We have experienced yet another month of wonderful weather – the really cold winter that we were expecting has not yet materialised and we are already starting to feel the warmth of spring and seeing new shoots on the trees

     With the heat, the snakes have started to come out again. The guests were able to witness a huge female boomslang in a tree that was being harassed by a burchell's coucal. She was so angry that she had blown her throat up to show aggression. The birchall’s coucal eventually went on its merry way but the boomslang remained in this aggressive position for an hour after.

     This month we are starting off with leopard and the great news that Mkwela, has brought her cubs back into the reserve. At this stage, we have only had fairly long distance visual of 2 cubs. They must be nearly 3 months old. This is the age that she will start bringing them to her kills as they begin to eat meat and become less reliant on milk. This should provide us with some wonderful viewing.

     Shangwa and her cubs are still giving us great sightings and every time we find her she has a kill. She is probably one of the most successful females we have come across. She does get harassed by hyena quite regularly and of course the lions in her area continue to hound her and her offspring.

     On several occasions this month we have seen the Wallingford male and the Ottawa male have confrontations. While they have not made physical contact, the growling and druelling have been enough to push the Wallingford male further west. He is showing signs of age and the younger Ottawa male seems to be getting the upper hand. The fact that they have not actually fought is an indication that there is a lot of respect by the Ottawa male for the Wallingford male. The Wallingford male has always been a favourite of ours. Over the years he has provided the best leopard viewing we have ever had. As far as male leopards go he has always been the most relaxed.

     We were lucky to see the Hippo Dam female the other day. She is the shy female with 2 cubs of approximately 10 months. Sightings of her tend to be few and far between and we only can hope that her cubs will relax more with vehicles in time.

     It has been a very interesting month with the lions. The Mpogo, the coalition of 6 males, continue to wreak havoc and chase everything in the Northern part of our property. They have killed 2 buffalo bulls this month and we have been very fortunate to have viewing of these six feeding on their kill. On one occasion, when only a small amount of meat was left, a full scale battle broke out over the remnants. It was both frightening, awe inspiring and impressive to see 6 big lions all engaged in a vicious fight. The noise alone was enough to make one realise how incredibly powerful these animals are. While they were on this kill, an old female unknown leopard, by chance walked in on the scene and all six chased her up a tree. We are not sure how long she was kept up there as when we came out for the afternoon game drive, she had disappeared. This female showed all the signs of having been involved in a territorial fight as she had huge puncture marks on her neck, chest and throat. It was noticeable by her wounds that she had lost the fight and had now become a nomadic female. The older Mpogo male has continued to mate with 2 remaining females from the Sand River Pride. These females are still not confident with the Mpogo males and will not conceive until they are. The Ximungwe Pride have stayed very much in the South and have been seen a number of times around Savanna camp. One amusing incident was when Zunan, the big male with this pride, had a brief encounter with the older Mpogo male. The older Mpogo male, surprisingly, ran from Zunan. After this incident, it was amusing to see Zunan strut around, roaring, for most of the morning. This was probably the first time that any beast other than an impala had run from him since he took over the territory!

     The elephant viewing around the camp has been phenomenal and breeding herds have come up to our new water holes. The big bulls are there daily and there have been a few that have breeched the electric fence and come into camp to feast on our new trees.

     The Sabi Sands Game Reserve have decided to take off some rhino this year. We think that this is a good move as we have too many rhino in the reserve and already there have been a large number of territorial fights with some fatalities. These rhino will be sold to various game reserves throughout South Africa. This will not affect our game viewing within the reserve.

     Our 2007 Savanna CD calendars are now on sale, bringing back wonderful memories for you as the outstanding photos are of many of the animals that you will know from your game experiences here. The cost is R80 per calendar, excluding postage and packing. Please let us know if you are interested in purchasing any and we will send you a credit card authorisation form.