Rangers Report – September 2010

So last month ended with a fantastic sighting of a Leopard with an Impala carcass. We were truly spoilt with that sighting and we really couldn’t have asked for anything more, but Mother Nature had another surprise in store for us...

With the traversing that we are doing across Zululand Rhino Reserve, all the rangers from the different lodges have decided that to make sure our guests experience everything the reserve has to offer we will now call in Big 4 sightings or any other sightings that guests may find interesting.
Isaac was out on the morning game drive, when the call came through over the radio that there was a Cheetah kill on our boundary. Off Isaac went and luckily enough he had the sighting to himself as the other game drive vehicles had already driven off. The two male cheetahs had taken down a Kudu ram and were lazily looking on from a shady overhang. They had obviously had their fill. Around the kill the vultures had already settled and were waiting for their opportunity to go ahead and devour what was left. A Marabou stork was also prowling around and snatching up any meat that might have been discarded during the Cheetahs feeding frenzy. What a great experience!

Dale, our Reserve Manager had an interesting find when he came across a massive African Rock python out in the reserve. We have been keeping an eye out for it as pythons of that size are really hard to come by these days what with all the threats they have against them. It seems to have made itself at home in a Warthog burrow right next to our main road and it has been spotted out sunning himself on quite a few occasions.

Back to birding, I had a very strange experience with a Tawny Eagle and a Steenbok. We had stopped off on a ridge to watch the birds flying down below us, when we a Tawny Eagle landed just a few metres away from a Steenbok who was out on an open piece of veld grazing. The Tawny then proceeded to run after the Steenbok and when it was close enough, it would jump up in the air and try and grab the Steenbok with its talons. Well the Steenbok did not seem at all phased about it as they were about the same size. The Steenbok would walk a few paces away and the Tawny would try his luck again running along and jumping up once the Steenbok was close enough. He was obviously convinced about his strategy as he went on to repeat the performance a few times before the Steenbok decided enough was enough and ran away!
 

Well that’s all until next month, signing off for now...