November has been a month of great contrasts. We have had days when the temperature has soared to 41c and evenings when we have needed our blankets around us in the boma. We had the most wonderfully welcome rain, which measured 108 mm and on one morning hailstones the size of golf balls! The bush is now totally unrecognizable, the grass is growing before our eyes and the trees are turning emerald green, interspersed by the shiny silver leafed terminalia. Overnight, little bright orange flowers of the lions eyes are pushing through the soil, clumps of crinum lilies and the bulbous heads of tumbleweed (ground lilies) are appearing. The rain has brought the termites swarming out of their mounds and the swallows have been feasting with great gusto.

     With all this new growth, the animals are producing as well and we have spotted the first of the newborn impala. Impala are known to hold on for the first rains before giving birth and it is a proven fact that they can abort the foetus in the first few months of pregnancy if conditions are so adverse that it will affect the breeding stock, so the rain is very welcome for them.

     Leopard viewing is consistently good and a very rare occurrence was seen recently when Shangwa’s cub was on an impala kill. The Ottawa male came in and stole the kill and within minutes was in a tussle with the hyena. What was so unusual was that after the initial growling they then settled down and shared the kill until a second hyena arrived. At this stage the Ottawa male quietly took his leave with one impala leg that the hyena had left behind. We are still waiting for Mkwela to give birth but she still may have a month to go. She is still going out of the reserve and we only hope she does not give birth outside.

     The big ugly male leopard has been seen a couple of times recently. He has obviously been in a fight as he has some bad scratches and is in poor condition. We think it was probably the Wallingford male who confronted him when he finally woke up to the fact that some of his females had a new boyfriend.

     The Ximungwe Pride of lions, with the 12 cubs, continues to fatten and flourish. They have been taking full advantage of the unsuspecting wildebeest and even though exceedingly full did not miss out on the opportunity of killing a young buffalo bull right by the wildebeest boma. Our guests enjoyed the game viewing until 10 o’clock that night and dinner was served a little late! The Ravenscourt Pride, consisting of 7 cubs and 3 females, has graced us with their presence for the last 10 days and with all these prides of lions around our guests saw 42 lions on one game drive – this was repeated several times.

     The Ravenscourt has also brought with them a new male who, we believe, is the brother of the two younger females and the son of the older one. The unusual thing is that the male of Ximungwe Pride did not confront this male even though he was on his territory. There was lots of roaring but the two never met. This is highly unusual behaviour. It is also strange that the new male has not harmed the cubs of the Ravenscourt Pride, maybe due to the fact that he is related. They too have been taking advantage of the new un-street wise wildebeest and killed three on consecutive days on one of our clearings. They then found a buffalo that had died of natural causes and they feasted on this for the next four days.

     Our waterhole has been a major attraction recently. We have had elephant bathing and drinking almost daily and one morning came out to find the herd of 400 buffalo.