22 September 2015
This
morning we set off early, with one goal in mind - to find leopards as they have
been avoiding on the first 2 days of safari... First out the gate, we went
searching at a notorious hiding place. There were some fresh cat tracks in the
road and suddenly Louisa said she saw something flicking in the bush.
Instinctively I knew we had found what we came looking for, as it is often the
flick of the leopard's white tail-tip that gives it's presence away...
We
sat waiting and then realized that there are 2 of them - youngsters of about 10
months old, playing in the tall grass, just visible when pouncing on or chasing
one another! They then disappeared into a ditch and I feared that might have
been the end of our sighting, but we turned around and decided to wait a while.
It
wasn't long before both came back out, sitting on a termite mound basking in
the early morning sun and grooming themselves... by this time a few cars had
gathered behind us and we decided to move on in an attempt to let everyone else
see them.
About
50 m further down the road, their sibling, a young male, was lying out in the
open on a rock, surveying his surroundings and also grooming in the early
morning sun! We sat watching him for another 15 minutes until some more cars
arrived, when it was time to get out of there for coffee and breakfast.
We
returned to the scene a couple of hours later to find 1 of them lying in a tree
very close to the road, the others obviously close by, but hiding very well. It
was a great treat and we could not have asked for a better leopard sighting,
especially since they were not bothered by all the attention they were getting!
It is hard to top a start to the day such as that, but we were also lucky
enough to find our first elephants of the safari as well as a mother White
Rhino and her 1 year old calf. There was an adult male Rhino grazing close to
them and it got a bit to close to the youngster for the mom's liking.
She
charged up and slammed horn first into the large male who barely had time to
brace himself for the impact. She had made her point and the male slowly moved
off afterwards! Certainly another memorable day on Safari!
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