A Tribute to Monomoholo

Hi Everybody….
Well its been one HELLUVA stretch hasn’t it !!!
The Covid pandemic has hit us all very hard with the lodge been closed down during the lockdown period until the end of August.
We have been open to the South African locals, and I must say the response from you guys has been phenomenal, with everybody in the cities tired of being couped up in the concrete jungle longing for a bit of relaxation in the bush. So they came in their droves to take the mind off the stresses which covid has bestowed upon us, and we invited them with arms wide open, and a bottle of sanitizer of course…..
The lodge has had to adhere to the strict guidelines of keeping everybody safe and you can be rest assured that we will continue to do so as the new normal sets its claws into our day to day lives here at Tuningi.
The wildlife over the last 6 months had a noticeable change in their behavior towards the vehicles whilst out on safari, in that the animals seemed to be a little more shy and unpredictable as we moved closer to them for a better view. But this soon changed back to the norm, as we could get out more often with the arrival of more and more guests.
Our previous report of the new pack of wild dogs that had denned and had puppies here in the south west of the reserve was sadly short lived, as the puppies were killed by a visit from the old pack. Much to our dismay, but I guess that is part of the dangerous way of life out here in the Bushveld of Madikwe. The adults are still around though and have been moving vast distances around the entire reserve trying to test the boundaries of their adversaries which had killed their puppies. They were seen a few times in the last month here at the lodge with one occasion resulting in an impala kill right at room 3 one evening.
Our local lion pride has been doing all kinds of strange behavior in terms of their social structure over the last month, as the Kwandwe male which dominated and ruled the northern pride has been receiving a lot of pressure from the 2 new Addo males, which seem to have grown a lot of confidence, and have attempted to remove the big guy from his post as the dominant male in that area. This resulted in Kwandwe having to fall back into the southern prides territory for some safety against the intruders. Monomoholo however did not agree too much with this uprising and joined Kwandwe on a few occasions for a revenge match, but we have yet to see any skirmishes to confirm if the move from the Addo males has been permanent. So, I don’t think that this will end here… I suspect Kwandwe and Monomoholo will return to settle the score and reclaim what is theirs. As a result, this has unsettled the females here in the south pride, and the Matlapa female with here cubs (now 8 months old) has been working on her own for the most part, and the other females spending more time on their own missions and splitting up frequently.
There is a new female leopard which has seemed to have started taking over Tsala’s old territory, which is extremely good news, and we have had her on more than a few occasions in sightings, and I must say that she has become more and more habituated to the vehicles, and we hope that she will stick around to show off her offspring soon.
Munye has been rather elusive and is still moving over large areas of the south western section of the park, but he is still in supreme condition, and we will be seeing more of him in the times to come.
The best news to come out of the lockdown was that our only remaining female cheetah … Savannah, has had 4 cubs. Yip… first time in 13 years of the 15 years I have been been here, that I have seen cheetah cubs running around here. She has chosen the south western section of the park in the Ophir plains area to raise here precious litter, and so far, they have been doing really well. She has been killing regularly, and it seems the cubs are full of energy as they bounce around after her as she leads them to places of safety before deciding to go off in search of their next meal.
We will be monitoring her situation with a close eye, and we wish here all the best as she has a mammoth task ahead of her to raise all four of the cute cubs to at least have a chance of adulthood themselves.
So I will leave you some images of some of the other game we see while out there.
PS…. REMEMBER…. WE HAVE LOTS OF FRESH AIR OUT HERE, SO GET OUT OF THE CITY AND CONTACT LORENE TO BOOK HERE FOR YOUR NEXT STAY…..
Contact us on
reservations@tuningi.co.za or call us on 011 781 5384
Wishing you plenty Bush Regards,
Gavin and the T-Team
Hi to all our Loyal Fans !!
We Sincerely hope that you all well during this difficult time and we wish you all the best in getting through this scourge which has plagued the globe !!
Things here at the lodge have been shut down, but we have been lucky enough to be able to still get out there in the bush, and get some sort of sanity back into the system.
The best news is that our recently introduced pack of wild dogs has had 10 brand new puppies off around 4 weeks old now. The sad thing is, we have none of you guys here to share it with, so i will put a few images up as they grow up over the next couple of months.
Stay strong, and we look forward to seeing you all very soon !!
Regards,
Gavin and the T-Team
Fantastic February
Welcome to our February Rangers blog, hope you guys will enjoy the news and photos that are posted here today for you.
We had our last big beautiful rains for the year, and it was great! I will never complain about rain again as we have been in severe droughts in the past and this year was exceptionally good, and you ca see it in All new newbies that has arrived, and even with all the fabulous plant and flower growth that we got this year. Even some of our old creepy crawlies that was absent came back in full force.
