Rare visitors at the waterhole

The last ten days or so have seen several visits to our waterhole by rare animals of one sort or another.  Firstly on Saturday 10^th March a leopard drank there at around 8.00 p.m., and soon afterwards a hyena came by as well.  Another (or the same?) leopard spent some 10 minutes near the waterhole just after 6.00 p.m. on Monday 19^th March. 

Leopard - 19 March - hard to photograph as behind tree!

 A white rhino drank at the waterhole, also around 6.00 p.m., on Tuesday 13^th.  Although not common sightings, these are nonetheless animals that we do expect to see from time to time.  However, around midday on Wednesday 21^st a female eland with a calf appeared at the waterhole, drank for some minutes and then moved off.  There have been no sightings of eland in the Reserve for many years and we are at a loss to explain how or why this pair was there.  Our habitat is not really their normal one:  they are generally found in drier parts, and particularly in the western half of South Africa. They may have moved in from Kruger Park, where eland do occur at a low density, especially in the northern parts; or more likely they may have come from a game farm or private reserve bordering Balule.  Whatever the explanation, it is always a treat to see eland in the wild.  They are the largest of the antelope in Southern Africa and live in small family groups, generally with one mature male, several females and their offspring.

Eland female - 21 March

Hot weather, birds and animals

February was an extremely hot month here with the average daily maximum for the month being 33.5^oC: except for a few days, March has been every bit as warm.  The heat and lack of rain have led to the water that was so freely available in the bush after the January floods drying up: as a result we are seeing more and more animals visiting the lodge waterhole, notably impala herds and giraffes.  However, it is the birds that have given us some excellent sightings over the last week or two. 

Long-tailed paradise-whydah (male)

Green-winged pytitlia

A male long-tailed paradise-whydah (Vidua paradisaea) has been resident in the valley behind the waterhole:  these birds, with their bright red and yellow chest and neck, have extraordinarily long tails when in their breeding plumage.  The females are a drab brown and the species is a brood parasite of a small local bird, the green-winged pytilia (Pytilia melba). 

Keeping company with the paradise-whydah was a purple indigo bird (Vidua purpurascens); as the name suggests, it is a uniform dark colour, except for pale wing panels and under-tail, with whitish beak and legs. 

Purple indigo bird (male)

Shikra

Twice in the last week we have had a shikra, formerly known as the little banded goshawk (Accipiter badius), perching in a dead tree just outside the lodge.  This bird has a banded chest and a striking cherry-red eye that contrasts with its yellow cere (the plate at the base of the beak.)  Many other bird species have been active around the lodge as well, notably green wood-hoopoes and arrow-marked babblers.

Escarpment silhouette with setting sun behind clouds, 5th March 2012

The king is dead….

Masinyo at buffalo kill near our waterhole, November 2009,
with Big Boy in the background

Our local lion pride, often known simply as “The Big Pride” in view of its numbers (19 at one stage a couple of years ago), recently suffered a setback.  One of the two pride males, called ‘Masinyo’, was found dead near the Olifants River.  He had not been in good health for a while and had been seen some two weeks previously with quills stuck in his mouth, having presumably come off worst in an encounter with a porcupine. 

Masinyo, November 2009

We had not seen Masinyo since March 2011 when both he and his brother, ‘Big Boy’, were feeding together on a giraffe killed in a collision with an electricity power line.  Only Big Boy was present at the giraffe kill near our waterhole in late November 2011 and was very thin and limping badly (but has recovered since.) 

While theoretically Masinyo’s death leaves Big Boy and the pride more exposed, to date the surviving brother has been holding his own as the lone pride male, on several occasions roaring loudly very close to the Lodge.  The two of them had controlled the pride for over ten years, a far longer time period than is normal in lion society.

Big Boy at our waterhole, November 2011

Cyclone hits Balule Reserve

The river behind our waterhole after approx. 175 mm of rain had fallen.

Out here in the bush rain is always welcome and so far this summer we had had 295 mm since the start of October, that is until Tuesday 17^th and Wednesday 18^th January, earlier this week.  It began raining on Tuesday and by 4.30 p.m. only 18mm had fallen.  Over the next 24 hours, however, a further 262 mm (10 inches) fell.  

The same river some 500 m upstream

As a result our normally dry river beds became raging torrents, audible even over the sound of the rain.  The largest river on the main road to the reserve gate was 40 m wide.  In the midst of this most of the local lion pride were in the area, on our neighbours’ property and here on Leopard’s View.  We even had to deliberately let water out of the splashpool at various intervals.  Luckily we have suffered only from erosion of paths and roads although we did have a mini-river flowing through one of the huts as the ground became saturated.  Giraffe Hut is now drying out and we have dug out around it to create better run-off management in the future – pictures to follow as the work progresses.

