Tsala, our resident leopardess, has provided us with a great sighting, as she managed to hoist an impala she killed into a tree. She has become extremely relaxed over the last 4 years, thanks to some relentless respect from all the guides in the area, and the fruits of our works are paying off, and she is allowing us into her secretive world.
Hopefully she meets the monster of a male that lives in her territory, and has another cub or two, and hopefully she raises them successfully this time around. We are not sure what happened to her last cub (Feb 18 2013) seen below.
We will be keeping a very close eye on her in the future, and we will bring you more news shortly about her movements.
This morning started off with an amazing sunrise, and some cooler temperatures, as the storm clouds are building, hopefully to bring us some good rain very soon. There was not too much on the m ove this morning for some reason, and we struggled to find any tracks of any animals, but out of the corner of my eye, I spotted a pied crow acting strangely. He was flying in circles, and then dipped to the ground and sat there for some time before taking to the air again in full voice. Now sometimes these crows will give away the tell tale signs of a predator on a kill somewhere, but it was not until 2 hyenas also came out of the same direction that my suspicions were confirmed, and we went offroad to investigate.
Well, the ” bush vine” did not lie, and we soon located the Jamala and Mica lionesses and their 9 cubs feeding of the remains of a zebra. Always nice to be surprised at how efficient the bush can be !!
This is why children spend their pocket money on TUNINGI !!
Children are kept very busy here at the lodge doing all kinds of different activities such as T-shirt painting, clay modelling, puzzle building, memory games, kiddies drives, colouring books, building lego, sculpture designing etc.
So get your children to come and experience the awesomeness of the bushveld.
Not something you see together often. We followed a Black Rhino this morning from a safe distance when all of a sudden he turned and charged. Lucky for me he was more interested in the Ostrich than my vehicle.
The ostrich wasn’t too fazed and the Rhino took off.
This morning I decided to start off by looking for the four male Cheetahs as they evaded us for the past few days. After not to long we got them not far from the lodge. Always very rewarding if a possibility turns into a reality.
Not long after we left the Cheetahs the Jamala pride was called in and it was around the corner from us. The two adult females joined up with their six cub in the usual social manner. While dodging all the holes around us we followed them to the base of the hill where they disappeared.
While luck was on our side I decided to go and look for the Wild Dogs, but I soon realized they were long gone. The only tracks around were quite old.
But then, on the way back to the lodge for breakfast our favorite Leopardess was found. Being miles away I just hoped for the best but as we came close she was still on the move in the open. We followed her for some time until she jumped into a shady tree for a snooze.
We found the Jamala Pride this morning not long after they killed a Warthog. But the Naledi Male was just as close. As the pig is too small for all to be enjoyed, he took the kill away from the rest and enjoyed every last bit of it, alone. The females and youngsters now have to wait for the scraps or find something new to eat.
The new young male leopard that has been pleasuring us with his presence is making it a regular thing, and he is becoming really relaxed around the vehicles. This is awesome news for us, and we hope he is going to stick around for a while !!
Other than this, we spent a large part of the morning looking for the wild dogs, but they seemed to evade us after tracking them for some 15 km this morning. Sightings of oryx, red hartebeest, tons of zebra, wildebeest, giraffe, impala and kudus among the elephants and rhinos, meant that we had a pretty successful morning !!
Just thought I would share something different, although we did have a splendid afternoon spending some time with our 4 cheetah brothers, as they almost took down a full grown oryx, and some lazy lions among the hoards of general game in between.
This image was taken at the waterhole at Vleisfontein, which is the park administration buildings which also used to be the old mission building in the early 1900’s.
Bring on a new week, with lots of new guests, so book now if you too want to be apart of the “TUNINGI MAGIC “!!
The young male leopard that was stalking Cornelius the day before yesterday, seems to be staying in the area, as we located him again yesterday afternoon.
He is incredibly relaxed, and we are not sure of where he comes from, or who his mother is, as I don’t have any photographic evidence of him in our game drive areas. So, this is great news for us, and we will certainly be following him around in his day to day activities, and hopefully he joins up with his mother so that we can put to rest our inquisitiveness .
We finally had some rain to give everything new life!!
Although it was not nearly as much as we have hoped for, we could see a noticeable difference within a week after it rained with the trees especially starting to push new leaves. Now we are just desperately waiting for more.
All the animals are enjoying the arrival of summer and new life coming with it.
As always we were totally spoilt with the quality of sightings we had. Here are just a few of the most memorable sightings for October.
It helps a lot to be in the right place at the right time.
Well, just that happened to me this month, twice!
Jip, I saw two Wild Dog kills. We saw the dogs briefly early the afternoon but with little action. So I decided to go stop for drinks to let it cool down. We stopped not too far from Tholo dam and waited for the dogs to get a bit more active.