In the wet times we were a bit struggling finding our favourite lion pride in the south as many roads were inaccessible due to the rain …… but when we did find them, they gave us some memorable times. Monomoholo will always give a great show when he not with his beautiful girls by signing that real African theme song of his that will always stay with you and long you back to this Magic place and Africa, we call home.
We have some exciting news! The Matlapa female from the south have produced new cubs! Three beautiful youngsters. Unfortunately, we could not get any photos of them yet, only had a quick glimpse of them as she moved them to a new hiding spot.
There are lots of water around after these good rains and have brought back some of the big buffalo herds back down in the south where grazing are also very good, not just for them but a variety of great plains animals like zebra, wildebeest, impala, red hartebeest, gemsbuck and even some eland.
The two male cheetahs have been seen very often and has given us some good sightings. The yellow tag female that lost her cubs should be coming back into heat very soon, so we are holding big thumbs. But in other news with the cheetahs is that the red tag female that is roaming more of the east of the reserve has produced 4 cubs! FIRST TIME IN 15 YEARS that Madikwe produced cheetah cubs!
The two boys seem to have a lion magnet attached to them as they are constantly running into the northern pride – luckily, they have their wits about them and avoided bad conflict with them.
We also had some great interactions with various animals like lions and elephants, which is always very interesting to watch.
We had ones again had some GREAT black rhino sightings, a lot more than we had in the past as this is a good thing that our numbers are climbing – Big up for conservation here and our Anti – Poaching
Team.
The wild dogs have been sighted quite a bit this month and gave us some great sighting of the youngsters playing around and having some fun.
Munye our resident male leopard has been spotted a few times but a little more difficult this time as the grass are extremely long – unless he climbs in a tree and make our job a little easier to spot him.
He has sometimes been like Houdini as we only find his tracks coming past the lodge and only find him on camera as he walks past our waterhole (thank you for technology).
I wish you all were here to hear Monomolo give us his best song and have the great sounds of the Madikwe bush around you.
I which you a lovely month and don’t forget to catch our next big newsletter.
Bush Regards
Ruan and The T-TEAM
Hello again to all our fans !!
Hope you all had a great festive time, as we had here in the savannas of Madikwe.
The lodge was super busy… as always, and we had some amazing gusts join us for this very special time.
The rains have come on thick so far this year, so the bush is looking really pristine, and I myself have not seen it like this for many years now, as it seems the drought of the last 5 years has given up a little to Modjadji, the rain Queen.
Ok so this is a joint newsletter including the highlights from December and January all in one.
So let’s start with Andre’s highlights from December…
Greetings from the Tuningi team we hope you had a lovely festive season and a happy new year.
We had a huge amount of rain this month, and with all this rain magical things tend to happen in the bush. Madikwe looks like a green emerald jewel exploding with new life, by new life I mean its baby season folks.
The impalas and Blue wildebeest are giving birth, and we are having so much fun watching these little babies enjoying their new life. All the babies are bouncing and running around with youthful energy and exploring their new world. Unfortunately, with the abundance of babies around they also fall prey to the carnivores, especially the Wild dogs that’s why we have not released our 2nd pack yet.
The Wild dogs are doing great and looking very healthy. The pups are keeping up with the adults and getting fed well. With a lot of mouths to feed they need to hunt every day and we’ve been lucky to witness brilliant sightings close to our lodge this month. We cannot wait for the 2nd pack toe be released that we can have more sightings of these wonderful animals.
Monomoholo and Kwandwe the 2 male coalition still rule in the Southwest and the Northwest of the park. It is clear our local Southern pride the Mica and Jamala pride prefer the presence of Monomoholo. He is busy mating with the females so hopefully in 3 and a half months we will have cubs in the South west. Mica the old lady of the pride is busy showing her daughter Jamala X the ropes of leading the Southern pride because she is getting ready to retire as she has started to lose condition.
The 2 Cheetah brothers are a very successful hunting combination every time we see them, they tend to be full and lying in the open and posing for the camera. On a sad note the female cheetah that was pregnant lost her cubs. It’s a big shock to us and everybody in Madikwe. The cause of losing her cubs are unknown , hopefully she learned from her mistakes and it will make her a stronger cheetah and more experience mother.
Our local territorial male Leopard, Munye kept himself rare as per normal, but we managed seeing him few times. The most memorable sighting was on the 31st December stealing the show just he like he knows how. We followed him threw some nasty rocky areas and we were awarded seeing him jump into a Marula tree. A new female Leopard starting to show herself more and more. Unfortunately, she is still very skittish, and only allows us to see her from a distance. Hopefully in the future she will be more relaxed and giving us amazing sightings.
