Some discoveries in the bush happen by pure instinct.
Others… happen 17 days later.
This week’s Virtual Safari comes with a confession.
While searching for the Ximungwe Female’s den a few weeks ago, I came out with plenty of footage and photographs, but I didn’t properly comb through them. It was only over two weeks later, while scrolling through images in search of a landscape shot for a blog, that I noticed something subtle. A flicker. A movement on a boulder between two frames.
Zooming in, my heart skipped.
It wasn’t a trick of the light. It wasn’t a bird.
It was a leopard.
Seventeen days earlier, I had unknowingly photographed the exact spot where the Ximungwe Female had tucked her cubs away.
Armed with that knowledge, we returned to the area, this time knowing precisely where to look. And the turnaround was mercifully quick.
What followed was one of those mornings that makes you quietly grateful for second chances. The Ximungwe Female, moving carefully through the grass, and her two six-week-old cubs tumbling about. She has chosen her den site well, and it’s incredibly difficult to view properly, perfectly protected, and clearly serving its purpose.
She has done a sterling job.
So while I may have been 17 days late to the realisation, I can now rest easy knowing the den has been found, the cubs are thriving, and the story continues.
Enjoy this week’s Virtual Safari…
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on 17 Days Late to Find This Den! | Virtual Safari #313