WEEK IN PICTURES #36
It was another incredible week to be out in the bush under the African sun. With every game drive topping the previous one it was difficult to highlight only a few.
The lions took the spotlight this week with a few memorizing sightings. We had no sighting of the 3 older cubs with the lionesses this week but they were briefly seen one morning before disappearing in to the thickets. The other 5 cubs were seen together with all 7 of the Kudyela lionesses and at the time a single Machaton male was with them. The cubs interacted with each other and some members of the pride though not all the females were too happy with the cubs.
The Machaton males covered a lot of ground this week marking their territory after the recent rains. They also followed the Kudyela lionesses for about two days hoping to get an easy meal and that is exactly what happened. The following day the lionesses had bloody faces but only the males had full bellies, it must have been a small kill.
The Impalabos lionesses were seen moving past our Tree Hide to the west. We had many lion tracks close camp during the week and raised a few questions to whom they belong, we finally got an answer when the Singwe male was seen.
There has been a huge influx of elephants in the reserve with several sightings of herds well over 40 individuals. These large breeding herds mostly have very young calves with them and young males following close behind. “Ezulwini” was seen a few times during the week and is always a great pleasure spending time around him.
The 2 young female leopards, Nkanyi and Thuli, were seen separately for most part of the week but was found sharing an impala at the end. Their kill was unfortunately stolen this morning by one of the Machaton males.