All this rain makes the heavy weights very happy, Rhino black and white, Buffalo and Elephants sightings were out of this world. The big herds of buffalo approaching a waterhole is a sight to see. The big water holes are changing into swimming pools for elephant herds, and it brings a lot of joy on our guests faces and making for some memorable sightings. It’s always a nice surprise seeing a rhino wallowing in a secretive pan full of mud keeping himself cool in the mud on warm summers day.
From me and the Tuningi team have a blessed new year full of love and enjoyment
Andre
Ok, thanks Andre for that great news from December. So let’s get into the highlights from January….
So, I will continue with the heavyweights of the bush, the elephants. They are living in “ELEPHANT HEAVEN” at the moment with all the waterholes full to the brim and all the natural mud wallows providing them with all they need to manicure their thick skins on a hot summers day.
Swimming and playing in the water is a daily chore now, as they splash around in the muddy happy holes, lowering their core body temperatures, and also just for the pure enjoyment of the mud on their skins as it sloughs off the insects which pester them this time of the year.
Who says it is only in East Africa where you can see tree-climbing lions?!
They have been sighted here in Madikwe too… Yep I witnessed on one crispy post rainy morning our southern pride females jumping into a very random bush, from which they seemed to use as a better vantage point for something they may have been hunting earlier.
Now lions are not known for their grace in trees, but they do seem to enjoy the challenge that gravity has put before them, as their 150kg bodies hang on to the bark splitting claws as they jostle for a more comfortable position.
While we are talking about the southern pride, the Mica female, the prides “rock“, has been showing signs of deterioration, as she has just gone past her 18th birthday in late November, and she is now the oldest lioness in Madikwe’s history.
She still has decent looking teeth, so as long as she can still stay with the pride on a regular basis, to eat, she will break all age records for lionesses in the wild.
Monomoholo, the dominant of the 2 males here in the south pride has also been playing “ bodyguard” for the last month, and has been seen hanging out in an area where we think 2 of the females may have cubs in the hills around the airstrip. We are keeping a beady eye on this development, and hopefully next month we will show you some images of brand new lion cubs !!
The north pride has also been taken care of by Kwandwe, and he has been seen with the females a lot this month, as he knows that Monomoholo has the south covered, but joins him at the drop of a hat, when they suspect trouble is imminent.
We had one sighting of jackal pups that pushed the cute factor through the roof. There were 3 of the little buggers, and I will leave the images to speak for themselves, as they waited on their parents to return from a hunt one morning.
The next series of images shows elephants digging up soil and eating it, at very special areas here in the bush, called mineral hotspots, and basically all of the herbivores utilise these areas to boost their systems with minerals they do not get, such as sodium, calcium, magnesium etc in the plants that they eat. The term we use for this behaviour is called “GEOPHAGIA” which means to eat soil.
This time of the year the savanna pops up among the pallet of greenery, splashes of colour in the form of wild flowers. There are hundreds of different species popping up everywhere, much to the delight of the Brown Veined White butterflies which stop by these flowers to sip some sweet nectar as they continue their epic journey from the northern cape all the way to the Indian ocean where they lay their eggs on the way and then mysteriously just die in the middle of the ocean.
The wild dog pack is doing very well, and the puppies have just been given their bi-annual rabies shots, and seem to be in tiptop condition. The adults have been killing regularly, and are keeping the ravenous pups well fed. The other pack in the holding facility will hopefully be released this month sometime, and we eagerly wait for the number of sightings to increase twofold.
I found them one morning on the northern fence line where they had killed a huge male kudu, and were in a very playful mood after filling their bellies to exploding levels. They have a very strict social structure among their ranks, and so playing is a vital part of wild dog politics.
Ok.. well that’s it from me… I will leave you all with a few bonus images…
All the best,
Gavin and the T-Team
RAIN, RAIN BEAUTIFUL
It has arrived!
(ALL IMAGES ARE COPYRIGHT: RUAN SCHUTTE)
We received our first good rains for the season. There is nothing that smells so good then fresh like raindrops on the dry African soil.
So let us start with the great bird and insect life that nice rains have brought us. A lot of our migrants are back and the birdlife is good. All our small and big creepy crawlies have also woken up and are out and about. It is nice looking at the smaller things as well and not just the bigger animals.
All our beautiful wild flowers are coming up and making this wonderful place look even prettier.
Let us talk about what is happening with our lion soapy.
Kwandwe and Monomoholo has been hanging around together for some time down in the South where both of them had the opportunities to grab them each a beautiful girl ( Jamala and Matlapa)and mated with them, so hopefully we should have some little ones in the coming new year.
We had some very good lion sightings lately of lazy, playing, mating, killing and eating lions.
