A Big Cat diary

Over the years we've nailed our share of Big Cat sightings to the family totem. We've seen them in action too; a fast-tracked byte to the protein bar. Even so, 2017 was an exceptional year for spectacular sightings / start-to-finish kills. In no particular order of grab-'n-go dining: - a leopard at Phinda [See it here]; 2 cheetah & a wildebeest calf near Babalala [Kruger](read here); a leopard [see below] at Engelhard Dam [Kruger] [& read more here] & finally a lioness on the Nshanguleni (a story for another time).

Before we get to the cats I want to talk about the phenomenon sweeping the Kruger, like anthrax in August. In Kruger's southern region, technology is contributing to a charade & we're poorer for it. Big Cats, on buffet, offer diminishing returns for the end-user & I'm uncomfortable with the attitude. To be fair, I think 'Latest Sightings - See more wildlife' [the 'app.'] started-off life well intentioned. Users planned their routes accordingly; maintained a healthy lifestyle ie: no rush-hour viewing; and understood the ethos of the experience. Not surprisingly, with the passage of time & public-acclaim, the 'app.' is today's nexus of bad behaviour. Contemporary watchers are more sophisticated; more demanding - & 'time-stress' = the allocation of fewer emotional resources per sighting. Commercial safari-operators, pressed to perform, are increasingly reliant on the 'app.' - painting the Big5 by numbers for repeat business & tips. The integrity of the experience is no-less ridiculous than the speeds travelled between sightings. Add the self-drive accumulators to the mix & the recipe boils over.

'50-lion, 20-leopard, 15-wild dog & a partridge in a pear tree', even in Southern Kruger, over 3 or 4 days = fake wilderness. Fraud by any other name is still a fib. 

Alisha & I are participants on a Sanparks-sponsored initive tackling congestion at Kruger. Two of the issues we're addressing are cross-border / in-transit users & excessive speeding practiced by tour operators in OSVs (open safari vehicle) & technology-enabled members of the public. The transgressions of the former are mostly a Northern Kruger complication - the latter [given the paucity of cellphone-reception elsewhere], a southern problem. Some of the mooted solutions are drastic including the expulsion of the independently-owned commercial operators & blacklisting the 'app.'; [unnecessary i.m.o if only common-sense would prevail].

Do we use the 'app.' ourselves? No. Will we use it? No. [other than for this blog, of course - research & all that] Do we feel like we're missing out? Yes; sometimes we do, in truth. 

Here are a few examples that beggar belief; highlighting the 'sickness in the south'. These are firsthand -

1. A family [overnight guests at Pretoriuskop (far south west of the KNP)] exited the park (mid-morning) [@Numbi gate - near Pretoriuskop] & drove around the southern tip of Kruger [2 hours at the limit, at least, if not longer in the holiday traffic]. These re-entered at Crocodile Bridge, at noon & gathered at the perimeter fence immediately in front of our chalet. A cheetah on a kill had been reported from that spot two hours earlier. The fact that we hadn't seen the cheetah or even the clean-up crew, after-the-fact, registered not at all on the feckless muppets. They left soon after [out the Park] to another sighting [lions, I think] nearer home.
2. We were at a leopard sighting between Pretoriuskop & Skukuza. This female leopard had gained some press-sympathy in the past I think. She'd survived the snare, however & was a rather pretty cat. At 17h30 she stood up, stretched & showed some interest. At 18h00 we left the sighting to return to the lodge but not before some of the most bizarre questions from a variety of numpties; the most Darwinian enquiries I've ever had to field in a lifetime of fielding the bizarre. Here's one I remember - a convoy of six vehicles arrived on site circa 17h45; 'app.' in hand [in the chase car that is]. 'Where's the leopard? Please; where is the leopard?' [him]. 'Standing at your door...' [me] (The honest truth). The 'app.' can't pinpoint the animal for you, can it son? How they got back to Lower Sabie by 18H30, some 60km further east, remains a mystery to me [not a chance in hell]. 
3. This one was a false report & an interesting play on the human disposition. We were enjoying a piece of Africa near Biyamiti weir, latish afternoon. 10 minutes later a young couple arrived on site - & did a fiddle [on the phone!]. 20 minutes later 15+ vehicles descended on us like buzzers on a steamer. They were there to view the 'leopard on a kill' - a **5/5 factoid the 'app.' was claiming. There was no leopard, of course. Watching the two fraudsters cock a snook was enlightening... the crackpots' dust at lift-off, doing their best, of course - less so. 

