation the first bull turned to face his opponent and the two met with a dull thump. The speed was frightening and the power as they ploughed though bushes, snapping branches and trunks as if they were twigs, awe-inspiring. It was over as suddenly as it had started though, the second bull chasing the first at high speed across a clearing in the direction of the herd (a few days later a different and larger bull had taken up the trail and followed patiently at the rear of the herd with several much younger bulls, although a sighting of these elephants mating continues to elude us).

Interesting bird sightings on the other hand have been a pair of White-backed Ducks (a first record for Ngala), a White-backed Night Heron (another first record for Ngala of a bird that is listed in the South African red data book and whose habitat is seriously threatened), a juvenile African Hawk Eagle with a Natal Francolin kill, another Yellow Throated Longclaw and still more Yellow- bi

337AD and the vanishing wild world…
Reported by: ');> Chris Roche (4/5/2001)   

'Surely it is obvious enough, if one looks at the whole world that it is becoming daily better cultivated and more fully peopled. All places are now accessible, all are well known; most pleasant farms have obliterated all traces of what were once dreary and dangerous wastes, cultivated fields and subdued forests; flocks and herds have expelled wild beasts; sandy deserts are sown, rocks are planted, marshes are drained; and where once were hardly solitary cottages, there are now large cities. ... Our teeming population is the strongest evidence: our numbers are burdensome ... our wants grow more and more keen ...'

That was written in 337AD! You might think then that we've done well not to have completely obliterated the natural world by now, or even perhaps that we can now congratulate ourselves as a successful species. The point for me though is that we have regretted our human actions for centuries, that we are remorseful about what once was and how we have changed it, and that even though life is pleasantly easier than it was there is still something important missing. There is no question that some part of us connects with a world that hasn't suffered our influence and this is why we need wild places.

Walking along the Timbavati riverbed this week while we tracked lions, we came across two buffalo bulls. They saw us from miles away and calmly watched our approach. Behind them something feline darted out of the shade across the sand. Focusing binoculars, we saw it was a serval. It stopped and looked over its shoulder at us and then just carried on foraging on the edge of a reedbed. We walked closer and the larger of the two bulls rose to his feet and started coming towards us. More curious than aggressive he stood solidly in the sand, advanced again and then, when he saw we were going to skirt around him, relaxed and watched us pass. It was late afternoon now and as the sun washed the sky pastel oranges we could hear the lions start to softly call each other. It could have been 337AD! It could have been BC! Some of the giant trees on the river bank could almost have been there half that time, watching similar events unfold beneath them.

On with the highlights: a baby civet has provided some good viewing...brazen enough to sniff the Land Rover and on another occasion to enthusiastically crunch a milipede in the spotlight. A flock of five Yellow-billed Oxpeckers with suspected juveniles was seen feeding on the back of a buffalo bull, making this the largest flock ever seen at Ngala, and putting the chances of this rare species breeding in the area almost beyond doubt. A six-month-old leopard cub was seen to make his first kill for us by painstakingly stalking and pouncing on a tiny leopard tortoise which he then crunched delightedly. A week-old baby elephant learnt how to control his uncoordinated trunk as his mother doused him with cooling mud and water. Some migratory birds in an age-old event are already heading to warmer climes and Carmine Bee-eaters, Eastern Red-footed Kestrels, European Bee-eaters and European Swallow have all been massing this week, with small flocks seen flying over Ngala in a northerly direction.