The yellow tag female cheetah has moved more towards the North West of the reserve where she is looking for a good and safe place to give birth . Yes you heard me right, to give birth! She should be giving birth anytime soon in the next weeks. It is sooo exting as Madikwe have not produced baby cheetah for a very long time. EXITING TIMES AHEAD.
Our resident tom leopard Munye has been seen a few times, and has given us some good sightings of him patrolling his territory and also feeding on a young warthog.
Gavin also found a new young female leopard around Inkwe pan which is very exciting news. Hopefully we will see her more often.
The dogs are out and about with the youngsters but are hanging around the East of the reserve for now.
Rhino sightings have been out of this world of both Black and White. We had great Black rhino sightings and as you know they are actually a lot more difficult to find than the white.
For now, I will say Goodbye and farewell, and will pray for more Rains to come.
Greetings Ruan and the T-Team
Welcome back to yet another instalment of our Rangers Journal !!
Suicide month is almost at its end with the promise of rain in the air becoming more and more apparent as we are all on our knees praying for the life-giving liquid to fall out of the sky and kickstart the transformation from dry and dusty to clean, green and fresh.
There are already signs of the amazing event that will unfold within the next few weeks as soon as the first big rains are expected to arrive within the next week, such as this Devil’s trumpet flower amongst the dead grass, which exacerbates the struggle of Life vs Death.
However, it seems as if “Life” will always win.
Ok, let’s get into what is the latest bushveld politics here in Madikwe for this month.
To Start with the cheetahs, Savannah, our local female has been doing really well, and has been seen regularly also making various kills this month, and she continues to impress us with her tenacious ability to pull down prey items such as full-grown male impala. This will bode well for her as she prepares to have her cubs… Yip, she has been showing us signs of her advanced pregnancy stages with her teat line getting bigger by the day. We are super stoked for her, and we wish her well for her last month of pregnancy.
The two Phinda males have for the most part been spending all their time in the north west of the park, and are also looking supreme, and seem to be ruling the north of the park. They are also almost never struggling to kill prey, as they seem to always be full bellied when we see them.
Our local lion pride have been acting rather weird this month, as on one occasion they ganged up on the Monomoholo male and inflicted bite wounds to his back legs, which put him out of action for a week or so, but he has fully recovered, and seems to have reinstated his dominance over the girls.
The Kwandwe male has been spending most of his time without Monomoholo in the north west looking after the Tchaba pride. This seems to be the boys way of keeping the females from both prides happy, and also making sure that there is dominant presence from these two brutes everywhere inside their now massive territory.
There is however a threat which is growing in power to the east. This comes in the form of the Kwandwe male’s sons… The Mahiwa brothers, which means “GIFT”, and are seemingly setting up territory in an aggressive fashion around the Vlei pan area and further eastwards towards the river, but every now and again are finding themselves wondering into the far eastern boundaries of their father’s territory, so we are very anxious to see how this story will pan out in the near future once these 3 young males will find their confidence and possibly come west to challenge Monomoholo and Kwandwe for the right to own the females.
They have also been absolute killing machines this month and have been responsible for killing on a regular occasion, and also brave enough to pull down even the strongest of adversaries, the old male buffalo.
The Mica Pride with its mix of experience and youth has given us some great photo opportunities. One fine morning we located on the pride at Vleisfontein, the old missionary station which is situated on the ancient ivory trade route between Mafikeng and Bulawayo in Zimbabwe, and is now our park headquarters.
On arrival, the 2 youngest members of the pride, Boipelo and Bontle were in a jolly mood and for the next half hour, they entertained us with their acrobatics and power display which the photos will show you below.
On the other side of the waterhole was the legendary Mica female which is now over 17 years old !! Yeah, she is a living legend and is till looking as majestic as the first day I saw her almost 14 years ago for the first time.
Her teeth are still looking good, and as long as she can eat, she should be ok, especially as she has passed on her finely-honed hunting skills onto her daughters which will definitely be looking after this awesome lioness as long as they can.
General game in the area has been epic, as large herds of zebra and wildebeest are always great to see, as they fill up the blank spots between the predator sightings, and if you really sit and look at their behavior for a while, it can create some good photo opportunities.
Munye has been a little evasive this month and has had us pulling our hair out a little as he has been spending a lot of time to the west of the lodge in the rocky sections which we cannot access easily. However, we had one awesome tracking session on him this week, with me and Andre going out after breakfast to see if we could track him down for the afternoon safari. It was a successful attempt, and after about 3 hours we eventually found him chilling out and taking a siesta underneath a guarri bush trying to avoid the now intense sun.
On returning in the afternoon with our guests, he had not moved an inch, until much later where he headed out in search of his next meal.
We also had a great sighting of the ridge monster ! This guy is huge , and he was on one of the mountain slopes one morning, where we watched him carry his honey badger kill into the rocks to eat it in peace.
