Sabi Sand -- Leaping Leopards, Playful Elephants, and Lions on the Move

Sabi Sand was our second stop on a January road trip to South Africa. I wanted to visit Sabi Sand because it’s renowned for leopards, the only one of the “Big Five” that we had not yet seen in the wild. Guides elsewhere would say, “Oh, we saw a leopard the other day,” though all acknowledged that leopards are very elusive and seeing them is largely a matter of luck. But a woman I met last year had told me, "Sabi Sand has leopards on tap.” It definitely lived up to its billing. 

The leopards are all well known to the guides and trackers, who refer to them by name. Most of the pictures here, including this one, are of Tlangisa, which means the playful one, and her two daughters, who were about 10- or 11-months old when we were there.

Leaping leopards! The sisters play a bit of leap frog.Too bad I wasn't shooting video!

We stayed at the very lovely Inyati Private Game Reserve, one of about twenty lodges in the 65,000 Sabi Sand Game Reserve (http://www.sabisand.co.za/about-ssw.html), adjacent to Kruger National Park. The boundary between Sabi and Kruger is unfenced, making one very large area in which animals can range freely. 

View of the Sand River from Inyati. We frequently spotted animals by the river.

But why are leopards relatively easier to find in the Sabi Sand area than elsewhere? Our Inyati guide, Matt, explained that Sabi Sand was the first private reserve in South Africa dedicated to wildlife conservation and tourism. Animals have not been hunted there since its founding in 1934 and thus they don’t see humans as dangerous. The leopards, and the lions as well, basically just ignore you, as long as you stay seated in the game vehicle. 

Tracker Nelson and guide Matt, just about sundown. 

Inyati also differed from other places we have visited in that we had a tracker, Nelson, as well as a guide, on each of the game drives. Nelson sat at the front of the game vehicle to spot tracks and other evidence of the animal's locations. From time to time he would jump down and walk through the bush, and by so doing he and Matt found leopards and rhinos, which also can be very shy. 

Nelson performs impromptu trail maintenance from his seat at the front of the game vehicle. The tree was most likely knocked down by elephants. 

We saw the other big five animals, elephants, cape buffalo, and lions too. The elephant sightings were particularly good, and even though we have seen elephants frequently on our other trips, they remain a treat as their behavior is always fun to watch. Check out the youngsters at play in this video (Sorry friends with an Ipad or some tablets, but this won't display properly. Try viewing it at http://youtu.be/ec5JR429JqU ). 

This cape buffalo's frequent companion is an oxpecker,
which forages insects like ticks that live on the buffalo's hide. 

Most times when you spot lions, in the heat of the day, they are just lying around, sleeping off a previous meal. When the game vehicle drives up, they will lift their heads, just to check things out and make sure the vehicle isn't a threat, before returning to sleep. 

The male lion at the forefront of this pride keeps changing positions.
It seems he just can't get comfortable in the day's heat. 

Here's another photo of a lion, sleeping it off with his leg in the air.
Check out the closeup of his leg muscles at right.

A male lion on the move, just after dusk. 

But on one afternoon game drive, just as it was getting dark, the call came over the game vehicle radio that nearby, a group of male lions were on the move. We raced over to check it out, and after driving through some pretty thick bush, we got great views of the males.