“Wilderness is for me salvation…You are not human if you aren’t changed by the wilderness.”
– Ian Player
With the rains behind us and the grasses becoming dry, you can feel the cooler mornings and evenings approaching. Trees are slowly becoming bare and the sound of Impala rams rutting has replaced the woodland kingfishers calling. Winter is almost here and game viewing – as per usual – has been spectacular.
Elephant herds in particular are becoming more and more common as they flock to the permanent water sources across the reserve, and their noisy trumpeting can be heard most evenings from the Sand River below the camps. We expect their influx to continue over the coming months.
Enjoy this Week in Pictures…
A large elephant bull takes advantage of the coolness of the morning to feed in the open plains.
The Ximungwe female has been providing some spectacular viewing of late, hunting more than ever through having to provide for her cubs. Early one afternoon she caught this scrub hair and took it back to her cubs. Female leopards will often take smaller kills like this to their cubs instead of fetching the cubs to the kill. The effort of a single trip with a small kill is probably less than one trip there and another one back.
A female Saddle-billed stork with a brood patch on her chest. Males and females both have this patch and will use this to transfer body heat to their eggs during incubation.
A wild dog takes some time to cool off and hydrate after hunting a herd of impala. Both wild dogs and hyenas will regularly lie in shallow waterholes to cool down.
Golden afternoon light and distant dark skies provide a beautiful setting to view one of the five Mangheni females and the older cub.
An image I have wanted to capture for a long time. The morning light catches flying sand perfectly as an elephant bull enjoys some sand bathing.
A leopard cub experiments and plays whilst the mother rests in the shade.
The female banded legged nephilia, commonly known as the Golden orb-web spider. She sits head down in the middle of her web, while the male sits on the outskirts to avoid getting eaten by her.
An overcast gloomy morning made for the perfect close-up, black and white image of the Inyathini male stopping for a drink, while on territorial patrol.
A pair of Bateleur eagles. Here a male (right) and female (left) are perched side by side. The sexes can be differentiated by the feather colouration in the wings; the pale band on the female’s primaries is distinctive.
I thoroughly enjoyed spending time watching this elephant. We watched the herd treat him no differently even though he is so different. We can learn so much from observing animal behaviour, even something as important as acceptance. Ranger Pete Thorpe talks more about leucistic elephants in his blog.
After a long morning of tracking, we finally found the Ximungwe female and her two cubs resting up in the dry river bed. Seeing all three leopards together made the hard work well worth it.
A Little bee-eater perched on dead twig. This is one of the 27 bee-eater species in Africa, the 10 that have been recorded in Southern Africa, the 5 that have been recorded at Londolozi, and one of only two that are found here year round, the other one being the white-fronted.
A bonding moment between a mother giraffe and her calf. As the calf suckles the mother takes the time to groom her young.
A Birmingham male lion puts his head up and looks towards the vehicle while the sun rises behind him.
These are two of the youngest litter of the Mhangeni pride. They were well hidden in this photograph as their mother was just about to leave them to go on the hunt.
A Ntsevu cub rests on a branch avoiding his siblings and cousins below. With a fifth female seemingly heavily pregnant, new additions to the pride are imminent…
Leopards are almost synonymous with marula trees in this neck of the woods. The Nhlanguleni female climbs them just as much as any, when she ventures away from the Sand River which flows through the core of her territory.
![Hamerkop Diving For Plattana [rcb] (26)](https://media.londolozi.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/10/10105855/Hamerkop-Diving-for-Plattana-RCB-26-280x178.jpg)
Your pictures are stunning Dean. Love the Birmingham male, wild dog in the water and the Bateleurs.
Thank you Marinda
The photos are stunning, as usual. The “different” elephant reminded me of Boyd Varty’s TED Talk which featured another “different” elephant (Elvis) and how the herd looked after her. This talk was what brought me to come to Londolozi the first time in 2015!
Thank you Cindy. Thats why it is important to share stories. Glad you came.
Thanks for some wonderful photos this week.
Glad you enjoyed them Dave.
Nice photos! I especially liked the cub photos in the grasses and the leopard with her cubs, as well as the beautiful pair of Bateleur Eagles. Thanks for sharing TWIP, Dean!
Thank you Darlene, that is my favourite too. Glad you enjoyed.
Lovely collection. I especially like the leucistic elephant. Is there any research that suggests they have a shorten life span due to skin cancers (if elephants even get skin cancer)?
Thank you Chelsea. It has been rarely recorded that elephants get cancer, it has a lot to do with genes. In layman’s terms one of the reasons being, we have a cell in our body that we call a tumor suppressor, this helps get rid of damaged cells that could become cancerous. Humans have one copy of it, elephants have up to 20 copies of it. However; in my opinion a lack of protection against UV rays in the skin and eyes can cause extreme sensitivity to the sun, so it will be interesting to see the development.
beautiful pictures , I’m jealous of the bateleur , it has been a while since I last saw them, only juveniles lately
Thank you Dina, was a great find. Remember it take 6-7 years for the full adult plumage to appear.
no , I didn’t know , we still have to learn even after so many safari !
Thank you , I’ll put “my” juvenile on instagram and tell the story !
Beautiful lion and leopard pics this week, as seems to be the norm for Londolozi. It was good to see the leucistic elephant is doing well, after reading Pete’s informative blog last year highlighting this condition. Always look forward to waking up Friday mornings to view TWIP!!
Thank you for the greta comment Denise, we extremely lucky to see all the animals we do.
Another outstanding ‘Week in Pictures’. Thank you.
Thank you Doug, so glad you enjoyed them.
Wonderful TWIP, Dean! Love the elephant dust bath and the wild dog water bath! Superb bateleurs, too.
Thank you Mary Beth, i must say I think the bateleurs are my favourite too.
Great catch with the elephant sand bathing!
Thank you Vin, I was super lucky with the morning light as well.
Exceptional images, Dean. Always love seeing leopards, and even the occasional lion, resting on a tree branch.
Thank you Joanne, yes that cub on the branch is awesome.
Great photos, Dean! I recognize the Ximungwe female’s cub in the tree!
Saki
Thank you saki, thats correct.
Thank you for all the gorgeous photos and the updates..
Glad you enjoyed Mj
There are some incredible landscape photos in here!!!
Thank you Callum
Dean, I have a problem – since 20 May I haven’t received my Londolozi Blog. Can somebody help me with this please? Thanks, Sue.
I will check for you Sue…
James, thanks so much – yesterday I started getting it again. Thank-You!
Dean, great shots, but we especially like the close up of the spider – just beautiful!
Thank you. Different images sometimes make for the best