WILDLIFE REPORT SINGITA PAMUSHANA, ZIMBABWE For the … · 2017-11-03 · but always listening out for any danger. Hyenas The clans have been seen patrolling all corners of the ...

WILDLIFE REPORT SINGITA PAMUSHANA, ZIMBABWE

For the month of October, Two Thousand and Seventeen Temperature Rainfall Recorded Sunrise & Sunset Average minimum: 19,1˚C (66,3˚F) For the month: 45,5 mm Sunrise: 05:10 Minimum recorded: 13,8˚C (56,8˚F) For the year to date: 681,2 mm Sunset: 18:03 Average maximum: 32,8˚C (91,0˚F) Maximum recorded: 43,8˚C (110,8˚F) It is with relief that we welcome the rains, especially after days when the temperature lurks in the forties! October has brought us the season’s first sighting of a newborn baby impala with its mum, and drinking from her while only just balancing on its wobbly thin legs. Here’s our wildlife overview for October: Lions There has been very good lion viewing overall – of all ages and activities including hunting, feeding and mating.

Leopards The leopard viewing is good – thanks mostly to the short grass. On one occasion we found a leopard fast asleep on the riverbank, and we watched him for a while before he realized we were there and disappeared. A delightful sighting was a mother leopard and her juvenile cub leaving a pan after a drink. The most surprising sighting for all was when one of the guides found a drag mark on the road. He and his tracker followed it for a while before it turned off the road. They followed it on foot until they unknowingly got very close to the leopard’s hiding spot. As they approached a thick bush the leopard erupted and ran out the other way, leaving the kill which was a baby waterbuck. It returned to it later once all had settled down. Rhinos Again, thanks to the low grass, the rhino viewing is excellent – especially of the black rhinos. At one sighting a big male came within 10 metres of the vehicle giving the guests a great chance to take good pictures. The highlight among the white rhinos we’ve seen is a mother with her little newborn calf. Elephants Breeding herds are always a highlight and one such herd started feeding all around the vehicle, coming within five metres of the guests. Everyone in the vehicle was silent with amazement and fear at the same time! The giants later moved off and while the guests gathered their nerves they marvelled at how the elephants had just ignored them. Buffalo Buffalo are beautiful! If you take the time to study them closely you see they are each unique and rather lovely. We’ve seen bulls and large herds daily this month.

Wild dogs We are lucky enough to have two packs on the reserve at the moment. Although they are not denning, which makes finding them a lot harder, we have had sightings of them. The hyenas are a big help in finding them as they often trail the wild dogs and try to scavenge their kills from them.

Cheetahs Sightings of cheetahs are rare, just like these most endangered of all cats are. However, it has been a good month with two cheetahs seen. Here a female naps among the bronze leaves at the base of a rocky outcrop, but always listening out for any danger. Hyenas The clans have been seen patrolling all corners of the reserve. One notable sighting was when we found a leopard feeding on a buffalo carcass and two hyenas arrived on site and chased the leopard away.

Plains game As always there are excellent sightings of plains game, and they can be counted on to provide guaranteed viewing on any game drive.

Unusual sightings There were some surprises in store this month – a python, two honey badgers and some Matabele ants on a raid. While watching their orderly march they suddenly started moving erratically around some leaves. Down on our hands and knees we saw them emerge with some small termites in their jaws. A giant battle on a small scale! Fishing and boat cruises The water is warm and the fish are biting! After one great fishing trip we cruised back and managed to find a leopard up a tree and below it hyenas on a buffalo carcass. Day tripping We’ve done many day trips to the Gonarezho National Park which is especially good for elephants. The biggest herd seen had more than seventy members. Photo hide The photo hide has been ‘pumping’ as we say. One crackerjack afternoon and evening saw four of the Big Five arrive at the water’s edge: five elephant bulls, three cape buffalo, nine white rhinos and one male leopard.

Wild dogs devour duiker After spending the late afternoon watching a pack of wild dogs (Lycaon pictus) relaxing on the golden sand of the riverbed, we departed soon after they disappeared through the riverine habitat to go hunting. But a few

hundred metres later, as we trundled along, a lone wild dog flew like an arrow through the brush, past our vehicle on the right, crossing the track directly in front of us and disappearing off to the left. A second later I heard the unmistakable death cry of an antelope. The dog was in thick brush now, and it called to the rest of its pack. We made our ungainly way to the scene, as best we could driving off-road and navigating by ear. We found five of these highly effective hunters ripping into a duiker (Sylvicapra grimmia). It was all over in about nine minutes, with nothing but scuffed earth to show for the conversion of life to energy. Wild dogs hunt in packs and have a kill rate of over 85%. Their prey can consist of small antelope to animals ten times their weight – like kudus and wildebeest. They have excellent stamina and will keep up the chase over long distances, gradually wearing down an animal. They’ll return from a successful hunt to any waiting pups, injured or ill dogs and regurgitate food for them.

Rough play at the water’s edge Elephant bulls jostle with one another to establish dominance, and occasionally these escalate into proper fights. Fortunately, this interaction was all in good spirits. In the first photo you can see the aggressor reaching out to the other with his trunk in a type of greeting wave/handshake. Not much explanation is needed for the rest of the sequence of photos as you’ll see for yourself. Poor old ‘Floppy Ears’ was bullied away from the water source, while the doves were sent a-flutter! Fortunately, he’d been first on the scene, and had taken a long thirst-quenching drink before the tyrant arrived!

