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Kgalagadi Feb 2020

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We visited Kgalagadi during the period 4 - 19 Feb 2020.  It was still very dry before the recent good rains the park had, but much more is still needed, specifically on the Auob side of the park. We spent 7 nights in the Nossob area where the vegetation was much better than on the Mata Mata side and we had excellent sightings. After that we were at Tented Camp for 3 nights and at Twee Rivieren for 4 nights.

 

PHOTO STORY

One morning, whilst at Nossob, we drove out early to Bedinkt waterhole north of Nossob. We heard from other visitors that a leopard was seen in the vicinity and we were dying to see it! 

We parked our car at the waterhole whilst the more popular parking spaces were behind us under the shady trees.  Took out the coffee and oats cookies we normally have at that time of the morning and settled in for the big wait. 

 

As Bedinkt waterhole is quite a drive from Nossob, it was already 7 o' clock in the morning and we knew we were actually too late to expect a leopard to come to the waterhole. In this time a jackal visited the waterhole and some oryx were on their way too. 

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At around 8 o' clock, and to our great annoyance, this big male came from the road on our left hand side, walked across in front of our car towards the waterhole.  We knew then that the chances of seeing the leopard was down to zero.

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It went straight for a drink at the waterhole.    

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Next moment a female came out to have a drink too! Not long and another two females joined the party.

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The male inspected the one female and started phlegming. It gave us excellent photo opportunities, not too bad a consolation for not seeing the leopard.

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Temperatures were already soaring towards the 30's that early in the morning, so after a few minutes the three females decided the shady trees behind us is a good spot to lazy around in case something interesting came to the water.  The male then also headed for the shade. 

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We were at a loss what to do next as it was already past 8 in the morning, the car was starting to heat up on the inside and no leopard in sight.  Should we drive back to Nossob or continue towards Polentswa where we knew the waterhole had no water?
 
We were still contemplating when, low and behold, the next moment a leopard, a female estimated to be a year and a half old, regally appeared, also from the side of the road on our left, passed in front of our car, heading straight for the water, totally oblivious of the lions in the shade behind our car!

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She did not immediately drink any water and was sort of undecided. We thought perhaps the presence of the lions scared her, but she still needed a drink.

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The leopard seemed to notice our car and looked as us intently and decided to come much closer.  However, I noticed from the corner of my eye that the one lioness got up and she was approaching the leopard - the lioness was indeed literally leopard crawling towards the leopard as there was no grass to hide behind!  But the leopard did not notice anything! We were grinding our teeth!

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We thought of swopping lenses at that stage, to replace the 600 mm lenses with the shorter and more versatile 80 - 400 mm lenses, but with the lioness in stalk mode and the leopard in deadly danger, the situation was so intense we could not get ourselves to do the swop for fear of missing what was about to happen.

We were sure by then she must have picked up the scent of the lions and although she looked in the direction of the lions behind us, she closed her eyes because she looked directly into the sun.  She tried to take a sip of water... and still did not see the lioness now less than 20 meters from her, crouching very, very low...

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But then, at last, she looked up at us again because she must have started suspecting that something was not right.  Perhaps she realised that we were willing her to look up!  She then looked up straight into the sun in the direction of the lioness, this time with eyes wide open. 

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At this moment she sensed that danger was close!

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Bam! The next moment the lioness attacked her!  But she missed!  The leopard hissed and snarled, stuck out her paw at the lioness and immediately started running for dear life!

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The lioness was distracted by the leopard's first reaction and retracted her attacking paw, losing valuable seconds!  

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The lioness then made another valiant attempt!

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But she was held back by the mud and that gave the leopard enough time to escape

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She escaped unharmed and ran for cover at full speed, screaming at the top of her voice all the way!

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Escaping a second lioness who waited for her behind our car, the leopard escaped the same way she came, back across the road and then scrambled up a tree on the other side of the road as fast as she could, leaving two lionesses panting at the bottom, not attempting to also climb the tree.

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The lions retreated back to their shady spot and the leopard did not wait 5 minutes before she was sure the coast was clear and left the tree as fast as she could to disappear into bush.  

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For us a once in a life time experience and also for Richard and Brenda from Alaska who were under the shady trees with the lions at the time of the attack.  Our hearts were pounding and blood racing from what we had witnessed but also because the leopard, such an iconic cat, escaped unharmed.

 

 

 

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