WILDLIFE JOURNAL SINGITA SABI SAND, SOUTH AFRICA

For the month of June, Two Thousand and nineteen

Temperature Rainfall Recorded Sunrise & Sunset Average minimum: 13.2˚C (55.8˚F) For the month: 0 mm Sunrise: 06:38

Average maximum: 27.7˚C (81.9˚F) For the season to date: 0 mm Sunset: 17:13 Minimum recorded: 10˚C (50˚F) Maximum recorded: 33˚C (91.4˚F)

There is nothing more heart-warming than being handed a hot water bottle along with your take away coffee cup before venturing out on safari. Winter’s golden hues linger in the morning and in the evening. The game drives are longer in the winter months as the cooler conditions are more comfortable to stay out later. Here’s a Sightings Snapshot for June: Lions

• The Mhangene Pride have unfortunately lost another litter of cubs. There has only been one surviving cub in the past three litters born this year. The young female cub continues to keep up with the pride through their movements and has capitalized on carcasses with the pride. The Othawa male has also

remained with the Mhangene lionesses. The pride movement has been sporadic, moving from far east to the furthest western area of Sabi Sand.

• The Styx Pride have been encountered on a few occasions north of the river. The pride continues to move over vast distances and shows very little sign of settling down in a specific area.

Elephants

• The Sand River has been an oasis for the large herds of elephants that are drawn to the water course during midday. The banks of the river are often adorned with elephant, scattered along the remaining winter greenery.

• On few occasions several groups of elephants have grouped up exceeding well over approximately 70 elephants in one large gathering.

Wild dogs

• Three wild dog packs have been predominantly moving within our surrounding areas! It looks like we are in for a bumper time with some very exciting wild dog sightings.

• One of the packs has been revisiting an old den-site and it is evident that they have shown some great interest in the area. In order to allow the pack to settle down and with no clear signs of the pregnant alpha female moving with the pack it would indicate that she has already given birth to a litter. Due to the sensitive nature of the den-site, vehicles will not be visiting the location for a couple of weeks, allowing the pack to establish the site completely undeterred.

Spotted hyena

• This time of year, hyenas will be using excavated holes in abandoned termite mounds as perfect sanctuaries for their cubs. These den-sites are often used by alpha and beta females, which could easily accumulate several cubs of varying ages in one den.

Leopards

• Usually this is a specie that is regularly viewed in the Sabi Sand, however during the last few weeks, the trackers have been working extremely hard to find these elusive predators. Many of the younger leopards are becoming independent from their mothers, as would be the case for the Hukumuri female and the Schotia female. Both the females have been viewed on their own far more in the last few weeks. The Hukumuri female has already been mating with the Nyelethi male.

• What has been abundant over the last few weeks has been the movement of wild dogs. With a pack of seven to the west and the larger pack of eleven currently denning north of the river, there has been much wild dog activity. Wild dogs easily intimidate leopards often chasing them up trees as they move through the bush. This maybe a contributing factor as to why the leopards are keeping a low profile.

• The image above indicates a clear size difference between the much younger male cub and his mother on the left hand side of the frame. The young male will soon venture off on his own as an independent male that will become nomadic for a few years, before attaining a territory. Unfortunately, female leopards do not relinquish pieces of territory to male offspring - this is generally only done for female cubs. Depending on the amount of male leopards in a given area or territory sizes, the young males will try to avoid detection from older males, thus giving themselves longer periods of time in a natal area. Some young males have been reported to have stayed well over four years in a natal area, still interacting with their mother.

Bird list

• Although there were a lot of birds seen over the month of June we didn’t manage to add any new bird species to our list, which leaves our yearly total at 260.

