There are some sightings that completely catch you off guard. The kind that makes you blink a few times and wonder whether your eyes and your brain are telling the same story. I can only imagine that’s exactly how Andrea and Sersant felt when they stumbled across this scene by pure chance: the Ndzanzeni Female Leopard, chest-deep in mud, dragging an impala out of a waterhole.

If I’d come across that, my brain would’ve short-circuited. Maybe a buffalo stuck in the mud? A drowned impala, chased in by wild dogs? But a dainty female leopard diving into a waterhole after a meal is not exactly something you expect to see before your sundowner Gin and Tonic.

Now, I wasn’t there to witness the chaos first-hand, but piecing things together, Andrea and Sersant reckon she must have been lying in ambush near the edge of the waterhole, tucked away in a thicket. A herd of impala wandered down to drink in the midday heat, blissfully unaware. Then, with a burst of spots and dust, she launched her attack. One impala, caught completely off guard, did what impalas do best — made a bad decision — and leapt straight into the water.

A scene probably very similar to something like this!

You can almost picture the Ndzanzeni Female freezing mid-chase, looking at the impala’s splash, then deciding, “Well, this wasn’t in the plan, but alright, here we go.”

So in she went. Straight into the mud. The Ndzanzeni Female waded in after the struggling impala, took full advantage of its predicament, and finished the hunt right there in the murky shallows.

Of course, nothing that noisy ever goes unnoticed in the bush. Before long, a hyena came trotting over, ears pricked, probably thinking it had just heard the dinner bell. And what a scene it must have arrived to: a drenched leopard, doing all the heavy lifting, while a hyena sat comfortably on the bank, watching the spectacle unfold, just waiting for dinner to be served.

Hyenas are many things, but lazy isn’t one of them; they’re just efficient. Why chase when someone else can do the hard work? So it waited, eyes locked on the dripping carcass, while the Ndzanzeni Female tried desperately to hang onto her prize.

She wasn’t giving up without a fight. Covered in mud and running on pure determination, she tried to drag the carcass to safety, occasionally throwing a few annoyed swats at the hyena. It didn’t help much. Hyenas don’t do “intimidated.” They do “persistent.”

Eventually, after one particularly tense exchange, a sharp swat from the leopard, a snap and lunge in reply, the Ndzanzeni Female decided that was enough and retreated into the nearest bush, looking half her usual colour and probably wondering what she had gone through all that struggle for.

The hyena, now in sole possession of the carcass, made quick work of what was left. I’m always amazed at how much a hyena can eat, and even more so at the speed with which they can turn a full impala into, well, not much.

Feeling a bit exposed but determined to finish its meal in peace, the hyena dragged the remains away from the water’s edge. This gave the Ndzanzeni Female a small window to sneak back in and try her luck. After all that effort: the ambush, the dive, the mud, the hyena, she probably ended up with a single mouthful of food.

Leopards are the ultimate opportunists, and if there’s a chance to capitalise on a mistake, they’ll take it. But seeing one this filthy was still a shock. Leopards are normally the picture of elegance — spotless, sleek, coats in immaculate condition, and rightfully so given the amount of time and energy they spend delicately grooming themselves. Always looking like they’ve just stepped out of a salon. This one looked like she’d gone headfirst into a rugby scrum.

And then, of course, there’s the cleanup job to think about. Hours of grooming, licking, and spitting out mud, a thankless task for one very unimpressed leopard.

Now here is the video of the scene:

Well done to Andrea and Sersant for capturing the whole thing. They’ve perfected the art of binotography — filming through binoculars with a phone — and this was one for the books. A drenched leopard, a smug hyena, and a reminder that in the bush, you should never say you’ve seen it all… because the next thing you see will prove you wrong.