'went into bush' - **5/5, sure...

** In addition to locale, the 'app.' also reports the quality ['visibility' or 'vis' if you're cool] of the sighting. 1 = 'don't bother unless you're troubled' & 5 = 'you-will-post-on-social-media-like-a-boss!' Anywhere in between are derivatives of toss or boss. 

There are others - the 30 odd OSVs at a **2/5 sighting in the middle of nowhere & the 100+ vehicle-chaos at a **5/5 white lion sighting [Satara region]; two of many but not important here.  

Human frailties know no frontier. I do, however, want to bang on a bit about this particular white lion [above]; usually resident near N'wanetsi; adjacent the Singita Concession of Egyptian Vulture fame [Read it here].


So-called 'mega prides', in and around Singita & elsewhere in Kruger, are well-documented. In truth these large prides often splinter as the competition for food outstrips the efficacy of vires in numerus [strength in numbers]. Born to one of these 'mega prides' [the Shishangaan pride], in mid-2014, this white lion [a male], of ** 5/5 fame [above], is a modern marvel & a living legend. In late 2014 another white lion was held-aloft at its coming-out party; a girl; pretty in blue & not pink; leucistic [a blue-eyed mutation] rather than albino [the congenital absence of pigment]. White lions, for interest, are not a species of their own but the product of a recessive gene carried by both parents. 

In Sepedi & Tsonga tradition, white lions are considered divine; an inclination immortalised in Linda Tucker's book entitled 'Children of the sun god'. White lions have featured in local lore for centuries & have been an on-off reliance further west, in the Timbavati Private Game Reserve, for decades. For those of you who don't know, 'Timbavati' roughly translated means '... the place where lions came down from the stars.' Timbavati also lies on the Nilotic Meridian - a line of longitude said to link Great Zimbabwe & Egypt's Giza Plateau. If shaman mythology is to be believed - white lions are only born in times of ecological crisis; a coinkydink, ... maybe. Whatever your interpretation, it makes for a compelling campfire. The contentious translocation of 4 captive-bred white lions, from the Western Cape, to re-establish a viable population near their endemic home in the Timbavati, is well-documented. Notwithstanding, that & the Timbavati-few aside, 'non-engineered' white lions, this far east & born to free-roaming [wild], tawny-coloured parents, is testament to the resilience of the recessive gene in the face of their forced removal by collectors & hunters of decades past. Outside of the canned-hunting community [read more here] & the local cretins playing lock-n-load in the captive-breeding markets, the rest of us have very little opportunity of seeing a wild-born white lion. Those of us who have, count ourselves blessed.

...white lions are considered divine

... a brief note & a special mention... Small Cats [Felinae] aren't always afforded the same kudos as the Big Cats [Pantherinae & cheetah]. Perhaps they're more elusive than the other felids & not as popular as a result. Fair enough. See one though & you're on to something special. Get even luckier & find a pair at play & it carries a blue moon rating [read more here]. In fact, ask an African to paint you a picture of Africa & she'll start with the smalls - the 'fillers'; the gum that holds this place together on a single canvas. If the Big Cats are the salt of the earth then the other felids are surely ... a breath of fresh air.

Back home, nearest the fresh air, out front, is our solarium - a green room with a sunny disposition. It's a concession to the concrete we wear everywhere else. Key to this sunny disposition is glass - lots of it - wrap-around, floor to ceiling glass. Orchids & an indigenous bonsai collection complete the illusion of eden. Birds find this retreat enticing too but aren't always familiar with the internal locks. Many fly into the panes; a pain really. The survivors have a story to tell, of course, but only when the stars subside. We're having one-way glass installed to even the odds. On the sunnier side of the glass [before we evened the odds], domestic cats [uninvited guests btw.] understood the surprise & kept watch for spattlecocked lunch; the point of departure from which we subsequently enriched our local smartglass merchant. 

You cannot reconcile owning a cat, sans a bird-scarer, & pretend to love birds. That's like accommodating IT, under your baby's bed, because you like clowns & surprises. Here's a stat for you - cats are said to kill as many as 3 billion birds in the US, every year. Yes madam; count them please & yes I did say 3 billion. That's 3000 million & / or 2500 million more than are hunted by the tweadsters on the drive & the 'traditionalists' on the migration routes, combined. In fact - glass, communication towers & sundry bits of concrete kill more birds than all them poxy Elmer Fudds. Even so, we still cry foul when the fowl is baked in a pie. Best look to your glass house & keep puss inside... Better still, cut them off at the shorts & get them sterilised - end the madness! 