And to finish with something else on an historical theme: we found a clay pot that had been dislodged from its position in an aardvark hole in a termite mound by the feeding actions of an elephant bull. The pot had probably sat there for 100-200 years, placed there and filled with water in order to attract bees which would hopefully make an easily harvestable honey hive. There are several sites at Ngala with pottery shards, and stone age tools have also been found, indicating that this area was used at least seasonally in the past. The scene described above could easily have happened anytime in the last 1000 years. Let's hope this continues for the next 1000 years…

It's a man's world…
Reported by: ');> Chris Roche (3/26/2001)   

One of the (female) staff at Ngala has a cartoon up on her office wall that features a baby girl spinning a globe and saying 'They say it's a man's world - so that's what wrong with it.' Retaliation by the opposite sex was inevitable and 'that' and 'what' have been switched around to read: 'So what's wrong with that!' Anyway the point is that what isn't disputed is that it is in fact a man's world and that's a bit what Ngala feels like at the moment - as far as the lions are concerned anyway …

Our five resident male lions continue to be dominant in the centre of the property, the fifth male with the apparently dislocated hind leg getting stronger all the time. To the east of these males' territory it seems things are in a state of flux with a new group of 4 young males having moved into the area and displaced the previous two dominant males. This week these up and coming youngsters chased an old adult male lion off a buffalo cow that he had killed by himself and so moved one up in the local hierarchy. This is by no means a sure thing though and this morning a different group of 5 young males had brought down a buffalo in their own backyard. All of these males have territory, and thus reproduction, on their minds and unfortunately for them only 6 lionesses can be considered resident in the area under their respective controls. Things are far more stable in the west of the property, however, where a single male lion has got his priorities straight and has already sired three cubs with his own small pride. The lionesses meanwhile grin and bear it and probably dream of quieter, more peaceful futures.

Aside from all this dynamic lion interaction we've been thrilled and fascinated this week with a sighting of a black backed jackal pair's courtship display and then the two of them feeding on a scrub hare kill. The male appeared to lead the larger female to the kill, the two leaping and pouncing playfully at each other, with the male urinating fastidiously on top on every site where the female had urinated. We've also had two sightings of yellow throated longclaw - a rare vagrant to the area in wetter years - and very amusing afternoon tea entertainment in the form of a mischievous vervet monkey falling out of a tree. As per usual the camp vervet troop perched in the trees above the tea table awaiting any opportunity to snatch a snack. This unlucky individual obviously lost concentration and fell straight out of the tree, landing with a thump on the deck. He was quick to get up of course, but, still a bit woosy, staggered towards the nearest tree into which trunk he walked and knocked himself down again ... very agile the Ngala monkeys ...

On a sadder note, the dynamics of Ngala have also changed and we bid a fond farewell to Queen Khosa -'everybody's favourite'- and Tanya de Villiers -'the bottom office chick'- who both leave us today after years of invaluable contributions.

Wildebeest blues
Reported by: ');> Chris Roche (3/20/2001)   

My face is long .... and my eyes shut tight ...
My day is hard ... and my night pure plight ...
If it isn't the lions there is plenty else to cause fright ...
I guess I got the wildebeest blues ...
yeah the blou wildebees blues ...

Blue wildebeest feature right at the top of the lion dietary requirement. Last year 18% of all kills consumed by lions at Ngala were made up of wildebeest meat. Lions are not the only threat however and the very high mortality rate of wildbeest calves is also due to other predator species such as leopard, spotted hyena and wild dog. Lets take an example...

Sunday evening at Ngala brought a dramatic sky. A slow motion avalanche of black cloud tumbled over the horizon trailing a chain mail curtain of rain beneath. The lions were the first to move, the two lionesses setting off determinedly in the opposite direction to the oncoming rain. The two male lions followed languidly in their wake and we also took our cue and headed home in the blustering wind ahead of the storm.

The next morning the two lionesses had given the males the skip and sat contentedly on the half eaten carcass of a luckless wildbeest cow. The wind and rain of the night before had clearly provided ample cover and, after the initial struggle to kill the cow, the lions had dragged the carcass under the shelter of a copse of small knobthorn trees. Not 300m distant a large male leopard had benefitted from the same conditions and lay satiated next to the carefully concealed carcass of a wildebeest calf (given the nearby lion kill, one has to wonder if the calf had even had the protection of its mother...). Too heavy for him to hoist, the leopard had wedged the carcass between the shelter of a fallen knobthorn and a Raisin bush thicket. Not a good day for the local wildebeest population! (incidentally a white rhino bull decided to walk through the sighting while one of the Land Rovers sat and watched) Having finished their own kill, the two lionesses later that night stole the remains of the leopard's meal, just beating two loitering hyenas to the task.

