Happy Halloween!
Happy
Halloween indeed!
Being American, I have grown up
loving the holiday of Halloween, the costumes, the candy; it's all very
exciting. Today, it was the most exciting Halloween anyone could ask for.
It started off like a typical
morning drive, a bit cold from the rain the night before, the sun shining in
the sky, but not yet warming the skin. We were tracking the female lions down a
road when one of our fellow volunteers, Kutullo, aptly nicknamed
"Binos", saw an animal presumed to be a lion, about 80 meters into
the block in the thick of the bush. Well, this animal was as large as one of
our females, shaped a bit like our hefty ladies, but it had rosettes. We were
so excited to realize it was a leopard! After some further examination, due to
his size and stature, we figured it was none other than our beloved, Scar.
Scar is our oldest known male
leopard on the reserve. He is very sly and cunning, so seeing him is always
exciting. As Scar sat there, picking at his C-class, male impala kill, Emma in
the front of the bakkie saw something moving towards Scar, very quietly, very
slowly. As it turns out, one of the female lions decided to show up to the
party.
When she was really close to Scar
and his kill, she took off in a sprint, becoming very vocal, and chased him off
the kill. She then proceeded to chase him into a tree, out of our range of
vision. The lioness returned to her sister at the kill and they began to eat.
However, this is not the end of the story. Scar, being the sly, cunning leopard
that he is, jumped down from the tree thinking he could make a quick escape. The
lioness quickly ran after Scar and chased him into a large Marula tree, farther
from the kill.
We reversed quickly and drove a
little bit up the road, to a bend in the road where the Marula tree stood, with
Scar gracefully, yet angrily, perched on one of it's large branches. We sat
there, taking photographs, still a bit in shock at what we just witnessed, when
Scar elegantly leapt down from the tree and took off, causing us to lose visual
behind a termite mound. We travelled back around the bend to get a better
visual of the females, and left the girls gorging themselves on the stolen kill
with Scar no longer to be seen.
Needless to say, we spent the rest
of the drive in shock and excitement of what had happened. Hearing Rosie call
in what we just witnessed on the radio was like re-living the experience and
nearly as exciting as watching it unfold in the first place. It was by far the
most incredible sighting I have had since arriving on Karongwe in September,
and I am hoping for many more.
Jessie Cart
Volunteer Intern
Photos courtesy of Jessie Cart and Emma Dawson
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