The point is this - ALL cats are opportunists & where opportunity knocks - someone gets eaten. 

We found ourselves 'in reverse' facing forwards, but with nowhere to travel with any freedom; in a cul-de-sac, somewhere near Kruger's Engelhard dam. In front of us, outside, a small herd of elephant browsing towards us, en route the water, behind us. 'In reverse' [then & always] was a concession to Alisha, more than a nod to direction or intention. Trees overlapped the verge thus preventing an unauthorised squirt out the side. Incidentally, elephants = 'REVERSE!['damn' you...]' in Alisha's world. At my age I forget these things sometimes. The bruises serve as a reminder.    'OMG! - Elephants - REVERSE! ['damn' you]'; usually in that order - & if I do forget, the swelling of both blackened eyes tends to hinder good views, anyway; even with a scope. I like elephants, me. Hope to see one, one day: within - a - mile. 

Behind us, the cul-de-sac AND another herd of elephant browsed their way towards us - i.e after a frolic & a drink. We were, therefore, troubled out-back & in-front by a common enemy, one wet - one dry, both intending to toe us into a kinda jam. A bit-of-a-pickle then & I'm not into sour. At the first trumpet, somewhere out-back, I broke ranks, stifled a neigh & rammed the car into PARK; chanting 'take them - leave me'. I'm not proud but instinct is evolutionary. We're all on the clock. Women & children first... 

Dust scattered in clouds of 'help me, God!' Squeals of rage out-back / out-front / & in the seat alongside wakened the dead. My eyes were swelling at the time or I might have seen the leopard first. Even so, he blazed across our front, grabbed an impala & vanished into the murk; never-to-be-seen-again. The elephants tumbled after - him & not us, the subject of their rage. I like elephants, me. Gentle souls. As it was, the leopard summed the scene - used the rattling of Alisha's teeth to best advantage AND before 'dey tawd dey taw a puddy tat', placed a grab & go and left; without paying - an IOU the elephants will want to cash, one day - or maybe they won't. He's that clever. 

Faster than the news of a ** 5/5 in southern Kruger, cheetah are at least at 3 in my African Big Cats - Top 3. What they lack in charm, charisma & courage, they atone for with blistering speed; usually in the opposite direction. Even so, their tenacity in the face of adversity is truly worthy of their place on the flats. These imperilled felids, much maligned on the African plains, are slowly speeding into history & that, above all else, is shameful. Taxed at 95%, before the age of 2 - the surviving nuggets are gossamer gold; on a delicate thread to an uncertain future. I hope they stick around - a scaredy-cat, maybe; but brave as it gets on an outgoing evolutionary tide. 


... besides, Alisha luvs em; and a happy wife = wild for life & the wild is where the Big Cats roam; no lies. 





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Kruger 300 - Day 15 Punda Maria for OWP

I've tried, failed. She obviously can...

Spending 5 hours unmoved, implacable & in the midday sunshine (+40°C) is stock-standard routine. Lunacy too, I would guess, if the stares from the normals are the fulcrum of sanity. Then again, lunacy is a bolt of enlightenment & it strikes, swiftly, if you embrace the sudden release of control. 'Slightly mad', from my side of the banana egg, is life lived at its plumpest...; them lot, over there, air-drawing against the scrambled hex, are ... awesome! What point raving sane if mad as a hatter makes more sense? 

An early climb up the back-end of Punda Maria camp

In any event, I was seated on a Sanparks-issued wooden-slat chair, elevated & in a position of sweeping authority, close enough not to be too far away. Not too far away, that is, from the cynosure of my attentions - a mini-birdbath; a water-feature tucked-under / close-to a terraced drop-off at Kruger's Punda Maria camp. Alisha & co. were further back, multi-tasking as grown-ups do - in the shade, I think. That would make sense. At the time I daren't look away - for at that instant he & she & them might have sipped & gone - a fate worse than no ice @ tea-time. I wasn't taking chances. 

... close-enough not to be too far away

I's a crafty fox, I am. Foregoing the left-hand side of the terraced wall, I took a seat on the less traveled - less obvious RHS [of the wall]. On the left side - civilisation. On the left side - stone paving; engineering & the fruits of educated labour. Terra firma. On my side of the wall, less-firmer; more terror. Leaf litter mostly - some air too. Diagonally across from me & lower down - the birdbath. Downslope - Tarzan's digs. Shrouded in a cloak of invisibility, in the bright sunlight; a skill not lost on everybody else btw., I crouched [seated] behind a three-legged camera, side-on to Tarzan's front door ie: at right angles to the downslope. 