Other highlights have been a sighting of a very relaxed serval in broad daylight, a resplendent female painted snipe and last but not least the reappearance of our black rhino bull ... well not exactly reappearance, but at least his tracks over the last week indicate that he has returned to his old haunts after an absence of a couple of months.

Explorations of a lion cub and hyena kill
Reported by: ');> Chris Roche (3/14/2001)   

The low branches of the Weeping Wattle swayed under the weight of the five month old leopard cub who bounded from extremity to extremity, proudly flipping a prize piece of meat through the leaves of the tree. Eventually the prize dropped into the long grass below the tree and the game abruptly stopped, the sheepish cub looking around for new entertainment.

The cub's mother meanwhile looked concernedly on from her perch in a nearby Marula tree from which position the impala leg had fallen. A lifeless impala ewe lay draped across the bough next to her. The cub now set determinedly off into the wild blue yonder, sniffing and exploring under every bush and finally, and dramatically, launching himself into a stunted Jackalberry tree, into which foliage he completely disappeared. The distress of the mother was obvious and her call to the cub all the more poignant for the lack of response. She flowed down the tree, a liquid ooze of gold and rosettes, and strode through the grass, stopping every ten paces and squeezing a strangled 'aioow' from her throat. The cub meanwhile had stalked up on the mother and leapt out of the grass at her, attacking her tail and trying to trip her up. Her patience exhausted and this new game over, she lead the cub back to the Marula tree and diligently scraped grass and soil over any sign of impala remains at its base, the scent of which might attract unwanted hyenas and lions.

Further away this morning a different female leopard and her two subadult cubs also feasted on an impala kill at the base of a Jackalberry tree and yet another female lounged in the same Marula as her hoisted impala kill, both kills the fruit of the windy overcast day before which had also allowed two lionesses to bring down a young adult wildebeest.

After all that, another surprise awaited us this morning ... The mass of vultures were the first clue that something was amiss. Investigating the thick bush on foot the ranger and tracker were first met by the faint smell - 'At least three days old!', the practiced noses said. The next giveaway was the sound of biting teeth, enough to warrant driving in with a Land Rover. Following their noses with the vehicle now, the investigators and their guests rounded a red spike thorn thicket on the edge of the drainage line to be met by a swarm of flies, a cloud of vultures, six filthy spotted hyenas and a large dark carcass. 'Buffalo!' ... 'No! Hippo!? ... Rhino? ... Elephant!' The tiny tusks of a six or seven year old confirmed the species' identity.

These sightings will all be here this afternoon, and some of them even tomorrow ... phone reservations on +27 11 809 4447 (from outside South Africa) or phone 011 809 4447 if you are in South Africa to experience the magic for yourself!

Upstart lions and baby buffalo
Reported by: ');> Chris Roche (3/2/2001)   

After an interesting staff party the other night ('dress in your Sunday Best'), practically the whole camp was woken by at least four lions roaring in what sounded like the middle of the camp. They were in fact near the gate, raising the hackles of the night receptionist and the security guards as they prepared to wake the guests. As it got light, the lions filtered off one by one until at 5.15 a.m. the last one was seen loping off into the nearby mopane forest.

Not having been seen for the last few months, this group of young lions is known to cover practically the whole of the private Timbavati nature reserve (over 65 000 hectares) and comprises two young females and five young males, two of which have almost each lost an eye in previous fights. To be honest, they're a motley crew, too young to take over a territory and come of age, and simply drifting between established territories, trying to avoid conflict.

Or so we thought. Half-way through rifle practice up at the shooting range a few days ago, one of the rangers heard growls coming from the mopane forest behind him. Saving one round, the ranger and companions made their way back to the Land Rover and drove towards the sound, eventually finding a young male and a young female mating in the shade of a grove of mopane trees. The loving couple later rejoined the rest of their unconventional pride and were seen the next morning about ten kilometres away on the fringes of the territory of Ngala’s five dominant males.

