We were fortunate to pick our timing perfectly to organise the controlled burns on Savanna property. These went without incident even though we burnt a huge area. This is an ongoing program of veld management that has to be done in the Reserve as it is a fenced-off area and we cannot afford to let this happen naturally or through human error. Two days after the burn we have had the most wonderful soft rain and it is unbelievable how quickly the bush recovers. Where we have burnt, it is now like a green carpet made of new shoots pushing up before our eyes. This has proved a wonderful new feed resource for all the grazing animals including impala, wildebeest, zebra and buffalo.

     At the beginning of the month, we were very privileged to have a female wild dog with 4 approximately four month old pups who came on to our property and were here for 5 days. It was unfortunate that while she was here, she lost one of her pups. We do not know what happened to it but it disappeared one evening and was not seen again.

     Leopard viewing, as usual, has been outstanding and with the dry open conditions, we have found numerous leopard kills this month. Mambiri and her cub have been seen on at least 5 kills and Mkwela and her cub have also provided numerous viewing opportunities of kills in trees. Mambiri very often does not hoist her kills until they are a lot lighter. This is probably due to the fact that when she was younger she injured one of her paws and this has never properly healed. She still walks with a limp and this is one way of recognizing her before we have to look at the spot patterns on the face. While on the subject of leopard kills, Mambiri had a kill on Cheetah Flats. No more than 100 metres away a male cheetah had a duiker kill. We have not viewed cheetah for some time and unfortunately as soon as he had finished the kill, he moved east out of the area and has not been seen since. We hope to have him back in the near future.

     The Wallingford male seems to have been restricted in his movements to around the Sand River. He is being pressurized by a number of males that have moved into the area and was seen a week ago chasing one of these males in a territorial dispute. Fortunately, the young male got away. If the Wallingford male had caught him, he probably would have killed him. These young males are not old enough or confident enough to threaten the Wallingford male for his territory. The kinky tailed “ugly” male that we mentioned some months ago (and we had an outcry from some of you!) seems to be back in the area. This is a male that could really prove a problem to the Wallingford male and he has been seen mating with Shangwa, the female who we mentioned last month had lost one of her cubs. It has now been confirmed that she has lost both cubs and is mating again.

     The Mpogo – the coalition of 6 dominant male lions – left us for a few days and moved east out of our driving area. We have been told that they killed a giraffe. They are now back and we have been having extremely good viewing of them. The Sand River pride that has 5 cubs have also given us exceptionally good viewing and the 3 smaller cubs are growing up very quickly. The Ximungwe Pride has been in our area and have ventured way up north into the Sand River prides territory. Fortunately for them, they were not found by the Sand River pride and the Mpogo before they headed south again. The new pride that has come into our area from the east, consisting of the 2 females and 1 cub has been nearby on a regular basis. One of the females in this pride is probably the biggest lioness that we have ever seen. It is always good to have new lions coming in.

     The hyena den is still providing us with some of the most incredible viewing. The babies are now getting quite big and all of them are starting to get their spots. This is an indication that they are over 5 months old now. With the hyena clans becoming very strong in the area due to the fragmentation of our lion prides, we have had some very interesting viewing as the hyena are often chasing lions off kills that they have made. At the beginning of the month one of the Ximungwe young lionesses was killed by a hyena clan. Since then, there have been numerous altercations between the different lion prides and the hyena.

This month has brought most of the migrant birds back and we have seen some very rare birds that do not normally occur in this area. One of these is the rare and very beautiful Narina Trogon. This bird occurs in the mountains and very occasionally will follow the water sources down into the Lowveldt. This is only the third sighting I have had of this bird during 25 years in this area. The photograph shows that this is a young bird and has not got its adult plumage yet. The other rare bird that we have seen of late is a Grey Backed Finch Lark or Sparrow Lark. Unfortunately we have been unable to photograph it as yet.

We have delivered the donation of tricycles to the Tshuxekani Pre-school where they were received with wild enthusiasm and once again we would like to thank all of you who have been donating so generously to our community projects.