The South African Predators Safari: Day 8

Another great day filled with elephants, rhino and a female leopard dealing with 6 hyenas that had stolen her kill!  Hyenas are not always the crowds favourite, and it doesn’t help when they are wolfing down a young leopards kill, but the interaction around the feeding was quite special.  You never know what you will see on safari, and this was certainly a nice surprise that gave the cameras something to think about.  Earlier in the day, we also stumbled upon a large herd of buffalo, around 300 strong, going about their business.  There were no lions around, so they were peacefully grazing all around us.

Major sightings of the day:

Two herds of elephants

Male leopard

Male rhino

Herd of +300 buffalo

4 rhino

Female leopard and 6 hyena with her kill

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The South African Predators Safari: Day 7

The day was dotted with elephant herds throughout, so we had plenty opportunities to photograph them, which is always great fun.  There were several big moments between the elephants though; a leopard and her young cub feeding on an impala high in a tree, a pride of lions lying all around us and a very quick look at the very difficult to find honey badger!  It was a great day on safari.

Major sightings of the day:

Several herds of elephants

Spotted hyenas at their den

Honey badger

Leopard and cub feeding in a tree

Pride of 7 lions

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The Tiger Safari: Day 5

Tigers, leopards, jungle cats and hyenas! What a day! We started off by finding a large male tiger right at the gate. He was relaxed, and gave us a good look at our first large male tiger of the safari. We spent most of the morning with him, and our patience was rewarded with some good photographic opportunities. As luck would have it, we found the same male tiger in the afternoon, in a different section of the reserve, but he was being less obliging and slept through the heat of the day under a tree quite some distance away. The real action started at the end of the day however, when we spotted a leopard walking along one of the cliffs. We managed a solid half an hour with the leopard, and got some good images of a difficult species to photograph in India. A second leopard was seen not long afterwards, sitting on the boundary wall of the reserve. It was a little more nervous than the first leopard, and moved off quite quickly. On the way back to camp though, we still had 4 striped hyenas and 2 jungle cats appear in front of our cameras!

Major sightings of the day:

  • 2 sightings of a male tiger
  • 2 sightings of leopards
  • Golden jackal
  • 4 striped hyenas
  • 2 sightings of jungle cats

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The Tiger Safari: Day 1

Starting the Tiger Safari with 3 tigers is always a good thing! We came across a mother tiger and her 2 cubs early in the afternoon, and got to spend a fantastic 3 hours with them. There were ample photographic opportunities, as each one of the tigers were going about their business on their own, this made the only tough decision, ‘which tiger should we photograph?’ We also managed to see most of the regulars, including a majestic blue bull, or nilgai, and finished the day being surprised by a jungle cat, which ran through the camp during dinner. A great start to a great safari!

Major sightings of the day:

  • Tiger and 2 cubs
  • Blue bull/Nilgai
  • Jungle cat

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The Classic South African Safari: Day 6

There was only one way to finish to such a productive safari – more leopards and lions! We managed to find a pride of 7 lions enjoying the morning sun, before coming across a large male leopard feeding on his kudu kill up in a tree, which had its token hyena underneath. Two side-striped jackals were also running the area, giving us even more to photograph. With our sad, end-of-safari-faces on, we left the feeding leopard and started back to camp to get packed up ready to leave, when our misery was rudely interrupted by yet another large male leopard! He was out on his morning patrol when we found him, but stopped when he noticed a herd of impala feeding nearby. He went into full stalk mode, sneaking his way to…sleep. He put his head down, and had a catnap, right next to the impala! We unfortunately had to leave, but what a way to end!

Major sightings of the day:

  • 7 lions
  • Male leopard feeding on kudu kill
  • Spotted hyena
  • 2 side-striped jackals
  • Male leopard hunting impala

To join us on safari, click here!