Four of the young males had brought down an adult buffalo cow on the edge of a herd of about 200. The cow was having none of it, though, and her bellows brought three buffalo bulls running to help, one of them collecting a lion on the boss of his horns. The lion took the hint, and he and the others scattered, leaving the badly gashed and bleeding cow to trot off seemingly unaffected (the same guests had seen a cheetah kill an impala on the previous drive...).

Almost every morning for the past week has seen the birth of a baby buffalo calf in both of the herds on the property at the moment and this cow had probably been pregnant and strayed to the edge of the herd to give birth, thus presenting a more vulnerable target than usual to the lions.

The young upstart lions then wandered further into the resident males’ territory and were heard roaring a challenge/claim later that night, answered by only one of the resident females. The next morning however at least two of the older males had responded to the challenge and the tracks of the younger group were seen heading back north, away from the territory and back into a neutral area, probably wiser for the experience.

Other sightings that thrilled this week were one of an nyala bull, another of an adult reedbuck ram, eight newly-born baby puffadders (which in two days had dispersed no more than 70m apart) and a vine snake that tried to attack a huge female golden orb spider but became entangled in the thick and sticky web. We also had our first sighting of a pangolin in a few months.

It’s reasonable to say that the game viewing has been pretty good. If you arrived on Saturday for example and only stayed one night you would have seen…

Saturday pm:
-a female cheetah finishing off her impala kill
-two sub-adult male leopards feeding on a bushbuck they had killed and dragged along the Timbavati River
-a five-month-old leopard cub lounging in a huge Jackalberry tree
-four male lions relaxing on a clearing with a single lioness (there were three other lion sightings all of single animals)
-an elephant bull
-two white rhino bulls
-assorted buffalo bulls
-a small breeding herd of elephant

Sunday am:
-four wild dogs resting in the shade
-a single white rhino bull
-buffalo bulls
-a sub-adult male leopard
-three adult male lions
-a lion and lioness mating<

Buffalo flavour of the week at Ngala
Reported by: Ngala Ranger (2/5/2001)   

The lions have definitely chosen buffalo this past week.

The buffalo cow that had a narrow escape from the pride of nomadic young male lions last week eventually died of her injuries in some thick bush alongside a nearby drainage line. The thickness of the bush was not enough to stop the vultures and hyenas from finding the carcass, however, and their activities led one of the resident male lions to the windfall. The condition of this particular male has deteriorated markedly in the last few months because of an injury to one of his back legs, but he still managed to savage one of the hyenas and claim the carcass as his own.

The other four males in his coalition were, along with the two lionesses that have come to accept them, busy feeding on a different buffalo cow on the southern edge of their territory. They had chased a pride of sub-adult lions from the carcass and from the new-born calf lying next to it. It seems that the lions happened across a cow who had experienced birth difficulties and been separated from the protection of the herd.

While guests and rangers were watching a herd of about 200 buffalo in the western part of the property, another lioness suddenly burst from nowhere, sending the herd into a panic during which a yearling buffalo was left without the protection of his mother. The lioness managed to latch onto the throat of this unfortunate animal but his bellows brought caused the herd to return and carry out a rather aggressive rescue.

Later in the week, a Land Rover arrived at a supposed lion sighting only to find that the lions had moved on. The ranger and tracker decided to follow-up on foot. Just 200m from the vehicle, they suddenly heard a grunt, then a bellow, and then lion growls and muted roars. This was followed by the thunder of hundreds of buffalo stampeding through the fairly thick bush in the direction of the two intrepid explorers who wasted no time in heading back to the protection of the vehicle. Driving back in, they discovered two sub-adult male lions and five lionesses nursing their pride after a failed buffalo hunt.