Rhino review There’s always so much good rhino news happening here, thanks to our long-term wildlife management strategies and effective security measures. This month I thought I’d do a review in photos and captions: Above: Four white rhinos (Ceratotherium simum) form an orderly line at the bar, as an elephant disappears from view. Below: Buffalos barge their way to the waterhole, regardless of who is there.

Above: A few tense moments occurred, with a bit of bluster and stomping from both the rhinos and buffalos, before both species began to drink. Below: This beautiful mother white rhino and her calf came to drink, just as the sun was dipping down.

Above: The calf went off to try and get in on the itching and scratching action that was happening at a tree stump rubbing post, but the mother and bigger calf that were already there were having none of it! Below: Eventually it got its turn when the other two pushed off.

Above: There’s something about this photo I really like – possibly the unusual crop, the lavender tones, and the way the lifted foot is poised so gently as a little turtle dove quenches its thirst. Below: Clearing the runway early one morning was this mother white rhino and her calf. Not as easy to view, and much harder to photograph are the black (Diceros bicornis) rhinos. They tend to stay in thick vegetation and are far more reactive. However there have been almost daily sightings of them, and every effort is made for our guests to see both species on their safaris here.

By day and night This pride of lions rested for the duration of the sunny day in dappled shade. We sympathised with this lioness’s irritation at the buzzing flies all around her face – trying to leach off the last remnants of blood on her fur from the kill she’d fed on the night before. Pockets of light were scattered about as the last rays landed on earth, and the lionesses relished them. That evening it was a different story… we found them nearby on the soft sand of the riverbed. Some of them were drinking – but it was all action for this mating pair. The male would not let the female move more than a metre away from him, and they mated every 20 minutes or so.

Crown shy

It’s debatable whether lions are “Kings of the Jungle”, but theses umbrella trees have relinquished any desire for royalty. They display branch and leaf patterning that is termed “crown shy.” The uppermost branches keep their distance from one another, no matter if it’s only a few millimetres. Some believe it occurs to reduce the spread of harmful insects. Others believe that the trees are attempting to protect one another's branches from getting cracked and broken in the wind, and it's also been suggested that crown shyness happens so that trees can optimize light exposure in order to maximize the process of photosynthesis. Despite these various theories nobody knows for sure why this phenomenon occurs.

Buffalo sunrise Leaving the lodge before sunrise is well worth the early start. We came across this large herd of buffalo drinking from a pan and it was quite an eerie feeling having hundreds of the big dark animals surround us, with only their eyes reflecting out of the blackness. We stayed with them until the sun rose and cast pastel tones through the low lying mist, before continuing our search for more sightings.

Fishing at Nduna Nduna is a much-loved camp and lodge on the reserve that is currently not open for tourism. It has a dam in front of it, and an arc of sandstone cliffs that have stood witness to all the stories of the area. “Nduna” means Chief, and it was an area of significant importance to the tribe and its chief that used to inhabit the area. There’s some good fishing for bream and catfish in the dam, and this is an activity that Singita Pamushana guests can enjoy should they prefer to fish from a platform rather than a boat on the Malilangwe waters. On this morning, while a delicious breakfast of eggs, bacon, tomatoes, and sausages was frying on the gas ‘skottle’ pan, Philip and Andrew threw a line in and sat back to enjoy the peace… No sooner had they done so than the ratchets were zinging and they were reeling in supper!

There’s great fishing to be had at Singita Pamushana, and if you want a real fight on your hands you should try tiger fishing on the Malilangwe Dam below the lodge. If fish stocks are too high you can keep your catch and have the chefs prepare them for you – fish and chips never tasted so good!

All a twitter This month we feature two remarkable raptors with kills. First is this juvenile Verreaux's eagle-owl (Bubo lacteus). We noticed it because it was calling plaintively – you can see its beak open in this photo, mid call. Clutched in its talons was the remains of a guinea fowl. It didn’t seem accomplished at plucking, tearing or eating it, and I suspect a parent owl had made the actual kill, and then given the youngster its share. The owl would have been used to being fed, beak to beak from a parent as a chick, and was unsure of how to proceed with the meal. After nibbling at it and re-arranging the kill a wing bone became dislodged, falling to the ground, and would no doubt be gobbled up by a jackal or genet later on.

The second feature is of an African hawk-eagle (Aquila spilogaster) with a mopani squirrel. Birds form most of the hawk-eagles’ diet but they hunt small mammals and reptiles too. They typically hunt from a perch to intercept prey, using their large feet and talons to tackle and kill animals weighing up to about 4 kg, which is about three times their own weight. They often use a perch overlooking a waterhole, then wait for prey to come and drink. They often hunt in pairs - one bird flushes prey which the other strikes, then they both feed on the carcass. Birds, like the hawk-eagle, store excess food in their crop to digest later. The difference between raptors and other birds that also eat animals (like gulls, for example) is that raptors use not only their beaks, but also their curved talons to catch their prey. Before it came to be used for these birds, raptor meant "abductor," from its Latin meaning, "robber, plunderer, or abductor," from rapere, "to seize."

Written and photographed by Jenny Hishin, unless otherwise indicated Singita Pamushana

Malilangwe Wildlife Reserve Zimbabwe

Thirtieth of October 2017