Ranger Diaries March 2012

Ranger Diaries March 2012

March was a very exciting month in the Reserve, with the season changes we are heading fast towards Autumn. The grass is slowly drying out, the evenings are getting rather nippy and we’ve had some wonderful afternoon lightning storms as well as spectacular sunsets over the bushveld.  Babies are growing fast and our game is in excellent condition and getting ready for the cold winter months, which are just around the corner!


We had excellent sightings over the last month.  Our Lion population is up to 11 as there were 4 new cubs born in December 2011. The mother is still hiding the cubs very well, but every now and then we get a glimpse of the cute little ones. The adult and sub adult lions guaranteed us great sightings on an almost daily basis. These three sub adult lions are getting independent and are showing that they are excellent hunters already. Watching them stalking a zebra is always an exciting sighting and we were able to witness a few stalk’s over the past weeks, some more successful than others.  


Our guests were very lucky, as one of the adult females came right up to our game viewer while roaring. To feel the vibration of a lions roar vibrating off your ‘soul’ is a totally awesome feeling and not something that we experience every day.


The Elephants have been enjoying the Sundays River for quite a time but have now moved to the centre of the reserve and we had great sightings of the little ones.
The 4 new bulls we received end of last year from Zimbabwe, seem to have settled in very well and made for some great game viewing. Every now and then one gets a bit cheeky and shows us who the boss of the bush is. 


The Buffalo herd is growing as we had 3 new arrivals over the past three months and the fluffy little calves are too cute for words. The lonely old bulls are still full of nonsense and guarantee us exciting sightings and a vehicle chase every now and then!


After all the terrible news about the rhinos poached countrywide, we are very lucky to have a healthy Rhino population. The dehorning done a while ago seems to have paid off and we have had magnificent sightings, most often of mothers with their calves.


We are looking forward to meeting you at this stunning Reserve WE CALL HOME.

The Springbok Lodge Rangers, Lee, Ruan and Nicole

Ranger Diaries January 2012

Firstly, Happy New Year to all of you, we hope you had a great holiday season.


As we start of this year, the big rains have gifted us with some sorely needed moisture. Compared to last year’s average of around two meters we have had a very dry summer so far. 

The Reserve is looking glorious and the sightings are at their best. Talk of the town on Nambiti is the new Lion cubs! The four of them have been seen in and out of the rocks at the favoured drinks stop… the Sundays River Waterfall. An even popular spot now I am sure. Slowly the visuals have gotten better with the cubs having moved and been spotted recently in the centre of the road, but still in the north of the reserve. Great to hear that they are on the move now and becoming more active out in the open. They are truly too cute!


Elephant, Rhino, Buffalo, Hippo, Cheetah and even Spotted Hyena have graced our roads for some of the better viewings to date this year.
Nambiti truly is the place where your dreams of Africa in its majesty can reconnect in reality.
So long … I look forward to meeting you on the plains of Nambiti …


Ranger Lee

Young Cheetah Sets Chase

1st December 2011

With another incredible sunrise greeting the early rises, I find myself thinking about the year up to now. The sightings at Nambiti have been on the top end of spectacular and this week is by no means the exception.
 
We had a sighting on the western plains area of the reserve and right in front of the vehicle. It was the youngest of our cheetah right in front of the game viewer giving chase to a Duiker through the grass. His tail spinning from one side to the other as he accelerated closer, the young male moving fast to win his prize. Unfortunately for the Cheetah and fortunately for the Duiker a Serval was also hunting the same area. Distracted and very curious the young Cheetah stopped taking the chance to focus his intentions on the Serval.  The Duiker now nowhere to be seen obviously fled the scene. Needless to say the Serval now felt highly threatened and hissed and stomped with his from legs making it clear to the Cheetah he was not in the mood for anything. After about four minutes the Cheetah lost interest thus giving the Serval the chance to make haste.

This was a very rare and interesting sighting for all of us and a first in my book anyway.  A special moment in time here for the Springbok guests and guides; one that will be remembered for a long time to come.

So long - till we meet on the plains of Nambiti …
The Springbok Lodge Rangers ~ Lee, David and Ruan

New Elephant Bull's Released

RANGER DIARIES - 22 November 2011
With our beloved Nambiti Conservancy alive as ever and pulsing from corner to corner after the recent block burns and occasional flickering shower, we see it lush and green wearing its best jacket of the year.

Game from all sides have come to the party and put on some really spectacular shows for us rangers here in the south, keeping us and the guests enthralled in the wonders the bush has to offer.