I unfortunately could not get any images of him, but we are excited that he made no attempt to run away from us as he usually does, so it seems like our persistent attempt at habituating him to the vehicles is paying off slowly, and we will not give up, until we have his trust in our pockets.
We also had a good sighting of a pair of ostriches that were presenting us with their brand-new offspring, and it was awesome to see the little chicks trying to keep up to their giant parents as they trundled down the road.
Rhino and elephant sightings are off the charts this month, as the heat of the midday gets them all down at the waterholes. The cacophony of mud splashing and baby elephants screaming for their mothers to open the front legs to free the teat is sometimes deafening while you are sitting in the hide only meters away from them at the lodge.
Out there in the bush, waterholes are a good place to get your fair share of paciderm bliss as the sunsets and or dramatic dust bathing will get your shutter burning up.
We have had awesome black rhino sightings too this month, and on many an occasion the feisty buggers have come to within meters of the vehicles as they show us why you do not want to bump into them on foot out here, stopping in a cloud of dust and then snorting before turning tail and disappearing into the distance with the sound of the bush cracking as they charge off.
There is also something about being in the presence of the gentle giants of Madikwe, in the form of the old elephant bulls, which just exude the immense enormity of the largest land-based mammal on this planet. When they get close to you, you will not believe the power they possess as they quietly walk past without a sound.
We also located on a giraffe which had died from natural causes, and had some lions feed on it before leaving it once it became a little too rancid for their liking. This gave the opportunity for the scavengers to move in and remove what was left. The stomachs of these beasts must be made of cast iron, as that rotting meat will put most of us mere mortals into the grave without a doubt. We are thankful for their role in the system as they can clean the environment of all the bacteria which could possibly otherwise create a disease outbreak here in the bush. Madikwe is one of the few places in South Africa, where you can find both the Brown and Spotted hyena living in harmony.
Well…. Until the rains come….
Catch you again next month….
Gavin and the T-Team.
Dry, windy, dusty this is what u can expect if you come to Madikwe in September in October.
We had some amazing sightings this month and the guests enjoyed the experiences with us.
The summer is upon us and it is getting warmer and dryer and the waterholes are getting smaller as the animals are getting concentrated close to the waterholes.
The Mica pride in the south is doing very well and they gave us some memorable sightings this month. The two sub adults are growing stronger and always on the look out for prey and opportunities to hunt to impress the rest of the females in the pride.
The 2-male coalition Kwandwe and Monomoholo are regulars now in the South and they successfully took over the Mica pride. They are definitely the strongest coalition in Madikwe and most successful.
They are sharing feasts and mating with the Females
In the morning we are always out and about looking for fresh tracks. There is nothing more thrilling for a guide to see fresh tracks, especially lion tracks. It gets our blood pumping as guides and it’s a wonderful experience for the guest to see how we track, and doing what we do best. For us at Tuningi we take our tracking and finding animals very seriously.
Munye our resident male has been seen regularly this month and gave us real good show with plenty of good sightings. He is covering a huge area recently, hunting, patrolling and searching for females to mate with. He is really our golden Boy.
It’s always so wonderful and rewarding to see the expression on the guest’s faces the first time they see a Leopard. The holy grail of the big 5.
I am very proud to say that the new female cheetah is doing very well and looking better than ever. Looks like she loves the southern part of Madikwe where she has been seen many times.
She is a really good hunter and very successful, she is going to be a really good mother for her cubs. Imagine a cheetah female with cubs in Madikwe just wow can’t wait for that moment.
For the last couple of weeks, the 2 male cheetahs are patrolling and hunting very successfully here in the south and that’s a really good thing for us. The one reason may be …. Hint, hint …. yes you are right all to do with the female cheetah. These two boys just love termite mounts and using it for look out points for prey and scanning the horizon.
The pack of Wild dogs have not been seen for a couple of weeks because they are busy denning on the Tswene Tswene mountain exactly in middle part of madikwe. This is a very exited time for us and we can’t wait to see how many pups there are in the pack. Looking forward for our new pack that will be arriving end of December and hopefully bringing lots more Wild dog sightings.
We are so privileged to have a very active hyena den so close to our lodge. This clan of hyenas consist of 4 generations of young cubs and adults close to 6 individuals. Hyenas are always popular with guests just because they are such interesting animals. Hyenas got a very bad publicity because of the lion king that will stick with them for ever. Hyenas are very good hunters, better than lions, and are actuality ruled by a Queen with an iron throne in a matriarchal society. The females are much bigger than the males.
