A few weeks ago, my ranger, Chris Goodman and I heard over the radio of a leopard with a kill.
We talked about going to see it, but the sighting was closed down because the kill was still on the ground and they were hoping it would be hoisted to a tree. We decided to try first thing in the next morning to see it.
So early the following morning, we found the Camp Pen male sitting in a tree munching on a wildebeest. To our surprise, we also found his 3 year old son, the Maxabene young male sitting on the ground below, hoping for scraps. Within about 15 minutes, a leg fell from the tree and the young male had something to eat.
About 10-15 minutes later, Chris noticed another leopard approaching. The Vomba 3.2 female was seemingly stalking the young male.
She got close and the male was oblivious to her approach. She made a quick attempt to steal the leg, but failed.
She then also sat around for a short while waiting to see if more food would fall.
She left and shortly thereafter a large female hyena showed up. The young male made an attempt to climb the tree, but his father indicated in no uncertain terms that his presence in the same tree was not welcome. As the young male descended the tree, the leg he was carrying dropped and the hyena quickly grabbed it.
The hyena quickly finished off the leg and also decided to wait for more scraps. It was quite interesting to see both the hyena and leopard within meters of each other for most part completely ignoring the other. A few times the male leopard hissed at the hyena, but he just laid there looking up for food (as was the hyena).
The Camp Pan male then decided he was done with the remaining leg he had and started to descend the tree. He could see the hyena waiting at the bottom of the tree. Just before he made his final jump down, he opened his mouth and released the leg. The hyena quickly grabbed it and scurried off. It seemed that he did the release just to have the hyena not bother him as he jumped off the tree and that is exactly what happened.
The young Mxabene male then climbed the tree looking for food, finding none he descended and left the sighting and the adventure was over.
Written, Filmed and Photographed by: Michael Moss (Londolozi Guest)
Rich Laburn is filmmaker, photographer and writer who is based at Londolozi Game Reserve in South Africa. Spending his time capturing scenes of the wild and communicating the beauty of the African bushveld, he runs the Londolozi Blog as a way to entertain and engage people wishing to visit these wild lands.
