I had the privilege of going out on game drive with both James Tyrrell and his tracker Mike Sithole this past week. I know we have spoken quite a bit about winter in the last few posts but I had forgotten how beautifully crisp winter mornings felt here in the lowveld. After spending the last few weeks amongst bright lights and too much noise in the city it was incredible to get back to the open, quiet expanse of the Sabi Sand Reserve.
We spent time bumbling through the bush taking in the sounds, sights and silence of nature at work, as the sun was just about to rise over the dry dense bush. It was a hazy morning with various raised areas of land popping out above the layers of mist in the distance. This made for some great attempts at catching a giraffe walking in front of the sun.
We were lucky enough to find the Sparta Pride lying in the picturesque morning light, here one of the sub adults had just explored a dried up pan and was now grooming himself while the rest of the pride lay scattered around him.
The next morning we set out with the intention of birding all morning, however we just seemed to attract elephant herds wherever we went. Needless to say, not much birding was done as we spent time with these majestic creatures.
We eventually left this large herd of elephants and continued on our birding mission. Once again our birding endeavors were put on hold when we heard monkeys alarm calling in the distance, this time Mike Sithole used his incredible eye sight and tracking abilities to track and find the Tamboti female and her two cubs. This was by far one of the most incredible sightings of my life! So naturally I have added a number of pictures from this morning… Enjoy!
Written and Photographed by Jacqui Hemphill
Great compositions and action sequence of the Tamboti cubs. Really nice post Jax 🙂
Great Stuff Hemp! not just a pretty face 😉
Great post hemp! Was so good to have you at the lodge for a few days! xx
Love the high-5 in the last shot!
That was indeed a special sighting! 🙂
Jamo
What a wonderful opportunity with the Tamboti cubs.. My favorite big cat is a leopard and these two are beautiful.
Thank you for sharing your snapshots of your corner of paradise!
Awesome photos and write up…
Typical JT… Always avoiding his birding weaknesses… tut tut tut…