With the cheetah drama settling down slightly as the mother cheetah looks to be on the mend, other dramas have raised their heads over the past few days. Welcome to the bush of Africa where cheetahs surprise you and elephants mesmorize you each and every day.
A sleeping elephant bull is oblivious of his reflection in Two Pans. We watched him dozing her for a good 15 minutes as he slowly swayed back and forth.
Snoozing buffalo bulls on the banks of the Manyelethi River set the tone for a peaceful evening in the bush.
The other end of the buffalo bull spectrum; two bulls clash heads as they fight for mating rights within a herd.
The cheetah cubs race each other past their mother on the day before she sustained her injury. She is walking stiffly, which is only to be expected, but so far the signs are good for a recovery.
A wild dog trots out into the Open Areas under a full moon.
Where will the dogs den this year? The question that is on everyone’s lips, as the two pregnant females in the pack have been excavating a number of termite mounds in the area. It is far too soon to know, but we are keeping our fingers crossed.
A pair of Egyptian Geese use the last of the evening light to forage in the shallows of Shingalana Dam.
A large warthog boar picks at the stomach contents and stomach lining of an impala. Regarded as omnivorous yet eating primarily plant matter, warthogs will still supplement their diet with meat from time to time, scavenging off kills to get vital minerals that they may be lacking.
After driving them off the remains of their kill, the warthog boar was unceremoniously chased off by the male cheetah cub, having harassed the injured female one too many times.
The Maripsi densite in the deep south is active again! After floods last year forced the hyenas out, the dryness of the winter months has made their den habitable once more, and this young cub and its mother were enjoying the late afternoon sun.
Not a pretty bird, the Marabou stork is often included in what has become known as the “Ugly 5″. Scavenegers by nature, this one was wading around in Circuit Pan to see what morsels it could find.
We had stopped to look at some Burchell’s Sandgrouse in the north of the property and wondered why they were not flying off as they usually do. A tiny movement near the vehicle caught our eye, and this incredibly well camouflaged chick was found lying a few inches from the front tyre. Thank goodness it had had the sense to move off the road slightly, as I never would have seen it.
One of the Sparta sub-adult males gnaws on the remains of an impala that the pride had stolen from the mother cheetah and her two cubs.
A Whitebacked vulture flaps to gain height as it leaves the scene of a cheetah kill.
The sun does its best to break through for the last time as it slowly descends over the distant peaks of the escarpment.
Photographed by James Tyrrell
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.