I sat, the undercover-boss - patiently at vigil for Orange-winged Pytilia (OWP); a denizen seen drinking recently, in a small flock, at the birdbath. We'd seen them before - close-by, but a bird's not seen [officially] until you 'haven't seen them' but on camera. 

In dignified repose...

At Alisha's 'there-they-are-my-master-who-always-puts-me-in-the-right-place @ the-right-time...' [she's younger than I am; honest & has better eyes] - I recomposed myself [bolted] upright at this truth - thereby uncloaking & simultaneously breaking the air-seal that held the two legs on the RHS of the wooden-slatted chair to the lie I thought was solid. Both legs plunged into the leaf-litter; down to the hilt. The left-hand-side did not [bless 'em]. In an instant physics catapulted mea corpus out of the sanctity of comfort - arse-over-tit - 20 yards downslope. There I came to a thundering rest having dined [extensively] on leaf litter, some Bric-à-brac &, potentially, one or two invertebrates. I checked my two front teeth. All cool. Everything else... fair to middling. Apart from my own good self & the RHS of the chair, nothing else had moved - the camera's position remained unchanged - the birds, now some way above me, sipped on [or so I will be told over the next millennia at the retelling of it]. 

... there I came to rest..

OWP - young & ready

Excluding my own strangled snort & a choke or two - time stood still. Having extricated myself from the vines & the thorny embrace that held me lovingly in the downward-facing dog - I turned, looked up & confronted a row of faces [ie: the entire camp] lining the parapet somewhere near the angels. For the shortest time - general sympathy. ... and then ignominy & for the longest time - tears, uproar, a paroxysm of screeching mirth - & a communal dance of crossed legs & replay pantomime; Alisha the loudest & most animated of them all. It was a shameful display; a disgrace! Laughing at the fallen is a shocking indictment of poor form!  

... excluding my own strangled snort, wheeze & a choke or two - time stood still ... held, lovingly, in the downward-facing dog
  

Magnificent, regal - we salute you.

Even so, I returned to my seat - with all the skulking dignity I could muster - a return to magnificence in a ripped T & a pottyful of sh1T in my hair; via the long-way round. Accompanied by blue-faced sniggers, abruptly cut-off snorts of hilarity & uncontrolled flatulence - from them nutters, not me, I spent the next hour or two snapping off a roll. 

Has the world gone mad? Orange-winged Pytilia don't just drop in & fall at your feet!  





PS: we're grateful to Mrs. Amanda Walden for bringing Kruger's celebrity OWP to the birding flock's attention. Nicely done, madam!

Kruger 300 - Days 13 & 14 [Kruger National Park]: Pafuri - a review

Big Cats - off the menu

Perched high up on our must-go-back itinerary, Pafuri is the wunderkind of Kruger's special spots. Aficionados go gaga - we go go-go & go we usually do; this time too. Don't go there if you're after lions & tigers. Lions are scarce; tigers... more so. Nevertheless, its international draw is legendary. Birds, at their southern-range extremes, hang in bunches from the Giving Tree; gift-wrapped, in the Santa season, for all-comers with a pair of bins, a bird book & some chutzpah. Getting there isn't a piece of cake - the access road's (a) a sleep-inducing drug; (b) temperature-bothered all-year-round & (c) the freeway for cross-border punters on a mission to smuggle with a view.

... & a highway for the cross-border punters on a mission to smuggle with a view

Masasana - Middlevlei

Whilst we're there - the latest trend in Kruger's poaching crisis has it's roots ... here. Renewed cross-border raids for ivory or white gold - ignorance jewellery in the West & a passbook trinket to a status rung in the East - is on the rise. The commodity, when reduced from sentient being to its teeth, is at the epicentre of humankind's lust for status - a doppelgänger crutch when true class is an education away. Why here? Pafuri is, as it's always been, the Crook's Corner of Southern Africa: a step-over for miscreants @ the Limpopo river: the natural y-junction for three international borders. Legal jurisdiction lies somewhere between the left foot; the right foot & whichever tiny appendage hangs in between. The crooks know it & the elephants are cornered. We saw one auld chewer, further south & discussed his teeth at a show & tell session with the section ranger - 50+ years if he's a day & at least 80 pounds a side [the elephant that is, not the ranger (we're not that close)]. The legend of Kruger's Magnificent 7 whispers-still; The Magnificents encoded in the emergents' genes for the awe of all good people extant & still to come ... & I hope they always will be.

