News / Camp News

Vumbura Plains - July 2009

06 Aug 2009

Winter truly arrived this month bringing winds and cooler temperatures with it. On average temperatures varied between 7˚C at night and 24˚C during the day, but the cold conditions certainly didn't cause the animals to go into hiding with wild dogs making a spectacular (and very noisy) return to the area on 6th July.

In the middle of the night they chased a herd of impala through South Camp. The sound of the impala alarm calling in distress was only drowned out by the squeals of excitement from the dogs. They finally made their kill and the evidence was clear to see the following morning...an impala head, complete with spinal cord still attached, dropped outside Room 4. As the guests left their rooms for early morning breakfast, a clan of hyaena arrived finish off the impala remains. Most of the guests slept through the commotion, but the dogs hung around with full bellies and were the first sighting of the morning. The Golden Pack continued to be seen throughout the month, but not quite so close to home!

The first leopard sighting of the month was a youngster in a tree. There was no sign of his mother, an unknown female in the area, but the cub seems very relaxed in the presence of vehicles. Both he and his mother were seen again as the month continued.

The lions proved to be elusive for the first half of July, but when they were found, sightings proved to be up-close and personal. Guests held their breath as two females brushed past the side of their vehicle! The encounters only improved as the month went on and for some days the lions remained very close to camp. In particular, the 18th proved to be a feline day of note with two different prides of lion being seen, followed by a kill! Not to mention the two cheetah (mother and cub) that were also found that day. That morning, the guests watched in disbelief as the two Eastern male lions walked straight past a buffalo with a broken leg - within 10m! In the evening, everyone went back to see what had become of the injured buffalo. As the sun went down, the lions took their chance and, without much of a struggle, the buffalo was suffocated to death. The two males sat with the kill for nearly two days gorging themselves.  Once the lions had moved on, an array of different animals visited the carcass. First was a female leopard and cub. She's an unknown female in the area and seemed quite skittish, unlike her young male cub, which seems to love attention. He continued to eat and enjoy the buffalo for as long as there were vehicles there. The following day, the lions returned to the kill and the cheeky little leopard actually tried to chase them off their own kill!

Prior to the lion kill, the patience of the guests and the tracking of our guides paid off as they were rewarded with the site of a female cheetah and cub on an impala kill. This is the first sighting of a female cheetah in the area for at least a year and a half, hence the excitement. The cub is estimated to be around two years old, but both mother and cub are still very shy.  Surely the most excited individual will be Vuku, our local male, who's been in the area on his own for some time now.

One of the most unusual events this month was the discovery of a dead elephant. The guides speculated that it had got stuck in a particularly sticky muddy patch and sadly starved to death.  With the flood waters receding so fast now, this seems to be a new threat to the wildlife. It was the presence of vultures that alerted the drives to the carcass, but soon the lions and hyaenas descended to take advantage of a free meal. The most entertaining thing was watching the lion cubs struggling to obtain better feeding positions - the carcass was in the water and they most certainly did not want to get wet! Only two days later the guides found a Kudu that had suffered the same fate in the mud. The elephant carcass proved to be a hotspot for animal interaction and even a week after it was found, it was still providing great game viewing. Guests watched in astonishment as two clans of hyaena, 14 in total, fed on what was left of the elephant. That is until the two Eastern male lions appeared and took great offence to the hyaena being there. An aggressive confrontation ended in one of the hyaena's being killed by the lions. Interestingly, lions will rarely eat other predators, they merely kill them because they signify competition for the same resources. The hyaena carcass remained intact for some time, not even the vultures touched it.  Finally, it was actually other hyaena that scavenged the meat.

It is certainly an interesting and unpredictable time here in the Delta. We can only hope that August brings game viewing equal to what we have experienced this month.

Camp Staff
Managers: Zara Shaikh, Frank Matomela and Kgabiso Lehare at South Camp.
Warren Baty, Cheri Marshall and Phenyot Tlalenyane at North Camp
Guides: Obonye Kamela (OB), Lethebe Sethwara (Lettie) & Banyatsang Shakwa (Ban) at South Camp. Onamile Lekgopho (Ona), Sebonta Thekiso (Zee) & Keraetswe Bosigo (Madala K) at North Camp.

Images courtesy of Candy Shedden, Kathy Eginoire and Nancy Maximuck.

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