World Rhino day on 22 September celebrates all 5 species of rhino: Black, White, greater one horned, Sumatran and Javan rhinos. In Madikwe we have the black rhino and the white Rhino. The black rhino being the most elusive of them. Great effort goes in to keep them safe in madfikwe and Africa. They can live up to 45 years old and a white rhino can reach up to 2 tons and black rhino 1.4 tons. These animals are truly an African giant and iconic species of Africa.
The general game is not doing too bad either, considering how dry it is. The animals affected the most will be the browsers first because of the lack of leaves, especially the kudus. I can’t wait to see a beautiful kudu male browsing on succulent green leaves, and see madikwe green again. Let’s hope the rains are not far that madikwe the jewel of South Africa can transform again to the green Marico bushveld that we all love.
Thats all for this month Folks,
Regards,
Andre and the T-Team
The windy month in the bush has been living up to its name, with the days starting out nice and serene, and then around our coffee breaks on the morning safari, we get exposed to the trade winds which are characteristic of this time of year. This sends dust into the air…and our eyes… lol…. But also creates some awesome sunrises and sunsets. The general game don’t like the wind much, and seem to get all bunched up in a tiny huddle, as they cannot hear the predators coming, and the opposite happens for the predators, in that the wind will help them with masking their smell and sounds when they go after their prey.
Otherwise the bush is really getting dry at the moment, and will get even worse in the next 2 months. Waterholes are always busy, and have been giving us some awesome elephant action shots as they enjoy themselves in the mud. The mud also helps them to cool down, helps as a sunscreen and also irritates the parasites on their skin, so it is kind of like a day spa for elephants.
The female cheetah which was released a few months ago is doing extremely well, and she has been mating with the 2 males in the north west of the park a while ago, so we are all holding our breaths to see if she will get pregnant and give us our first cheetah cubs in more than 15 years in Madikwe. Besides that, she is also stretching her legs, and is travelling huge distances, primarily in the south of the park, and is covering around 15 km in a single night on occasion.
The south pride of lions have been slowly getting more exposure to the brutes from the north west, and have started accepting them as their new kings, and we hope that One of the Jamala females will come into oestrus soon, and possibly give us some new cubs before the end of the year.
The north pride has been doing really well, and have been making up the bulk of our lion sightings this month. The 2 sub-adults have what seems to be never ending energy levels as they stalk, pounce and jump on each other as they hone their hunting skills.
The 3 Mahiwa males who have now left their mother and are going solo in the south east of the park are becoming seriously impressive, and we have been seeing them more often as it seems as if they are trying to displace the Lone Modimo male, who is also been seen with the south pride females on the odd occasion. So In the near future things could heat up and the 3 strong Mahiwa boys will probably come up on top soon.
One morning we also found the Mahiwa males lazing around Melorane pan after having a drink, when a brown hyena pitched up. The brown did not realise that one of the lions was stalking him, and we thought that the poor guy was toast… But, as the lion pounced the brown hyena gave an almighty shrill sound and the lion stopped in his tracks, giving the frightened hyena time to make his hasty retreat. To live another day.
Munye, our resident male leopard has been super scarce this month, and we have not been seeing him as often as we would like, but there is also more signs of that new female which has been making her presence felt after the void that Tsala left a couple months ago. We are in the process of trying to habituate her to the vehicles, and it seems like it wont be as easy as we thought, as she is still very weary of our vehicles.
The wild dogs are still denning in the Tshwene mountain complex, and should be about to leave their safe house shortly, and hopefully we will see the puppies running with the adults soon.
Other good news on the wild dog front, is that we have acquired a new pack. 3 Females from Hluluwe (Natal) and 5 males from Tswalu(Cape) that are to be introduced into a boma/holding facility and will be in there for some time, as we try and bond them to create a new pack. Then we should have our quota of 2 packs in Madikwe once more.
The hyena den in the south west, has been producing some amazing sightings, and we now have seen 4 generations of cubs that are 8, 4,3,and 2 months old. The cute factor is crazy, and their bear-like appearance is startling. Which is in fact the truth… Yes, hyenas are more closely related to bears than any other animal.
The cubs are super curious when the adult are around, and will come right up close to the vehicle to inspect its passengers, but are equally skittish if the adults are not at the den on a particular day.
The playful antics of the cubs can sometimes be rough, which is the way that they are forcing their birthrights over less hierarchal cubs, as you are born with your rank. So if your mother has a very high rank in the clan system, you as the cub automatically inherit that particular status and rank.
We also has another rhino die of natural causes at the beginning of the month, and also gave us some great opportunities to photograph these awesome animals, and I always try my best to dispel any myths that hyenas are always the “baddies” of the African Savannas .
The general game sightings this month are always incredible this time of the year, as they congregate around waterholes, and inevitably there will always be a predator not far from them, lying in wait to secure their next meal.
