Sun Destinations

Last week we oohed and aahed over the footage and photos of a rare sighting at Africa on Foot and nThambo Tree Camp; a pangolin had been spotted on game drive and guests at both camps got to see it. Just when we thought the fun was over and we had got the ‘once in a blue moon’ pangolin sighting (and it was great), we hear from our rangers in the Klaserie that another pangolin had been spotted only a few nights ago! This time, the pangolin was being active during its preferred night time, and Sun Destinations’ videographer, Kevin MacLaughlin, managed to get some excellent footage. We are so glad our guests have been lucky enough to see these rare and wonderful creatures in the wild, but that was not all they saw this week – take a look…

News from Umkumbe Safari Lodge lately has been rather exciting with 2 of our favourite animal mothers giving birth! The Sabi Sand is renowned for incredible leopard sightings and is considered one of the best places in South Africa to see this spotted cat. Umkumbe ranger, Cameron Engelbrecht, sent me an update on the superb game viewing they have been having along the Sand River, and as I had hoped, the update comes with a leopard and her 3 month old cub! These are Cameron’s pictures of this beautiful female and her cute and fluffy male cub.

Keeping on topic, Cameron followed up on a young elephant this week, and managed to capture these stunning photos. If you’ve been following Umkumbe’s updates on Facebook, you will know about the unique ‘short-trunk female’, which is an adult elephant with a damaged trunk. It is shorter than it should be and she doesn’t have ‘nostrils’, so she has always fallen behind the herd. After keeping on her own for a while (very unusual for female elephants), it became clear she was pregnant, and by the time she gave birth only 2 weeks ago, the rest of the herd had joined her and were surrounding her during her birth offering support and protection. No wild mammal is quite as astoundingly emotional as the elephant. Here we have Cameron’s family portrait taken this last week, showing ‘short-trunk’ mommy on the left and her tiny calf in the middle.

There has been some incredible lion activity in the Klaserie Reserve this last week with the big Trilogy male lions coming in for a meal. Just the other day, the local legends – the Ross Pride – took down a buffalo and prepared to eat, but they weren’t so fortunate as to gorge themselves on their meal. Kevin MacLaughlin at Africa on Foot has more…

“The best thing this week has probably been watching the Ross Pride killing a buffalo. Both camps (Africa on Foot and nThambo) got to witness the kill taking place. Shortly after the kill was made, 4 young males chased the Ross Pride off their kill so they could tuck in; then they were chased off the buffalo by The Trilogy. The following day we found The Trilogy on another buffalo kill not far from the first one.”

Kevin added to his comments about the week’s game viewing in general, emphasising the excitement surrounding the second pangolin sighting in 2 weeks, plus visits from some other rare members of the wild.

“So the week has been full of excitement; the wild dogs gave us a brief visit earlier on in the the week. Now, for the second time we’ve managed to see a pangolin. The guests from Africa on Foot were already back from their evening safari when nThambo called over the radio and reported that they had found a pangolin. Unsurprisingly, AOF climbed back on the game viewer and managed to join the nThambo guests for a fantastic sighting.”

Watch Kevin’s video of this week’s pangolin sighting here: