When you stumble across a stocky, powerfully built cat with black rosettes dotted on its fur, you know it’s a leopard. Sightings of the elusive leopard are considered rare – they have a habit of hiding in thickets, up in trees and don’t care much for the limelight. When you see this elegant cat saunter towards you, with swag and attitude, you are in for a treat. Over the past few days at Umkumbe Safari Lodge Marius spotted 3 leopards – majestic Mxabene, the young Kigelia and the graceful Tatowa.Leopard sightings have become the norm while out on game drive with the Umkumbe rangers.
The Sabi Sand is quite the drawcard for guests who come on safari to see leopards. The reserve has a high density of leopards and Umkumbe is located in prime leopard viewing territory.
Over the weekend, firm favourite, Mxabene was spotted out on patrol. Sightings of Mxabene are generally when he is marking his territory and patrolling his turf to prevent unwanted visitors. Male leopards guard their territory against other males but their traverse overlaps with, on average, 3/4 females. Their scent marking activity normally happens in the dead of night and they spray urine and disperse droppings over vegetation. This is not their only measure of marking their home range, they may even have trees which serve as territorial scratching points. They also tend to emit a distinctive long-range bark to signal ownership of a territory. Max, yet again, was seen enjoying his normal nocturnal activities !
Young Kigelia is Little Bush’s cub who is now old enough to fend for herself. She still has cub like qualities and was seen chasing squirrels. She is obviously practicing her pouncing skills and also tried to chase an ostrich! Leopards will begin to hunt alone around the 18 month mark and a young leopardess will often claim a territory on the fringe of her mother’s range. Kigelia appears to be putting her natural instincts to the test.
Tatowa is a slender and beautiful leopardess who crossed over from the northern boundary onto the Umkumbe traverse. She’s built a name for herself as quite a tough cat and is the only surviving leopard from a litter of 4. She had no problem taking down this unsuspecting impala !
Thanks to Marius for the leopard update. Hopefully we’ll see more of the elusive Tatowa and perhaps next time Kigelia will be stalking something larger in stature than a squirrel !
Melvin