From Sarah:
Unsurprisingly, my notes post faster and more reliably than photos. I’m still catching up on the latter, but in the meantime, I just HAVE to tell you about this morning’s game drive. Our guide has been in the business for over 30 years, and he told us this is the first time he’s seen this.
The first part of the morning was fairly uneventful, though Dov got some good shots of various animals (including a suckling elephant calf) and birds (including a stunning bee eater). Then, while we were stopped for a mid morning snack and coffee, another jeep pulled up, and the guide told ours that his party had seen a leopard nearby. Needless to say, after our break, we headed in the direction of the leopard sighting. There are not many in this area, so we had not necessarily expected to see one.
After a long search, we finally caught up with the leopard, and were able to observe and photograph her for a long time. Then she moved off, and we followed her - only to stumble upon two lionesses resting under a bush. Thanks to our guide’s expertise, we then found the male lion a short distance away. Meanwhile, as we were admiring the lions, the leopard appeared again, and climbed up a nearby tree.
Lions will steal leopard kills, and even kill leopards, so leopards normally keep as much distance as possible between themselves and any neighboring lions. So not only did we hit the jackpot in terms of big cat sightings, we also observed something that, as I said earlier, even our guide had never seen before: leopard and lion within yards of one another. Amazing!
Dov got some wonderful photos today. Mine are nowhere near as good, but I will try to get them posted just to give you all a taste of what we saw.
A wild lion pooped 25 feet away from me today. And I saw a leopard climb a tree, at the same distance. I’m overwhelmed with awe and gratitude.