Earlier this year, around May, we shared what had happened to the Xinkhova Female’s first litter in a Virtual Safari, and it was one of the harder things we have had to share. It followed a morning when she had reappeared with two of her cubs after we had thought they were lost, and the days that followed did not end the way we had all hoped.
Now, though, she is denning again. Her behaviour has fallen back into much the same pattern she showed the first time round, and we are hopeful that on this occasion the odds of her raising the litter are better.
Late one afternoon we heard impala alarm calling around a dam nearby. We raced into the area, knowing the waterhole sat in the heart of the Xinkhova Female’s territory, and found that she had just had her kill robbed by two hyenas, who were finishing off the impala at the base of the marula tree she was resting in.
Born 2021, daughter of Nkoveni. Young dynamo actively claiming territory near camps, showing promise as next generation's dominant female.
The signs have been building for a few months. Over the last month we have been seeing her far more frequently in the same area she denned in earlier this year, which is usually the first clue, as a female getting ready to den stays close to the place she has chosen. A couple of weeks ago she looked heavily pregnant, and then in our most recent sighting she was considerably less so, even though she was well fed.
A milk pouch is the loose, swollen skin and mammary tissue along a female’s belly, and it is one of the more useful clues we have because it changes in a fairly predictable order. Towards the later stages of pregnancy it begins to enlarge and hang from the belly as her body prepares to feed her young, and once the cubs are born it becomes very swollen and full while the belly itself drops, hangs low and looks somewhat flabby. That is why the pattern we have seen means more to me than any single sighting. A prominent pouch on its own could simply mean a female is late in her pregnancy and has not yet given birth, whereas a prominent pouch followed by a much slimmer belly fits a female who has.
It makes me think she has very likely given birth. I don’t want to overstate it, because a leopard with a full stomach after a kill can look rounder than she really is, but a belly that has shrunk while she is still well fed is not easily explained by food alone. Together with the milk pouch and her movements, the picture is consistent enough that we are confident she is denning again. What we cannot say yet is whether there are live cubs down there, or how many, and that will only come once we lay eyes on them.
This image was taken earlier this year. It was one of my favourite sightings of the year so far, with the Xinkhova Female lying in the soft morning light on the granite boulders of the Sand River.
We believe she has settled once again along the Sand River on the eastern side of the camps, and we haven’t found the den. We have no plans to look for it immediately either, because a female leopard with young cubs has enough to worry about without human activity drawing attention to where they are hidden.
What interests me most is how different this litter could be from the last. Last time she was a first-time mother, working it out as she went along, and we watched her do things that made everyone hold their breath, like carrying a cub in an unusual grip and taking one only a few weeks old up into a tree. A first litter is usually the hardest for a young female, because she has to learn where to hide her cubs, when to move them, and how long she can safely leave them while she hunts, and she has to learn all of it with real cubs depending on the answers.
This was from her first litter earlier this year, in May. Though her carry technique was still rather questionable, anyway, let’s hope that this time around she will be much better prepared.
This time she comes to it having been through the whole cycle once already, from choosing a den site to moving cubs between hiding places and managing those first weeks of hunting while they lay hidden. A leopard does not learn the way we do, but experience still counts for a lot in the bush, and there is reason to believe she will make better decisions with this litter than with her first. She is also older and more settled than she was a year ago, having spent that time establishing herself around the camps, which should help her find food closer to the den and spend less time away from her cubs.
The Xinkhova Female purposefully strides across the centre part of the Londolozi airstrip, as part of her territorial patrol.
None of that is a guarantee. Cubs are vulnerable for months after they are born, and the dangers that took her first litter have not gone away, with hyenas, lions and other leopards still moving through this part of the reserve. Even the best mothers lose cubs. Her own mother, the Nkoveni Female, has raised several litters to independence at Londolozi, but even she has not managed it every time.
For now, the best thing we can do is give her space. If there are cubs, it will be a few weeks before we know how many, and longer before we can say whether they will make it. I feel very privileged to be able to follow her through all of it, the hard parts included.
If she carries even some of what she learned the first time into this one, it could make all the difference.
Exciting news! Always nice to have new cubs in the area. Let’s hope. Things go well this time.