Locked up Article by Ross Couper

Only twice in my guiding career have I witnessed kudu bulls fighting. It is not a common occurrence to actually view the titans of the antelope specie locking horns in the wild, let alone for the occurrence to happen in an open clearing with a non-obstructive view. Kudu bulls are impressive by size and the last time I was called into a sighting of two kudu bulls fighting, it resulted in both bulls being killed by hyena a few days after the fight had started. They had locked their horns through the various twists and turns. Kudu show strong sexual dimorphism in that bulls have massive, long, spiral horns, which reach record lengths of up to 1.8 m. The more they pushed or pulled, the tighter the lock became and the they had to contort their bodies and necks to try remain standing. Over several days it took its toll on their bodies and they soon succumbed to a clan of hyenas that eventually killed both of the large bulls. It was arguably one of the toughest things to watch over the course of five days. As gentle as nature can be, it can be one of the most ruthless. Returning back to my new story… The misty cool conditions were the perfect temperature to be out on game drive and there was much activity was occurring throughout the reserve as the radio crackled consistently with sightings from the start. Whilst moving to a leopard sighting, the echoing sound of knocking horns caught our attention. We could hear the sound being emitted and knew it could draw in a predator in much the same way it drew our attention to investigate what was happening. In the open grass clearing several kudu bulls were sparring and few of them were a little more serious.

On my first encounter of viewing this activity a few years ago, the two kudus were already in a locked position. Now watching the bulls continually knock and push each other, it was clear how quickly the horns could lock up with an ultimate demise of death if they were unable to free themselves.

After thinking about my last experience I have to wonder, is the fight worth the effort and the risk? The age-old question that drives a male to court females in the wild and, more importantly, why would you risk your life for hierarchical reign above other submissive bulls? With no parental care duties required from the bulls, or even having the standard requirement of marking out a territorial area like most other species, is it all instinctive? There is absolutely no territorial spacing that exists amongst kudu bulls. Bulls join female herds during mating, but favour other habitats out of the mating season. Even though the evolution-related purpose of mating can be said to be reproduction, it is not actually the creating of offspring, which originally causes them to mate. It is probable that they mate because they are motivated for the actual copulation, and because this is connected with a positive experience. This could be the easiest form of answering a difficult question. With the pondering thoughts and questions being debated we watched the kudus merge into the thick bush no longer showing any interest in the sparing event. We travelled along our way deep in our thoughts wondering about the kudus only to come across a leopard that just killed a male impala that was far too busy rutting with other males and the leopard took full advantage of its distraction. Now back to my question, why do they do it?

An afternoon to remember Article by Damin Dallas

Every guide and tracker team have a general plan for either the morning or afternoon safari. This plan will include any specific target species as well as the route and general area in which you’re going to work. We were on our second afternoon safari with a lovely family from the United States and the target for the afternoon was lions. We decided to cross the Sand River into the northern parts of our traverse as three sub-adult lions had been located that morning not too far north of Singita Ebony Lodge.

We, however, decided not to head straight to the lions as they would most likely be sleeping under fairly thick vegetation, owing to the hot midday heat we had experienced earlier. So the plan was to work the parts of the north that don’t get explored all too often and then head to the lions a little later on. We were soon greeted by a large breeding herd of elephants along the river and we watched as some of the members drank while others decided to scoop up some of the cool, thick mud and paint their bodies with it.

We continued on, viewing general game when instantaneously my tracker and I both suggested to each other that we head to one of the dams nearby to see if there was any activity. We rounded the corner onto the start of an open clearing with the waterhole in the middle of the clearing. Getting closer we all soon noticed the distinct tawny colouration that could only belong to one species, lions! We found two sub-adult lions, one male and the other a female who were lying on the wall of the waterhole. These were different lions to the ones found in the morning. We moved in closer and identified the lions belonging to that of the Nkuhuma pride, a pride who originate in the northeast of the Sabi Sand Wildtuin. We were in position and boy did Mother Nature decide to put on a show! After roughly 10 minutes, two young white rhino bulls showed up to have a drink, not perturbed at all by the lions’ presence. They finished up and moved off, unknowingly directly along the same path that a large dominant white rhino bull was using to head to the water. A brief standoff ensued before the two young bulls turned and fled, with the dominant bull right on their heels. We now had two lions in the most gorgeous afternoon sunlight watching on as three rhino ran through and around the open clearing. My guests and I, already ecstatic with the action we had just witnessed, had no idea that this was only the beginning.

