Ranger Tom Imrie and tracker Jerry Hambana were watching a journey of giraffe with their guests, when Jerry’s hand suddenly shot up for the vehicle to be quiet and listen. “Mfo (brother)”, he said, “distress call down near the drainage!”. The rest of the vehicle sat silently, straining to hear what Jerry’s keen ears had detected, but there was nothing. Jerry was adamant that he had heard the noise of an antelope being grabbed by a predator, and on his insistence, Tom manouevred the Land Rover down into the thicket and along the bank of the small riverbed.
Within only 100 metres or so, it was Tom’s turn to exclaim and point, as he spied two spotted shapes high up in a marula tree. It was the Mashaba female leopard and her 10-month old cub, with the freshly-caught carcass of a duiker. A young hyena circled ominously on the ground below.
One can get a skewed idea of how much time leopards spend in trees by the way they are often portrayed in mainstream photographic media, but in fact they spend far more of their time on the ground. Hearing about Tom’s sighting on the radio, we realised that the chance of seeing two leopards in a tree at the same time was too good to miss, so we moved quickly towards where Tom and Jerry were watching.
When we arrived there was little action, as both mother and cub were lying together in the main fork of the marula, but soon after we got into position, the adult female moved slightly higher in the tree, allowing the cub to feed. Unlike lions, leopards almost never feed on a carcass together, preferring to do it one-at-a-time, but it seems in this case the Mashaba female was allowing her cub a valuable learning opportunity as well.
The cub feeds while the Mashaba grooms herself.
With the hyena skulking below, there would be scant chance of descending to re-hoist the kill should it fall, so there could be no mistakes by the cub if it moved the kill around to be able to feed more easily. It was a case of do it right or lose the meal.
Well, the cub nearly got it spectacularly wrong, with the duiker carcass slipping on a number of occasions. Fortunately, thanks to lightning fast reflexes and incredible agility, the adult female was able to grab the kill each time before it fell, and after growling her displeasure at the cub it left off trying to feed and took to running circuits through the branches instead.
As the carcass starts to slip the adult leopard lunges forward to prevent it falling to the ground. The cub just gets in the way.
A desperate snatch as the duiker falls past her…
…and an amazing grab which hooks the carcass with a single claw!
She re-hoists to an easier feeding position.
The hyena skulking nearby was a relatively young one, so there’s always the chance the Mashaba female would have been able to reclaim the kill if it dropped. Maybe she wouldn’t have given the cub such a chance had the hyena been bigger and the consequences for dropping the kill more final. We can’t know for sure.
At 10 months old the cub is already incredible adept at moving through the branches.
A second chance to feed…
…which results in a second chance to drop the kill…
What we do know is that the sighting was one of the more memorable in recent weeks, and it served to further cement the leopard’s reputation as the absolute master of the trees.
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So absolutely wonderful to read this post – brings back final stick memories of our amazing time at Londolozi with the talented and generous Tom and Jerry!
What a great sighting, thanks to Jerry! It’s fantastic to see Mashaba and her cub doing so well. Thanks for sharing your beautiful images!
Awesome!!! Thanks for sharing, makes me feel like I’m right there.. ☺
Fantastic sighting and excellent record of the occasion – lucky people!
What camera and lens did you use for these photographs. Thank you Maureen Peters.
Hi Maureen,
I was shooting with a Canon 5D mkiii with a 70-200mm 2.8 lens. Because of the bright background I was overexposing by 2/3rds of a stop else the photographs would have come out too dark.
Regards
James
Hi James, I just love my daily news feed from Londolozi! Great stories, amazings pics. And it would be really helping to see the camera settings.
What a thrill, good to see
the cubs thriving.
An amazing sighting i once also got lucky to see the leopard with it’s cub feasting on a common reedbuck antelope at Lebala Camp (kwando safaris) in Botswana along kwando river”
Thank you James. Good to Know.
I would love a job like yours ever since i was little i dreamed of the bush i hope to come next year and experience it for the first time…your blogs are brill btw