Yesterday morning (21 November 2011) at 05h00 the first two elephant bulls; of the four to arrive from Makalali near Hoedspruit, in the Limpopo Province; were released onto the property here on the hill by Springbok Lodge. After a not so troublesome journey (luckily for them) they cruised around the bush eventually moving right past the front of our lodge and out of sight through the bush around our tents. I think we are all in hopes of seeing them integrate calmly with the rest of the Ellies here. No doubt that the bulls will soon come into contact with the older resident bull. I for one hope I experience it, from an ecological and personal point of view.

Lion sightings have been great with the three cubs spending much of their time in the south over the last few days. One of their kills entertaining groups for close to three days.

General game are closer to our lodge now thanks to the fresh grass in our surrounds, providing early morning and afternoon sightings, which are often spoken about during the days drive. In fact in a rare case we had three jackal chasing a sub adult impala ram past tent one the other morning, only to find a young ram impala being eaten by three jackal a few minutes later…no doubt the same three we saw.

All in all it looks like its going to be a great end of year as usual, with the amazing and spectacular diversity here.

Till we meet on the plains of Nambiti …

RANGER: Lee Groenewald

Cats galore.

Hello past and future guests of Springbok lodge.

This is what the last week has given us, we had cheetah in our camp for a whole morning and after some great pictures headed out to find a mother Serval and her cub, this was the highlight for most of our guests as many of them had never seen Serval in the wild.

Regular Lion sightings have kept our guests in awe of these amazing animals and this morning we were treated to the whole pride including the 13 month old cubs who stumbled upon a careless Warthog, who soon became breakfast. Overall the game drives have been exiting and action filled, lets keep our fingers crossed that it continues.

Until we next meet on the plains of Nambiti.

The rangers.  

Winters Here !

Hello everyone

As winter closes in and the first frosts appear in the mornings you would expect the animals to be harder to find, however that’s not the case. The grass gets shorter in winter this makes spotting the animals a bit easier than in summer and provides great photographic opportunities. The Elephants have been spending a lot of time close to the lodge over the past week and there are a number of new additions to the herd.

There have been good sightings of lions including the cubs that were born last year may, and our grumpy buffalo are regularly seen as well as the ever inquisitive cheetahs that have been making kills close to the lodge. Other interesting and rare sightings include aardwolf, serval, porcupine and secretary bird.

Warm regards until we next meet on the plains of Nambiti.

The Rangers

Lions cheetahs and Buffalo

We headed out for our morning game drive on the 24^th. None of us expecting the action packed sightings awaiting us…

We left the Lodge and headed up to Bass Dam, as I’d heard our young “lone” Lioness

(aka Trashcan) had made a kill there the night before. On the way there I caught a brief glimpse of a Lioness walking along the D46 fence line. I headed towards the fence line trying to relocate on her, but she gave us the slip in the long grass. Just as we arrived at the Woodlands Gate we bumped into a 2^nd Lioness.  This was one of the older Lioness’s, and she was clearly NOT a happy cat. She was displaying scent marking and flicking her tail and after passing us she headed off on a mission in the direction of Trashcan.

One of the other Rangers followed up on the Lioness and the older Lioness was clearly chasing Trashcan.

We headed back towards Bass Dam where we saw the herd of Buffalo happily grazing. It wasn’t long before the 2 lioness’s passed them along the fence-line. The Buffalo had calves with them and will not tolerate any predators close by and so they ganged up and took off after the 2 Lioness chasing them off for 100m or so.

We then heard that there were some Cheetah close by at “Little Serengeti” so we drove up northward to try locate them.  As we got to the fence line, we saw Trashcan along the fence coming toward us. We stopped to watch her next move.

She popped out of the tall grass and turned towards us and started heading back south. towards the dam. We could see she had been in a fight - there was a bleeding wound on her bum. As “Trashcan” passed us the 3 Cheetah boys saw her and took off like a bolt of lightning.

Seconds later the older Lioness popped out of the grass.  She was absolutely furious. She didn’t know who to chase. The Cheetahs or Trashcan…??

She paced up and down a few times and then started roaring then turned to the north and headed off.

Clearly Trashcan and the older female had had a fight over the Zebra carcass from the night before and although they both looked well fed they were both exhausted from the fight.

The rest of the drive was pale in comparison to the first action packed hour and half of lions cheetahs and Buffalo. And our drive ended the drive with a lovely drinks stop at Homestead dam.