The other day, we had the treat of seeing a leopard that we don’t often see: the Piccadilly Female. I’ve been wracking my brains and don’t think I’ve actually ever seen her before, which was extremely exciting!
A recent photo of the Piccadilly Female perched in a marula overlooking her surroundings.
This female is most often encountered near the Sand River to the east of the Londolozi camps.
Since the majority of her territory lies north of the river in our eastern neighbour, we don’t see her often anymore. I’m sure she’s on our property more than we think, but she spends a lot of time in and around the river, making it easy for her to go unseen. Her territory used to overlap in the northern parts of the reserve quite a bit, but since she ceded some of her territory to the Ngungwe female in 2020, sightings of her have become far less frequent as she has made space for herself further east of our boundary.
Her territory is quite interesting, falling right on the boundary of two male leopards: the Maxims Male and the Flat Rock Male. Being a female leopard, she would most likely mate with both of these males to safeguard her cubs. By mating with both, they will each think they are the father of the cub, and while they don’t take part in raising the cubs, they actively defend their territories and keep other males at bay, who could pose a significant threat to her cubs during their younger years.
The Piccadilly Female on a territorial patrol led us down to the Sand River. The morning sun catches her golden coat while she walks on the granite boulder and then down to the inaccessible middle channel
A dominant male leopard over the majority of the north. He originally took over the 4:4 Male's territory when he died.
Fairly skittish male that is presumed to have come from the Kruger National Park.
The Piccadilly Female has just raised a young male who is very close to independence, if not already independent. Only a handful of guides at Londolozi, if that, have seen this young male since most of the Piccadilly Female’s territory lies beyond the boundary of Londolozi. With this young male being so close to independence, it brings me to the reason for writing this post. We had the most incredible sighting of the Piccadilly Female very far away from her territory, mating with the Maxims Male.
Having received reports of a mating pair of leopards from the Tracker Academy, early in the morning, tracker Life Sibuyi, our guests, and I headed down into the area where they were last seen, hoping for a chance encounter. It’s not often you get to see leopards mating! While driving through the area, there wasn’t much sign of them nor any audio; mating is an extremely loud affair, and often it’s through this that they are found.
After driving around for some time, we decided to head back to where they were last seen. On the way, somehow Life managed to spot the Piccadilly Female about 300 meters away, walking along the road. As we got closer and spent some time with her, we realized the male wasn’t with her, but she was definitely on the scent of him, with her nose very close to the ground as she walked back on herself and around in circles. She would walk for a bit, clearly on the scent, then lose it, repeating the process until, eventually, about 45 minutes later, she led us to the Maxims Male, who was finishing off the remains of a warthog kill.
What was most amazing about this sighting was that she was very far out of her own territory. It’s known that female leopards will seek out and follow a male quite far to mate. Females typically induce the mating bouts. It was certainly an area I never thought I would see this female leopard in, but it was an incredible surprise. This bout didn’t last too much longer after we saw them; perhaps they were found later on in their mating process. Typically, they will spend 4-5 days together before heading their separate ways.
Unfortunately there are no pictures of the Piccadilly female and the maxims male mating but here is a photo of the Mashaba female and Senegal Bush male mating.
The chance of her falling pregnant straight away after just having raised a cub is highly unlikely and hopefully we will get the chance to see this rare sighting again but will keep you updated as time heads on. Hopefully we will start to see her more often.
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on Mating Leopards: The Piccadilly Female and Maxims Male