Our Safari Continues at the Lion Sands Game Reserve

Day two of our safari adventure and we are up at 0500 for our three-hour morning game drive (sounds real relaxing, doesn’t it?). We get ready and head to the main lodge for some needed coffee, then board our vehicle for game viewing with Mark and Emanuel.

On the prowl

We were about 20 minutes into the usual impalas, elephants, and giraffes when Mark gets a call over the radio. Another group has spotted a leopard, one of the “Big Five”(the 5 most difficult to find: lion, leopard, water buffalo, rhinosceros, and elephant). Mark almost popped a wheelie reversing course and accelerating toward the reported location (and we thought yesterday’s dog chase was wild! He slowed down as we went off road but did not hesitate to try and put the vehicle in a good viewing position.

Who are these people?

The cat, a healthy, beautiful middle-aged specimen, was moving so fast that the positioning of the vehicles was constantly changing. Emanuel was in the front tracker seat flagging a passable course. Mark stopped the vehicle just as the leopard was coming along our side, and after she passed, he angled us to a new position where she crossed in plain view to our front. Amazingly, she just pawed along as if she was oblivious to all of the commotion around her.

Describing a rhinoceros midden

Our total encounter time with her was probably not more than 30 seconds total, but everyone got good shots due to Mark and Emanuel’s skills. We pulled out of our position so other vehicles would have a chance. There were high-fives all around.

The next morning we did our pre-game drive routine and headed out with Mark, Emanuel, and our game-drive mates.

A dung beetle and his poop ball (left)

We rode for about one-half hour, spotting a number of animals we had already seen. Mark stopped the vehicle next to a hollowed out spot in the ground with animal spoor scattered around it and asked us if we knew what this was. It turns out to be a rhinoceros midden. The dominant bull male digs a depression in the ground and defecates into the depression before covering it up with his feet.

Our white rhinoceros

The females that are following him defecate all around his midden and in this way the male marks his territory for other males. Then Mark pointed out a dung beetle that was rolling a ball of dung away from a pile. He said that the beetle will locate the ball to another area, deposit an egg in the ball and the larva will feed on the ball when it hatches. It was really interesting to watch. Well, so much for the poop lesson of the day.

We drove a little further when Emanuel signaled for us to go off-road.

Gettin' a little close aren't you?

We had no sooner made the turn when we spotted the spot of the day—a huge bull white rhinoceros. He was grazing away as Mark positioned the vehicle. He was a magnificent animal and somewhat scary as he was only about 12-15 yards from us. Being the first to find this specimen, Mark radioed the other guides who would soon be approaching. We snapped several pictures. At one point the animal came closer to us and started grunting as if he was agitated with us.

The Sabi River weir

Mark started talking to him and backed away just as other groups were convening on our location.

Back on the road we drove down to the Sabi River and to a weir that was installed to measure water flow. We observed a pied kingfisher hovering and diving on the river below.

A pied kingfisher (center)

This kingfisher is the largest hovering bird, and we enjoyed watching it do its dance. On one of islands we spotted a saddle-billed stork, a very beautiful bird with a saddle-shaped dip in it bill. We drove on until we happened upon a memory of elephants heading for the river to cool off.

Saddle-billed stork

It was mostly a female group, but as we rounded a curve, we ran into a huge alpha male standing in the middle. He was the biggest elephant we had ever seen, and mean looking.

The big alpha male

We watched this elephant for 20-25 minutes, and then decided that it was time to move on as other cars were arriving. We left this spot and were examining the rest of this memory, when we came upon a relatively rare event—a juvenile elephant lying down on the ground with its mother standing guard.

A memory ready for a swim

Junior lays down next to mama

We drove back to the main lodge just in time to catch a number elephants attempting to head for the river to drink and cool off in the hot afternoon heat. We got to our room and were able to count 30 elephants entering, rolling and spraying in the water.

The evening drive was rather uneventful with the exception of the spotting of a herd of male kudus on way the the dried up Sand River. At the riverbed, Mark and Emanuel spoke to some of their co-workers who had been looking for signs of a lion. Mark and Emanuel decided to explore one section that the others had not examined.

A herd of male kudus

They came back to the vehicle, got the rifle, and told us that they would be back in 15 minutes at the most. They also told us how to alert the others if they didn't come back or if we heard a rifle shot. Off they went. Fifteen minutes by and no Mark or Emanuel; 20 minutes; 25 minutes and still no one. Just as we were discussing sending an alert, they came bounding in. Excitedly they told us that they had found fresh tracks of a lioness.

Another beautiful African sunset

She has cubs which she likely hid nearby, and went hunting for her cubs. She was joined by another lioness and would likely return to the cubs sometime that night. Chances were good that we might spot them in the morning. The day was almost done so we left the area and found a spot for our sunset happy hour. As dark rolled in we headed back to the lodge. It was a good day.