Day 10 - Second Day at Ngala

Our second day at Ngala was full of tremendous wildlife.  In our morning game drive, we came across another young male leopard (the brother of yesterday's) laying in a tree with an engorged belly - having just finished a meal of bushbuck, the carcass of which lay hanging from the same tree, several branches above.

Leopards are incredible animals - they are relentlessly strong, but also stealthy and have a superior intelligence.  After they kill an animal, they surgically remove its organs on the group before dragging the carcass into a tree - knowing that without the organs hyenas, vultures and other scavengers will be less likely to smell the kill and try and steal it.  Lee-Anne said she has even seen older leopard use their claws to slash the throat of a kill while it is dangling from a tree so as to remove the blood from the body and preserve the meat for longer.  Truly an incredible and ferocious animal - no wonder it is the favorite and most respected predator of nearly all of the trackers at the camp.

This tired guy kept adjusting himself to find a comfortable position on the branch.

Leftovers

We came back from our drive, had a quick breakfast of eggs Benedict and passed out in our lodge for an amazing nap.  We woke up around 1 pm and cleaned up to head to lunch.  Lunch - consistent with every meal at Ngala - was delicious.  I had a vegetarian linguine with a tomato sauce and Jen had a Moroccan-style lamb dish with pita bread and humus.  Our lunch was interrupted by a group of elephants coming up to the lodge to drink from the pool - which is about chest-level for them from the riverbed below - and for this reason does not use any chemicals.  It was unbelievable to be so close to the humongous bull elephants as they took several liters of water up their trunks and then sprayed it onto backs or into their mouths.

IMG 5747.MOV from Jen Lutz on Vimeo.

We then met up with Lee-Anne and our drive-mates for our evening drive.  We started the drive through the dried riverbed where a herd of elephants was digging for water

From there we went back to the watering hole, where we enjoyed our sundowner the night before. We watched the massive heads of hippos periodically surface for air and jostle for position.  We were able to snap some pretty spectacular photos of the ferocious teeth that protrude from a hippo's mouth seemingly without any pattern or evolutionary reason (remember, they only eat plants).  Add their aggressive, territorial nature and it should be no surprise that these animals cause more human deaths than lions or crocodiles.

There's a 2-4 month old baby hippo hiding in the middle of the group.

But the pinnacle of this drive was the remainder of the lion pride, of which last night's male belonged.  We rushed through the park after a call came in on the radio that the females and the 9-month old cubs of the pride had been spotted crossing the property, heading to its boundary with Kruger Park.

We had just dropped off Richard, the tracker, (normally sitting on the folded down chair) to follow rhino tracks...he missed all the fun!

We set up at a proper location relative to the other cars and then waited.  Over time, the grayish-yellow coats of enormous female lines started to emerge almost ghost-like from the flat colors of the bush.

As they proceeded across the ground, the other females and the cubs followed behind.  Within a brief period of time, there were about a dozen lions creeping through the forest and once they all made it to the clearing where we had posted up, they sat down - as a group - almost knowing they were being photographed.

After a brief amount of time, the females stood up and smelled the air, then continued their stalking procession with renewed focus ahead - their young cubs seemingly mimicking the serious tone and purposeful stride of the elder females.

Lionesses and Cubs from Jen Lutz on Vimeo.
On the way back to the lodge, we also ran into a solitary hyena (the first of our trip) and a group of zebras (also a first).

Our last sunset with Lee-Anne :(

We then had a surprise stop out in the bush, where the camp staff had set up a bottle of champagne and a birthday cake for Soowan (another one of our drive-mates) who was celebrating her birthday.  (We definitely lucked out on the pairing with drive companions - two nights: two birthday cakes!)

Back at the lodge, Jen and I had a nice dinner with Dylan and Lee-Anne - accompanied by the ferocious roars of the male lions in the not-too-distant background.  They had, apparently, found each other and were now marking their territorial boundaries against outsider males that may be tempted to move into the range.  It was another great night with wonderful people and tremendous food.