Safari Updates

Andrew's News:Lions were roaring close to the Lodge as we enjoyed our early morning coffee and when we found their tracks we were convinced that our luck was in. Then, seeing dozens of different vultures (White-backed, Hooded, Lappet faced) in a tree we circled around and around, but saw no lions. The vultures flapped from tree to tree but kept returning to the same area, convincing us even more that there was something there. While taking photos of the vultures against the bright blue morning sky         we heard that Shadow, a young female leopard was close by.Shadow was hunting some impala, but when they sensed her presence they disappeared quickly, and Shadow headed off with us following her. A few meters away she met up with her two young cubs and after a joyful greeting the three cats played together for the next hour or more. Photography...

Brendon Reports: No two days in the bush are ever the same. Sometimes there are joyous days ... and then there are those very special days. Today was one of those extra special days - It was a cold, windy, overcast, and very dull morning as we started out. We followed some leopard tracks for a while but they petered out. Just as we were deciding which way to go next we heard that Salayexe was close by. We caught up with the beautiful young mother leopard and followed her for a short while until she disappeared into a dry river bed. Our tracker decided to follow her and to guide us if he was able to keep up with her. After very few minutes and as we waited anxiously he reported that he could see her, and expertly guided us to a good vantage point. She had clambered into a...

A bright and crisp morning waited for us at our 5 am start.We left two groups of lions close by last night and hoped they would still be there. Our hoped were met when we encountered two lionesses very close to the Lodge. They were crossing a bridge over a water channel.We followed them for the remainder of the morning as they tried again and again to stalk and capture lechwe. Somehow, their hunting technique today was not great and each group of lechwe, after being stalked and chased, managed to get away without too much hassle.We managed beautiful shots of the action, and the lions sprinting through the water, spray flying until it was time to return to camp for the flight home - sadly, but with wonderful memories and photographs.This afternoon I arrived at Chitabe with ODP guests.On our first afternoon drive we almost immediately found a mother leopard...

We are now two days into our new ODP Photographic Safari at Elephant Plains and what fun we have had in that time. Yesterday afternoon and evening  we had a great photo shoot with a pride of five lioness which we found during our afternoon drive and then followed into the evening, giving us further opportunity to practice our night time photography using spotlights as a light source. The lioness were excellent subjects; stalking prey, playing with each other, chasing birds, mutual grooming...... this kept us and our cameras very busy. This morning greeted us with a beautiful African sunrise and was soon complimented with a sighting of a a female leopard and two nine month old cubs. The cubs were very playful with lots of stalking, tree climbing and general misbehaviour - all within a few metres of our vehicle that was expertly positioned by our very competent driver ! Needles...

Today once again our safari got off to a lovely start with great weather and some beautiful sunshine. We managed to find the female leopard Salayexe and spent some great time with her, firstly watching her stalking a small herd of Nyala, but they soon got her wind and dashed off. She then gave us some great photographic opportunities and a number of walk  bys before she dropped down in to the Manyaleti drainage line and we were unable to follow her. Our afternoon safari got off to a slow start, we ended up at a small dam where we had a lot of fun shooting the resident hippo as he put on a display for us, as well as the couple of hammerkops that were flying around. Photo by Hilton Kotze Once the light got really good we decided to go take our chances and look around in the area...

The 3rd day was a wonderful clear day with some great light , although  we could definitely feel the last remains of the previous days cold  front on morning drive. We spent some time photographing Hyena and vultures at a old buffalo caracas which the lions had left.While sitting there we spotted a leopard that was interested in all the commotion that the vultures were making. Unfortunately it was one of the skittish new males in the area and had no photograpic opportunities with him. The afternoon drive started off slow with not much happening but just befor sunset we were fortunate enough to find Ntima a resedant leopard of the area . What made this a very special sighting is that this was the first sighting of her 2 new cubs  estimated at about  8 weeks old. Due to the sensitivity of the sighting we did not stay long but did manage to get the first photographs of the cubs looking forward to...