So next time, if you are planning your trip to Tuningi…. August and September are cracker months to see all that Madikwe has to offer !!
Thats it for this month…
Regards,
Gavin and the T-Team
Hello again from a rather chilly July here at Tuningi….
Yip… temperatures have been warm for the most part of July, but the last week or so has seen the real winter come back to Madikwe, and has made the fireplaces in the lodge the place to be while sipping on a warm sherry.
So, let’s get into this month’s sightings highlights.
Lets start with the cheetahs… our newly released female has been doing extremely well, and has made a few kills on her own, and seems to be staying out of trouble with the larger predators, and is moving quite a bit in the southern section of the park, and we hope that the 2 boys will pay her a visit soon…
The boys on the other hand have as always been very productive, and have been making many kills this month, and it seems like very time we see them, they are lazing about in the warm afternoon sun, digesting their hard earned meals.
Munye has also made a lot of appearances this month, and the highlight was when he managed to kill a duiker and hoist it high into a leadwood tree. He was also super lazy, and ,did not really want us to take any photos of his beauty, as he hid behind a twig…
Otherwise he has been doing a lot of territory patrolling, and was heard using his hard rasping call to get the attention of what seems to be a new female on the block. Yes, a new female has moved into the area that Tsala used to own, and this is exciting us as rangers, but has been difficult to lay eyes on, and we are hoping that Munye will teach her some manners in not running away from us…
The trend of lazing around was also very prominent one morning as we came across a troop of baboons at the park admin area. They were soaking up all the warmth they could get from the sun on their rocky perches, and the guests always love the baby baboons as they are always bringing the cute factor out.
We also had a great experience one morning as 2 male white rhinos were settling a territorial dispute at one of the waterholes, and seemed as if it could last forever, as they pushed each other around for some time, but not before kicking dust up into the air giving us a chance to get some great shots !
We also located on a new den site for our clan of hyenas in the south, and it seems to have 3 generations of cubs, so this should give us some amazing insights into the lives of these misunderstood beasts. Hopefully we should have more photos and news in the next report.
As far as our local pride goes, the females are still struggling to come to grips with the idea that Kwandwe and Monomoholo are the new kings in their territory !
The girls have been trying to avoid these two kings with intent, but the old girl, the Mica female finally started showing the rest of the females that this is the way it is going to be, and that they should accept the new power and genes that is this powerful coalition.
The rhino that died of natural causes a while ago has now finally all been consumed… yep… almost nothing left !!
It did give some awesome time spent with the scavengers that included, vultures, jackals, and both brown and spotted hyenas.
That’s it for this month….
Stay Warm…
Regards,
Gavin and the T-Team.
It has been an amazing month, with incredible sightings and wonderful people.
Winter is now in full swing. We have had some bitterly cold mornings and evenings, but the thin, crisp, clear air produced spectacular sights. With the sun setting fire to Africa, we can truly appreciate winter for what it brings.
The introduction of the new female cheetah was successful. She is still being monitored by her satellite collar but we have found her on a few occasions the old fashioned way, tracking.
She was also found on a kill and her future in Madikwe looks promising.
She has been in contact with the two males in the north west of the park as she is exploring her new home. Unfortunately we did. not see this interaction, but we assume it went well.
We found the males one afternoon after they got her scent, oh man, they were running and calling around like I’ve never experienced before, but in the end only found each other.
One evening after a successful cheetah tracking, we stopped at Tlou Dam to take in a beautiful sunset and in the last light we saw Wild Dogs approaching the dam. That in itself would have been amazing but then an unfortunate impala came for its last drink. The dogs chased it for a short distance and the impala leaped into the water for safety. The water was shallow enough for the dogs and they made a very quick, easy kill.
The Alpha female wild dog is denning in one of the den sites in the mountain in the middle of the park. Within a couple of months we should see how successful they were with pups.
The pride of lions from the south spend more time in our area as the males that took over the area were pre-occupied with their other pride in the north.
We saw them a few times and twice on a kill.
One afternoon we saw about 60 vultures spread out in trees and knew something big was dead. After some searching we unfortunately found a dead Rhino. The area was closed and investigated. The next day we got the good news that it was a natural death.
For more than a week we had vulture and hyena activity in that area.
The same hyenas sniffed out a zebra that died in the mud at a waterhole close by. One particular hyena was determined to get the remains out of the mud.
Our luck has also changed with leopard sightings as Munye made his appearance a few times.
A leopard in a tree! What more can we ask for?
Only a few waterholes have water and are struggling to keep up with the animals needs. But around the available water we get to see some great interaction between animals.
Thank you to everyone that enjoyed all of these amazing sightings and more with me.
Kind regards
Cornelius and the T-Team.
