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August 2005 Dear Friends      Our winter has still not arrived and we are already seeing signs of Spring. The August winds are blowing the remaining leaves from the trees to clear the way for new growth, causing havoc for our gardeners who spend all day sweeping! We have seen the first of the wahlberg’s eagles and yellow billed kites returning from North Africa and in the evening are hearing the high pitched peeping of the wahlberg’s epauletted fruit bats searching for a mate.      Even though the bush is parched and golden the first African violets are peeping through in places. Everything is now waiting for the rain which could be 2 months away, although the sky has already been lit up on several evenings with spectacular lightening. We do have fears that we could have a drought this year due to lack of winter. This has however proved a bonus for the guests as the dryness has encouraged elephants to our waterhole almost daily. The larger breeding herds are concentrated along the Sand River as this is the only area where there is any green. One evening during dinner the herd of 400 buffalo also came to drink. The lit up waterhole was a wonderful sight to behold from our boma and the buffalo then settled down for the night around the camp.

A hippo died due to a territorial fight in Schwenga Dam, the big dam where many of you have stopped for coffee and tea, and home to many crocs and pods of hippo. For many days nothing touched the hippo, as the skin was too thick for fish or crocodile to penetrate. Then one of the rangers found our territorial big leopard, the Wallingford male, swimming out to the carcass and the guests were able to witness him dragging it back to the shore.      Unfortunately for him, the Ximungwe pride of lions came upon the scene and stole it from him. He was wise to make his escape as this pride has joined together now, making an impressive sight of 6 lionesses, 12 cubs and quite often the big male. One evening drive, as the guests came upon this pride, they all started calling at once, such an incredible and vibrant sound which can carry for 10 kilometres.

	This particular pride of lions has been incredibly successful with their hunting and the cubs are looking well. We have not been seeing many zebra recently but were pleased when 2 males came into the area although one of them had obviously had a run in with a lion as he had great gashes on his rump. We were happy to see that these wounds were healing but unfortunately, this sighting was not to give pleasure for long as the Ximungwe Pride came upon them. The zebra without the wounds, and possibly less wise, was chased into the fence line and killed. The cubs were viewed gorging themselves, covered almost to the tips of their tales in blood as they climbed into the carcass. In recent days, this pride has also taken a buffalo.      Also on the subject of lions, the old male from the North met up with the Sand River pride of lions, 4 females and 8 cubs. As these were not his cubs, a fact that the females were very aware of, they immediately attacked him, knocking him over and sending him on his way without too much damage except for his ego! He has not been seen near them since.
	Our leopard viewing has improved dramatically, even with the large number of lions around. The female, known as Mkwela, has now made her cub independent at 18 months old. Mkwela has been seen mating both with the Wallingford male and the new ugly male. Her behavior will confuse each male as to whose cubs they are, insuring that they will probably be accepted by both males should they come across them.      The female known as Shangwa has also made her cubs independent at the age of 19 months. We are seeing a lot of the young female cub and we had brilliant viewing of her with a young nyala kill, although she did lose an impala kill the other day to hyena. We have only had a few sightings of Shangwa’s young male but we believe him to be doing well.
	We continue to have consistent male cheetah viewing and 2 new young males came into our property for a period before exiting again. They were seen killing an impala but it was taken by hyena soon after. We are not sure where all the females are but we hope they will come back in the near future with new cubs.

We were looking forward to spending an evening with the guests star gazing, as on 27th August Mars was to be at its nearest to the moon in the last 5,000 years. This phenomenon will not be witnessed again for the next 60,000 years. Unfortunately, as luck would have it, the wind and the clouds moved in and the sky was totally obscured from our sight – a great disappointment all around.      We end another busy month at Savanna. Please keep in touch and do send any different, interesting or amusing photos that you might have taken to our website designer Christa – christa@mweb.co.za.

Warm Wishes      Paddy and the Savanna Team

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