Three spotted hyena then appeared and, as they do, banded together and started harassing the lions, trying to intimidate them. They would circle, break off from each other taking up different flanks of the lions, calling and chuckling incessantly while the lions remained rather calm with only the odd growl murmured. The hyenas would move off and then band together again coming towards the lions and then break off, perhaps trying to figure out if there was a potential meal in the area that they could relieve the lions of. In the middle of all this, a white rhino cow and calf had made their way to the waterhole, not at all fazed by the commotion that the hyenas were creating.

Now picture this, behind us, we had the now recently set sun, in front of us the two lions and three hyenas, with the full moon rising and to our left a white rhino drinking with her calf suckling and to top it all off a leopard started calling repeatedly to our north. We were blown away!

The hyena eventually gave up and the rhino moved away and that was our cue to start heading back to camp after already being at the waterhole for just under two and a half hours. I’ve had the privilege of going on countless afternoon safaris and so too have my guests and we were all in agreement that that had to be one of the best afternoons we had all ever spent out in the bush. Sometimes you don’t have to search all over the bush to find magical moments like these. Just stop listen and wait and you will be rewarded. Tracing the tracks of black rhino Article by Kirsten Tinkler

With reports of fresh black rhino tracks coming in after morning game drive, a team of enthusiastic rangers assembled to head back out into the bush to try and locate her. The last sign of her was a footprint in the sand, however, with a few hours having passed and the midday sun beating down, it was difficult to follow the direction as the track had been disturbed by animals walking over it.

We split up into two teams to cover more land. Large dark gabbro rocks mapped the floor, hidden by the dense maze of tall, dry yellow grass. We checked for recent signs of feeding from the small shrubs sprinkled over the land, some of them still clinging onto their crisp green leaves. Piet and myself scanned the area in the direction we presumed she went. Black rhinos have a tendency to ‘zig zag’ when they move, making it even more of a

challenge to follow their direction. Pathways cutting through the grass marked various animals’ movements and made it almost impossible to determine which one she used. Then in the distance, the unmistakable dark outline of a rhino came into view. Heart leaping, we checked the wind direction and staying safely downwind to her, quickening our pace. Meeting the rest of our team, we circled ahead of her and waited behind a large guarri bush close to where we thought she may emerge. Listening intently to the sounds of the midday activity, we could make out some chomping sounds in the distance, slowly getting closer to us. But was there just her? Crouching low and a safe 50 meters away we watched as the rustling of bushes got closer and a dark grey head emerged from the shrubs. Absolute silence; heart racing. I held my breath as she stepped out in front of us. That classic alert raised head, ears twisting around like satellite dishes. Her two horns pointing skywards and the unmistakeable sound of her deep heavy breathing, seemingly so loud in the frozen silence.

She lifted her head up higher, slightly alert in the open. Then she moved on, keeping along the game trail. We waited, listening to her footsteps. And then my heart stopped. A baby rhino stepped out in into the road where she had been standing seconds earlier. What an incredible experience to share with colleagues and friends. The calf paused, then moved on following close behind mother. To our knowledge this pathway they were heading along was going to a dam, could it be that they would stay on this path and move there for a lunchtime drink? As a team we headed into the thickets towards the dam,

circling around so as not to give away our position, using the wind and terrain to our advantage. We ducked under branches, climbed over fallen trees and emerged at the edge of the woodland. A steep wall of sand in front of us indicated the dam was on the other side. Crawling up the side of the bank, we peered over the edge and there on the left of the dam, just like a scene from a story were the mother and baby, sipping from the dam.

We lay flat against the hot sand, watching them as they drank. Minutes passes by and after some time they started to move off, mother leading the way. This was such a stunning scene to watch and we all felt so privileged to view these incredible animals and watch this snippet of their lives.

Tracking answers: Below are photographs of some tracks from last month’s article. The answers are: A – Hippo, B – Leopard and C – Jackal.

A B C