We followed the Shingi Male into the last of the light the evening before. He was kind of moving with purpose, a somewhat deliberate walk as though he was looking for something to eat at times, then within moments it would shift it what looked as though he was just out and about exploring. Nothing came of it while we were there, so eventually we left him to it and headed back to camp. A young male out hunting at dusk. Ordinary enough.
Following the Shingi Male around was such a treat on a recent afternoon game drive. He snuck up this mound to scan for any unsuspecting impalas. I chose to go behind him and get a silhouetted shot. Although it is a rather busy horizon, I think it works well with him looking off to the left in a gap between the bushes.
The last surviving cub of a litter of three, he is on the cusp of independence.
The next morning, a few of the rangers went back into the same area to see what had become of him. They found him quickly, up in a schotia with a carcass hoisted into the fork of the tree. Again, ordinary. Leopards hoist their kills to keep them out of reach of hyenas and lions. Except this time the carcass stopped everyone in their tracks. It was a young aardvark.
Image from a guest which shows the detail of the claws of an Aardvark.
If you have spent any time out here, you will know how rarely that happens. Aardvarks are creatures of the night and the underground. They spend their days sealed inside burrows that can run thirteen metres long, and they only surface once the sun is gone, nose down, working around, seeking out any ants and termites in the dark. A leopard does most of its hunting at night too, but the paths of the two seldom cross in a way that ends badly for the aardvark. When one is threatened, it either vanishes down a hole or rolls onto its back and goes to work with a set of claws built for moving earth. They are not an easy meal, and they are not a common one. In all my years out here, I have only ever seen an aardvark kill once before, and that was the Othawa Male lion feeding on one back in 2020.
To have one now hoisted in a tree, in broad daylight, was the kind of sighting you drop everything for.
Which is exactly what I could not do.
By the time I heard about it, there were already three vehicles in the sighting and two more sitting, waiting for a space to open up. I accepted my place at the back of the queue. And with a morning’s worth of work stacking up back at camp after yet another long search for the Nkoveni Female’s den, I could not sit and wait my turn. So I did the sensible, responsible, deeply unsatisfying thing and carried on with my day.
Then the radio told me the Ximungwe Female had arrived at the carcass.
Two leopards. On an aardvark. If the first bit of news was hard to walk away from, this was starting to feel personal.
Interestingly enough, after the Ximungwe Female arrived, she casually climbed up the tree and began feeding. The Shingi Male was unfazed by this.
Having been viewed by vehicles from an early age, this leopard is supremely relaxed around Land Rovers.
That afternoon I got back out on the drive with every intention of finally getting in there, and, of course, there was a full lineup waiting again. To pour a little petrol on my quietly smouldering mood, word came through that the Maxim’s Male had turned up as well. Three leopards all together. I have documented a lot of leopards over the years, and on the very odd occasion, I have had three of them together over a single carcass, let alone one this unusual. And there I was, somewhere off in the bush still hunting for a den I had yet to find.
A rather unique and different carcass to see a leopard feeding on, but this highlights just how adaptable and successful leopards can be.
So I did what you do. I built my own scenario in my mind of what was unfolding. First, the radio said the Ximungwe Female was up in the tree feeding.
Upon arriving on the scene, the Maxim’s Male chose the less confrontational route and settled in the grass as opposed to charging in to claim the carcass.
Dominant since 2019. Once skittish Kruger-born giant now rules vast territory, transforming from elusive presence to formidable force.
Then the Maxim’s Male arrived, and instead of doing what a big dominant male usually does, he lay down in the long grass and settled in to watch. A few moments later, the Shingi Male made his move. He got up, charged the tree, and went straight up after the Ximungwe Female while she was still on the carcass.
For some reason, the Shingi Male made the decision that he’d better charge into the tree to reclaim the carcass. I wonder if it was because now that the Maxim’s Male had arrived, he didn’t want to lose it to him.
The Ximungwe Female tried her luck with running further up the tree with the carcass, but was unsuccessful in holding on to the carcass.
The two of them had a squabble in the branches, and the Shingi Male came away with the prize, ripping the aardvark clean out of her mouth before hauling it up into the very top of the canopy. The Ximungwe Female took one look at how that had gone, leapt out of the tree, and walked off.
After grabbing the carcass, right out of the Ximungwe Female’s mouth, he bolted right up to the top of the tree.
The Ximungwe Female, not wanting to get caught in a potential scrap between the Maxim’s Male and the Shingi Male, made a swift exit from the tree.
Something phenomenal to note, is that after herd severe injury a while ago, it appears to be fully healed and is not hindering her at all.
It was a bold move, but the Shingi Male has form. He has stood his ground against the Maxim’s Male himself over a kill, so taking on the Ximungwe Female was never going to trouble him much. The good news is that while I was busy achieving nothing, Londolozi guests Val Leafe and Jane Addey were in exactly the right place and caught the whole thing on camera and have all kindly shared what they captured with us too.
The part I keep coming back to is the Maxim’s Male. He is the dominant male here, and the father of half the youngsters on the reserve, the Shingi Male included. His son had just taken a carcass by force, right in front of him, and he did not so much as lift his head off the grass. I half expected him to bolt over and relieve the Shingi Male of his stolen meal. He never did. That kind of tolerance raises a few interesting questions about how long a young male gets to stay on his father’s ground before he has to go and carve out his own. But that is a story for another day.
For now I am left with the mental picture of a young male hauling a stolen aardvark into the top of a schotia, his father watching on from the grass, and me a couple of kilometres away, staring at a thicket, still asking it where the Nkoveni Female had hidden her den.
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on Three Leopards, One Aardvark, and Me at the Back of the Queue