Breakfast - shaken & served

In the hot box / picnic basket: - two thermos flasks of hot water, crockery & cutlery, a packet of back bacon, a handful of eggs, tinned whole tomatoes, mushrooms; yoghurt, muesli, fruit & some juice [various]. Sandwiches prepared the night before warmed the bench - held in lunch reserve. In the tiffin - Earl Grey, Jacob's Kronung, some local herbal teas, dried venison sticks, bits of candied mango & an assortment of biscuits. We're potentially not short of full.

Proceedings kicked-off @ the bridge over the river Levuvhu, scratching for whatever whistled - spinetails mostly; wattle-eye too. Mottled Spinetail obliged; as did the Black-throated Wattle-eye. We were off to a rollicking start & a list bulging at the scale. It's 6am. The dawn chorus is an hour & a half past the first note. The garrulous, however, sing on - revealing themselves atop the branches, in the skies & at the river's edge. We mark them down. By 6:30am 100 sp. answer roll-call; some 20 or so are new additions for the 300 list. On the northern side of the bridge - a change of management at Pafuri Camp - an iconic retreat for Pel's Fishing Owl & those who luv 'em. We don't go in - non-paying guests rudely shown the servant's entrance. Pel's remains a long-time friend from another time; as does the Racket-tailed Roller & the Three-banded Courser; our Pafuri Big 3 & pie at Pafuri Camp - sticky, however, for those of us outside, looking in. None make it onto our 300; their loss - they would have featured here. We'd hoped but hope is what it is - there until it's charged.

... at the Baobab Tree

At the picnic site, further east, and over a short biscuit & some instant coffee, a Black Sparrowhawk helloes an African Cuckoo-Hawk. The cuckoo-hawk doesn't want a word. Both are new. It's 9am & the thermos is cooler than the ambient air. We sucked it in - life speaks to quiet ears & a closed mouth.

Busloads of Christmas party arrive for a bit of a scream. We're not crackers & leave - heading further east & deeper into the riverine forest. Trumpeter Hornbill wail for mother's milk; we sympathise but don't get involved. Lemon-breasted Canary hold the palm-fronds close to their chests. Those were nice as were the many shrikes, bee-eaters, flycatchers, pytilia & wood-loving doves. Four or five targets eluded us - as they sometimes do - one hasn't missed a dip since 'dip' became more than a lowered rusk some years ago: - Narina Trogon... A lifetime fail. Others followed that misery into the record books; some for the first time [testament to the dry conditions]. That joy included Dickinson's Kestrel, Scaly-throated Honeyguide, Green Twinspot & until much later - Bohm's Spinetail - a spineless / tailless apparition ghosting the Pafuri skies, nearer the Baobab Tree. 7 hours of squinting the open air eventually revealed a singleton; one's a party in the book & we went crackers next to the Baobab Tree.

Overexposed & cut short but you get the picture

In the interim the sun had crossed over noon - & we chased after more, west of the Bridge. At the end of this short drive a peeper's keyhole into Lanner Gorge. If you get the chance: go there. We have & although we're a biscuit or two slower than we once boasted, the walk's not trouble in good boots & a floppy [hat]. Wear clothes too if you like - nobody's there; nobody cares / the baboons on the crags are shy but never jealous. It's Adam & Eve's unnoticed get-u-away. That too was nice but we were after the cliff-hangers: Rock Martin, Rock Kestrel & Lanner Falcon. The falcon scored a hit as did the martin - the kestrel did not. Whilst we were there an unexpected never-seen-that-before. A Yellow-billed Kite, a scribed scavenger & a nit-picker per the field guide, swooped on a party of Broad-billed Roller & scooped a squalling late lunch. The other rollers dived into the fray for a belt of their own / a grief-stricken plot of revenge. The kite sailed-off into the cast & back into range again; I assume for kicks & giggles - a stream of rolling squawkers in tow. Sticks & stones and all that - words don't hurt, much and the kite held onto the catch.

In a wetter season we'd have seen more - that's true but the board is as it is. We'd played harder than fair; added 20-odd more to our 300 list & smashed our way into the 320s; our 14-day numbers record. That's Pafuri - plain, spectacular, wet & dry - thirstland canyon or riverine forest. It's a canvas of wonder - & a wondrous influence on a burgeoning waistline: the tiffin [sans three biscuits] & the hot box [sans the hot water] unnoticed, unopened; the non-intoxicating aperitif to the fare, on offer, at the table outside.

...the supporting cast to the fare, on offer, at the table outside.