Simbavati River Lodge
News
Some more or lesss rare sightings at Simbavati !
During our visit 13 - 15 July 2009
1) Our first valuable sighting to remember was the 4 rhinoceros: an adult female, a younger adult and a still really small one - must be the baby in the family, with the large male keeping a little to the side. As is usual with white rhinos, it is the youngest that takes the lead.
Or to put it another way, all others in the group follow the baby to give it cover, which we saw demonstrated when the baby lay down and the others did too. But when it jumped up attentively, the others also followed, and slowly departed into the bush.
2) With radio contact our vehicle was able to find the lone male lion ("ngala"), gorging himself on a buffalo. Apparently there had previously been a rare killing of one of the female lions (who normally do the attacking and pulling down of prey) in the riverbed beyond our sight. Al the other males also kept out of sight.
The one feeding actually managed to pull the huge buffalo closer to a bush, so that he would be covered from behind, and still keep an eye on the two vehicles (with tourists) in front of him.
3) Elephants are plenty in the Timbavati, but finding one with a chameleon on his forehead, must be pretty unusual. We hoped it would change colour, but the body of grey below him was too overwhelming!
4) But the cherry on the cake of our (mainly) birdwatching few days at Simbavati, was the rare "bird" in the fish eagles' nest! Here the young female leopard ("ingwe") was completely relaxed - probably after a meal of eggs or chicks!
In the meantime the fisheagle pair was not so happy and gave occasional hoots of annoyance, while moving from tree to tree in the vicinity.
We left while the leopard looked quite comfortably at home in his "nest".
Also watch the Elephant Birth at Simbavati!