As we finished our drinks the dogs were at the dam. They were all over the place having fun in the last rays of the sun and then just disappeared. We drove all over the place looking for them but with no luck. And then, as the saying goes, the harder you try, the luckier you get!
As we drove closer to the dam again we saw that they had chased a Blue Wildebeest into the water. There was no hope for the poor guy. It took a while before the adults finally killed it, right in front of our eyes!
The other kill was on the fence in the south of Madikwe. Early the one morning we found them running around without purpose. The 6 pups were far from the adults playing with whatever they could find.We heard the sound of hooves on the rocks and all hell broke loose. It was an Impala they targeted.
They chased it to right behind my vehicle and this time the fence they use so often did its job.
I quickly turned around and within 10 seconds the Impala was dead and they all tucked in. An absolute privilege it has been to witness nature in full force!!!To find the Cheetahs is also always a thrill. These four boys move all over Madikwe and at times finding them is a big challenge. Lucky for us they did spend some quality time in the South this month, so we got to see them fairly often.
With it still being fairly dry and dusty out here,the late afternoons provide some amazing colorful skies.
To end the day with a Gin and Tonic in the bush and watching the sun go down…nothing can beat that.
Make that booking now to come and share in our wonderful daily adventures!
Our new website is up and running, and is looking really good !!
Please feel free to browse it, and the most important thing to note will be that our daily face book updates will be run through this website in the “ABOUT US” drop down menu, and then you scroll to “BLOG”, but we will still put the link on the facebook and twitter feeds.
Tomorrow the Monthly wildlife report/newsletter will be going out, so be sure to go and have a look at what happened in October.
Well this month has been a month of rising temperatures, and the promise of rain in the air.
Yes, it is still incredibly dry at the moment, but the game sightings are still cooking, and as ever, Tuningi is churning out the incredible sights and sounds that mother Madikwe has to offer.
We will start off this month with an update on what this reserve is famous for…. The Painted Wolves, AKA African Wild Dogs.
The small pack which we get to see the most of because of their proximity to the camp are doing extremely well, and all the pups seem to be overcoming the day to perils, and have started following the adults on their daily hunting excursions as opposed to being den bound up in the mountains somewhere. One morning we were lucky enough to be involved in their successful hunting down of a steen buck, but it was all over in a matter of seconds as they ripped and pulled the steenbuck apart all wanting a piece of the small antelope.
The larger pack residing in the north of the reserve is also doing very well, and are also hunting up a storm and killing some of the larger herbivores such as kudu and wildebeest. The pups are also doing well, but alas 2 of them were killed by lions at the den site one morning. This is something which happens every year as the den site can emit some odours which attract the larger predators. 60 % of pups in the wild will not make it to their first birthday due to various factors including the predation from the larger predators.
The lions…
Well, with conditions being desperately dry at the moment, the herbivores are not in the best shape they can be, and are weaker than usual, thus the lions are having a field day out when it comes to their success rate. The Bulaya pride to the south west of the lodge are doing very well, and the 2 youngest cubs are now 4 months old, and the other 3 are now entering sub-adulthood, as the young male in the group is starting to show signs of his maturity in the hairs of his mane becoming visible. The Bulaya females are doing exceptionally well considering it is their first litter of cubs.
The other pride to the south east of the lodge are acting slightly strangely as they are pushing deeper and deeper into the Bulaya pride’s territory, and this could be due to the pressure being asserted from the new boys on the block… the Kwandwe males which are claiming the vacant territory east of the lodge. This behavior is causing the Jamala and Mica females to seek refuge in the heart of the current reigning males, the Naledi’s territory.
So a huge territorial fight was always going to be eminent, and came a few weeks ago when the Naledi’s intercepted the new comers, giving them a hiding ten to one resulting in one of the Kwandwe males being badly injured on his hind leg. This sent them running further east to lick their wounds leaving us to have a new found respect for the old Naledi boys.
The Naledi Old Boys
The waterhole at the lodge is an incredibly busy place at the moment with some incredible sightings of large herds of elephants joining the guests as they have lunch, as they have some fun in the mud to cool their hot bodies. Buffalos are also a regular feature at dinner time as they too come down almost every night to drink and mud bathe. Don’t forget our resident tame bokkies….. “Kollie” the bushbuck and “Klippie” the klipspringer that are always entertaining our guests on the pathways to the rooms.
The cheetah brothers 4, are loving life in Madikwe at the moment, and are looking impressive. They are killing on a twice weekly basis, and are wowing our guests with their majestic presence, however they are still travelling through the length and breadth of the reserve in search of a sign of a female, which the park is in the process of obtaining before the end of the year.
The other single male has been very scarce, and was not often seen this month, but when we do find him, he seems to be doing very well without his brother who was killed a few months ago by an unknown source.
Well, that is all for this month, and we look forward on reporting on some amazing sightings next month once again !!
Regards,
Gavin.
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