Elsewhere this week, we saw the resident pack of wild dogs – currently four-strong – running down an impala, a young female cheetah chasing four impala rams up the river bank and only three running back down again (she managed to kill a two-year-old ram which was stolen half an hour later by a spotted hyena) and a magnificent Martial Eagle with a Tree Monitor it had caught.

Predators aside, the undoubted highlight of the week was the sighting of a Green Sandpiper, a first for Ngala. This rare vagrant was very confiding and fed on the edge of a muddy pan while were able to examine it at our leisure. As an unexpected extra, as we were watching the bird, an adult male leopard nonchalantly strolled past and proceeded to stalk a bachelor herd of impala that had just drank at the waterhole.

Close on the heels of rhino
Reported by: ');> Chris Roche (1/5/2001)   

There was no doubt that there was an end destination in mind. The tracks headed in a definite direction – no pausing to graze and no deviation from the direction. All was revealed when a small pan came into view. The craters left in the mud had hardened in the impression of the two rhino and every wrinkle showed up.

A darkened tree nearby showed where the majority of mud had been scraped off their bodies and the path through the grass from there was obvious with mud flecks drying on taller blades of grass and small bushes.

Now easily able to follow the tracks, we had time to look around and were excited to discover a carcass draped across the bow of nearby Brown Ivory tree. A quick scan of the tree and immediate surroundings revealed no leopard but a waft of the carcass drifted across to us. It was old!

On a wincing, closer inspection, the carcass turned out to be an African wildcat. Hair had been plucked from the body in typical leopard fashion and was strewn beneath the tree. A cast of pure hair that had obviously been ingested and then coughed up, hinted at the distaste the larger cat had for its prey and it remained uneaten in the tree, testament to the competition amongst different species of predators.

The rhino tracks began to meander. Convoluted spaghetti junctions on closely cropped, nutritious termite mounds were initially confusing until the path away from the area was spotted. Dung, partially eaten by dung-beetles, and the intermingling of hyena and rhino tracks meant the rhino had passed that way in the early hours of the morning.

We settled into the task at hand, expecting only to find the rhino some distance away. Uprooted grass and overturned soil in a small depression showed where they had bedded down for the night. Four similar depressions indicated that both rhino had changed position and spent a long time sleeping in the area. Having picked out the path away from the site, a pile of steaming dung showed exactly how long the two had slept.

The warmth radiated from the pile in the early morning air and two sets of eyes instantly scanned the bush ahead. Down the slope ahead, the bush gradually opened into a small clearing and, approaching this, a small movement caught our attention. We froze and as our eyes adjusted, the white rhino cow and calf appeared in the pattern of leaves like an image jumping out of one of those 3D composite pictures. They hadn't seen us. The wind was in our favour and we were in safe cover.

As we sat down to watch, not two metres away, a tiny dwarf mongoose poked just its head out of an eroded vent in a termite mound and watched us.

Large game pop up during bird-watching
Reported by: Ngala Ranger (11/26/2000)   

'Ja, well Bob, we always knew we needed 130 to be competitive, and you know the guys went out and just did their best. You can't ask more than that. I was very happy with the way the team performed. A lot of hard work just came together on the day and we had a little bit of luck, but mostly we took our chances and that's what's important. What’s that? ...Oh ja, sorry – full credit to the opposition.'

The day started early with the sound of the alarm at 4:00am wrenching us from sleep. By 4:30am we were on the road, notching up a quick five species while we started the Land Rover: the raucous calls of Woodland Kingfisher, Crested Francolin and Crowned Plover being as distinctive as the piercing whistle of the Kurrichane Thrush and complex song of the White-throated Robin. It was already light and too late for nightjar and owl calls (something we would regret later on), but the soft light of the rising sun brought forth a symphonic dawn chorus that we were only too happy to lap up, 40 of the first 60 birds recorded on Ngala's big birding day being identified from their calls. One that wasn't, but which remained the highlight of the day, was spotting a Yellow-billed Oxpecker that was seen on the back of a giraffe with five or six Red-billed Oxpeckers (the former number only a few hundred in South Africa and the northern Kruger National Park remains their only healthy stronghold).