The main road through the reserve to the gate, Wednesday morning

At a stroke our rainfall total for this wet season has jumped up to 575 mm, which is 125 mm more than the annual average for Balule.

Afternoon of Thursday 19th - our river much subsided

All roads in and out of the reserve were impassable until the middle of Thursday 19^th and some routes are still closed.

The main road river shown above, 24 hours after the rain stopped

Our local town, Hoedspruit, which is 21 km away, was cut off by flood water and was declared a disaster area: some sections were completely under water.  Many major roads and bridges in the area have been damaged and the Olifants River came over the top of the high-water bridge.  The local Air Force base was active in the area, rescuing many people trapped by rising water.

Clean-up operations are in progress everywhere.  We hope that the cyclones now building in the Indian Ocean will not affect us this far inland over the next week or so.  With soils already saturated more heavy rain would undoubtedly lead to renewed flooding.

Water (Rain & the Swimming Pool)

Swimming pool

 We  began renovating the splashpool in mid-September but within a week we were side-tracked by problems with a septic tank.  The best solution was to build a new one, plus a new soak-away, tasks that took the next eight weeks to complete.  It was not until the start of December that we managed to get back to working on the pool.  Preparing the surfaces was a huge, tedious, dusty and hot job and as Christmas approached the race was on to get it ready in time for plastering (something that has to be done by professionals) before everyone went on holiday for three weeks.  Renovations were finally finished on the 21^st after several days of frantic activity and on the 22^nd the pool specialists from Hoedspruit did the plastering.  Early on the 23^rd we began filling the pool and by lunch it was ready.  The transformation has been pleasing and the new-look pool fits in much better with the bush environment.

Before

During - ready for tiling

During - tiled & ready for plastering

 

After - plastered and filled

Rain

 
The rains so far this year have been reasonably frequent but light, as was the pattern last year, and despite the regular top-ups the bush was getting dry.  However on the 24^th December we  had 48 mm and on Boxing Day another 74 mm, most of it slow and soaking.  These were the biggest totals for a single day since May 2010, which is unusual for this area and not a good thing:  some heavy rain is needed to make the small streams and rivers flow, to fill up dams and replenish underground water supplies. After the 122 mm in 48 hours the river beyond the waterhole flowed for a while and then trickled for a couple of days after that. The bush looks in excellent condition and dams and waterholes are full, not surprising after the wettest first three months of the rainy season for some years.

Giraffe kill – the lions move on

4 of the males & 3 of the females

During the night of Sunday 27^th/Monday 28^th November, the six males lions that had killed an adult giraffe about 150 m from Leopard’s View’s waterhole 48 hours previously had been joined by four females. 











 
As with the males alone on the previous two days, they fed in the relative cool of the early morning and then moved off into the shade to rest during the heat of the day.  At intervals they drank at the waterhole or returned to the carcass to feed. 

During the evening of Monday they continued this pattern, feeding, drinking and resting, either adjacent to the carcass (or in the odd case, on part of the carcass!) or in the open between the waterhole and the kill site.  

White-backed vulture

Tuesday and Wednesday saw similar behaviour, although by now there was relatively little meat left to be gleaned from the remains and the lions finally moved off to the north during the early evening of Wednesday 30^th.

Now it was down to the vultures to pick the carcass clean and by Sunday 4^th all bar a couple of vultures had gone. 

As of Monday 5^th, there is no sign at the carcass of hyena activity but a hyena did drink at the waterhole during the evening.

Giraffe kill - the lions feed on

After bringing down an adult giraffe during the night of the 25^th/26^th November, the six male lions that were at the carcass at the end of the day on Saturday 26^th were still there, as expected, at dawn on Sunday 27^th.  Their bellies were full and they were spending as much time resting as feeding.  

As the day heated up so they spent more and more time away from the kill and close to our waterhole, where they drank frequently or slept in the thick shade of the adjacent trees and bushes.  From the Lodge we had regular views of one or more drinking.  

During the early part of the morning large numbers of vultures began to fly in, mainly white-backed vultures but a few hooded vultures as well, settling in dead trees anything up to several hundred metres from the kill site:  there they sat, patiently waiting, but since there was always at least one lion at the carcass the vultures didn’t get a look in…… yet!

As evening fell, the lions drifted back to the carcass where some returned to eating.  By now all of the easily accessible meat had gone and so the lions had to tear back the skin from the lower neck, the legs and the back and use their carnassial side teeth to cut through connective tissue and tendons to get small scraps of muscle. 

It was clearly hard work and even in the cool of the evening and the night left the lions panting from the effort.  They made frequent trips to the waterhole to drink. 

 
At one stage, when it was almost dark and when all six lions were at or near the carcass, another adult giraffe approached the waterhole.  As soon as they detected this, four of the lions moved towards it in stalking mode:  after a tense few minutes the giraffe moved off, away from the lions, which slowly drifted back to the kill.