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     This has been yet another glorious winter month with the lowest temperature down to10 centigrade and the daytime rising to as much as 32 centigrade. We know that we have mentioned this before, but the light during day time hours at this time of year is absolutely exquisite from a photography point of view and the rangers are finding it very difficult to come back to camp for breakfast! Game viewing, once again, has been exceptional with some very exciting incidences around camp.

     Mambiri, the female leopard with one cub, left her 8 month old cub in our camp while she went of hunting. This cub showed total disregard for the human movement within the camp and for 3 days she was seen on a regular basis in and around the Lodge. On the third day, Mambiri returned to pick her up and was captured on film climbing over the fence into Suite 9, where she drank from the swimming pool before taking her cub east into our neighbour’s property. She returned two days later and was again seen roaming in the camp. What is interesting is that Mambiri’s mother (Mkwela) has done the same with her last three litters, leaving them in other camps while off hunting. It seems that Mambiri has developed this trait and probably will continue this form of “babysitting”.....

     Mkwela’s one year old cub also gave us some wonderful interaction when she found a Savanna hot water bottle that a guest had dropped over the side of the Land Rover. For hours she stalked, killed and hoisted this water bottle. Although we eventually retrieved it that afternoon, not surprisingly it leaked rather badly!

     We have been seeing a lot of the Wallingford male who has reduced his territorial size dramatically because of pressure from a new skittish male in the south and the Ottawa male in the east. He has confined his movements around the Sand River which has enabled us to find him on a far more regular basis. We had an interesting sighting a few days ago where he was busy mating with a shy female just north of the Sand River and he was confronted by a new male who we have not seen before. However, the new male decided discretion was the better part of valour and high tailed it away before “Wally” got angry.

     Shangwa has still been elusive even though we have had reports that she still has her 2 cubs just to the east of our property.

     The Makubela female has been mating vigorously with the new shy male around the Mackenzie camp area. She is also putting a little bit of pressure on Mambiri from a territorial point of view and the next few months could provide some interesting viewing.

     The Ximungwe Pride of lions soon found out that the wildebeest had been released and have moved into our area on a permanent basis. We did find them outside the Lodge early one morning chasing a small herd of buffalo that had also become resident near the camp. This herd consists of 4 males, 1 female and a calf. The lions were very interested in the female and the calf and judging by the rake marks down the side of the female the lions had managed to get hold of her. The bulls had obviously then chased them off. For over an hour, the lions kept trying to separate the cow and calf but to no avail and they eventually gave up and moved on after easier prey i.e. wildebeest and plenty of it! Since then the lions have been gorging themselves on the wildebeest who are taking some time to learn the danger of these predators. Unfortunately, we have not seen too many of these kills as they are happening late at night and by the time we go on morning game drive all we find are engorged lions.

     The Ximungwe are staying very much in the South of our property and trying not to draw attention to themselves in case the Mpogo (the 6 male lions dominating our area) should find them. The Mpogo still reign supreme and this dominance should continue for the next 4 ½ to 5 years. We do have some good news and that is that the 2nd Sand River lioness has had a new litter of cubs in the Sand River bed. As yet we have not seen them but we can tell that she is nursing young. Our population of lions is slowly increasing as it diminished quite badly last year. We will get these up and down scenarios and mostly it is related to prey specie density.

     The elephant continue to visit us daily and utilize our waterholes. There are still huge herds throughout the reserve and it is at this time of year that you can see the devastation that they leave. Sabi Sands can still afford to have huge populations of elephant because of the enormous scrub encroachment that we have in the Reserve. A lot of this scrub only elephants can manage so it is important that we have these herds to keep it under control. The unfortunate part about this is there is a price to pay, with them knocking down some of the larger trees. This needs to be weighed up before any control factor is needed with our elephant population. In the meantime, it is just so wonderful to see these huge herds going about their daily routine.

     We have been having exceptional viewing of the crocodiles in the Sand River. Every morning when the sun comes up, we are able to view anything from 3 to 12 large crocodiles sunning themselves at one of the causeways on the Sand River. These reptiles need to get warm to enable them to hunt for fish which they do predominantly at night. I read an article recently that crocodiles do not eat during winter. This is absolute hooey as on many winter’s evenings we have seen these crocodiles feasting on the numerous large cat fish in the river.

     We are very pleased to have recently formed an association with two remarkable Canadians, Marianne Schaubeck and her husband John Johnston. Marianne and John are founders of the African PreSchool Society, www.africanpreschools.org a registered charity. This charity built and contributes to the running of the Mazinyene School in the nearby village of Lilydale. We, at Savanna, feel confident that this association will enhance our efforts to uplift the local community. This school takes children from the ages of 1 to 6 years and at times has as many as 60 in a class room. This is the same area that the Mabarula Youth in Action choir comes from and who have given pleasure to many of you. We are so very proud of them.

     We look forward to hearing from you and seeing you back at Savanna soon.