It's funny how, when looking for birds, or primarily just looking I suppose, the larger game just unexpectedly pops up. Perhaps it's because you're not expecting it that it's exciting. We were certainly surprised when searching for a specific Black-bellied Korhaan almost lead to a “hit-and-run” with a pride of five lions that had been lying on the road, invisible to us in the strong glow of the rising sun. Anyway, 60 bird and two mammal species down, we carried on to the Timbavati River hoping to raise the tally in a new habitat.

Our target of reaching over 50% of the recorded species on Ngala kept getting more difficult, however, as we spotted first one, then another and then another new species for the Ngala list. Instead of needing to see half of 259 species, we now needed half of 262. Frustrating, but great for the long term Ngala list. The mammals kept coming as well, and an exciting sighting of a Grey-hooded Kingfisher led us right into a concealed herd of more than 200 buffalo, while a stop at a big dam yielded the first African Jacana and Black Crake for ages, just as a herd of elephant began to make their way down to drink.

Despite missing several “easy”, “guaranteed” birds like hadeda, Melba Finch, Paradise Whydah, Helmeted Guineafowl, Groundscraper Thrush, Kurrichane Buttonquail, Bennet's Woodpecker, Barred Owl and Fiery-necked Nightjar, we still reached 142 (54,2%) bird species on Ngala's traversing area and, more importantly, had an absolute blast doing it.

We didn't bait or call any of the species and we even omitted the ostrich recorded from its tracks. Good luck to the rest of the teams.

Wild dogs fend off hyena and leopard
Reported by: ');> Chris Roche (9/18/2000)   

A quote in Nadine Gordimer's (South Africa's Nobel prize winner for literature) book, July's People, uses the word “interregnum” in describing a transition between the not-yet-dead old and the still-to-be-born. That, in a word, describes the mood at Ngala at the moment. We are not in winter anymore, nor in summer or even a conventional spring. Instead, the wind howls and we all wait for the tension to break as the land decides where we are.

Nonetheless, there has been major excitement this week at the visit of a pack of four wild dogs. The small pack were found on the airstrip a few mornings ago after the morning game drives had made their way cautiously through a herd of about 200 buffalo that had spent the night just outside camp. While watching Africa's second most endangered carnivore temporarily resting on the airstrip, its feline equivalent (in some ways) strolled unawares across the airstrip a few hundred metres away.

Once the excitement of this cheetah sighting had passed, the dogs kept the thrill going as they flushed and killed a steenbok in the mopane scrub on the fringe of the airstrip. This, of course, drew the ubiquitous spotted hyena onto the scene and he quickly summed up which of the four dogs had the largest section of steenbok and without hesitation rushed in and stole it. Momentarily stunned, the dogs quickly rallied together and stole the precious meat back, giving the hyena several nips on the hindquarters for good measure.

The next morning, the dogs had already travelled 12 km by the time they were found at the base of a tree in which a female leopard had taken refuge. It seems she had opportunistically investigated the impala alarm calls at the site of the wild dogs kill and had unfortunately not found a poor defenceless cheetah, but rather a pack of wild dogs, who had instantly hounded her into a precarious position at the top of a small saffron tree. The dogs moved off just as quickly though, probably travelling another 12 km.

Ferocious woodland dormouse and pirate lions
Reported by: ');> Chris Roche (9/10/2000)   

In camp, we have had the ferocious woodland dormouse that bit the brave ranger who picked it up, leopard tracks in the boma this morning and a breeding herd of elephants drinking at the pan and bringing an exciting diversion to dinner.

This morning wild dog tracks created a brief stir of excitement, but they had obviously passed their way in the night and game drives had to be content with a sighting of the four new dominant male lions and their so-far one female consort. The female proved part of her worth to the males as she moved off from them and chased a female cheetah off a fresh impala kill nearby. Within seconds, the males had relieved her of her pirated prize though, leaving her to wonder what exactly their worth is ....