A warm hello once again to all our fans.
This month has been a month of sadness and happiness.
Lets get the sad out of the way first. It seems as if the Legend that is Tsala, our resident female leopard has passed on to a better place, as we have not had any tracks or sightings of her for the last 2 months. She will leave a huge hole in our hearts and will be sorely missed as she exuded a presence here on the ridge around the lodge for the last 13 years. We hope that her vacant territory will be filled by another female soon, so that we can start getting to now her.
The happy news is that we have a new female cheetah, which is going to be joining our other 2 males and the other female in the park.She has been in a holding BOMA for the last 2 weeks or so now, and is responding well to the habituation process and is very calm around the vehicles, and has even killed her own scrub hare inside the enclosure. She should be good for release shortly, and we will be following her movements closely to see how she fares out there in the big bad world, which is Madikwe.
The male that was killed by the 2 from the north has been removed from Madikwe, and is on his way to a reserve in Malawi, and we wish him well on his journey there.
There are also plans to introduce 2 more male cheetahs in the near future, and we really hope that these females will produce some cubs shortly.
We have also acquired 2 new male lions from the Addo National Park which will bolster our genetics within the park, and are also currently in a holding BOMA for habituation, and should be due for release in the next month or so.
As far as the lion politics is going in the park, it is all stable in the north west, as the Kwandwe and Monomoholo males seem to have now settled into the task of running two different prides, as the females from the south have been seen interacting with them on a few occasions, but not always favorably, as some of the 2 older Jamala females don’t seem to want to accept the new change, and still have been hissing and slapping the new males as they approach their new family to set their rule of the new territory.
The 3 Mahiwa males which have now left their mother, are also starting to create a few waves in the male lion hierarchal society as they also seem to be becoming more vocal and even challenged the Lenyalo males from the east to a duel which the youngsters had won. So it will be very interesting to see where they settle, and which pride they will be taking over in the near future.
There is also another form of chaos going on in the park at the moment. That comes in the form of the annual impala rutting season, which is very loud and at times very amusing as the male impalas are all challenging each other to earn the rights to real estate and females.
Every year around the month of May adult male impalas transform from being very calm and relaxed looking antelope to fierce ego driven maniacs as they try to gather a harem of about 20-30 females, where they will try and mate with all of them as the estrus levels of the females reaches a fever pitch which drives the males to protect his territory against other intruders which all have the same idea.
In this melee of mating, the males seem to forget to eat, which results in them losing condition, which ultimately results in a new male ousting the current one, where the whole saga starts all over again. The females don’t become receptive until the last week of the rutting period, and the ram which has endured this harsh mating routine will be the father of the lambs when they are born in December. This is what makes impalas so resilient, as they seem to have the right recipe for success in terms of rooting out the weak genes amongst their ranks.
We have had some very good photographic opportunities this month as the light from the early and late afternoon safaris envelopes our subjects. We have had some awesome sightings of elephants at the waterholes as they run towards the life-giving liquid, and in the process chasing all smaller sized beings out of the way with force. Once they have had their thirsts satisfied, they will often get involved in a bout of mud bathing, which cools the large pachyderms from overheating, but then they will also go and dust bathe to seal in that moisture on their skin. This gives us great scenes as the dust gets backlit by the warm sun, and just creates some magic times to create amazing images.
We have also had some very good sightings of rhinos, and its very satisfying to know that their numbers are doing very well here in Madikwe, with only 3 rhinos lost this year so far to poaching.
Which is also a constant threat to these awesome beasts. Be sure to join our annual “WALK FOR RHINOS” event which will be held in September, and all proceeds go towards the protection of our rhinos here in Madikwe.
Talking about warm sun on a chilly morning, we also came across a mob of Dwarf Mongoose as they sat at the entrance to an excavated termite mound, which brought out a few “ooohss” and “aahhhs” as the cute factor went through the roof.
There has as always been awesome sightings of a plethora of general game species you can see in between the big ones on safari, and as always the giraffe always remains to be a firm favorite amongst our guests.
Munye, our resident male leopard has been scarce this month, and we think that he has his hands full, trying to maintain his territory boundaries which are quiet large, and also in pursuit of the female that has come into oestrus down in the south west of the park.
The wild dog packs are also doing very well, and we have had them around the lodge on a few occasions this month, and seem to be looking for denning locations, as the alpha females are now very heavily pregnant and should be settling down to give birth to a new generation of Africa’s second most endangered carnivore. We cannot wait for this, so that we can locate the dens and hopefully be able to access the sites this year. If we locate the den sites in an accessible area, we will be showing you some amazing images in the next month or so.
So that’s it for this month…
Stay warm through the winter, and be safe…
Lotsa bush regards from
Gavin and the T-Team