Web Administrator's Note - this is the Kwando Safaris monthly sighting report for May 2011. As usual, this will be a two part blog post. First up will be Tau Pan Camp and Kwando Lagoon Camp. My next post will feature Kwando Safaris Kwara Camp, Nxai Pan Camp, and Kwando Lebala Camp. Special thanks to Kwando Safaris for providing the content for this update.

Tau Pan Camp

The lions went into hiding for a little while, but luckily, towards the end of the month, they were back drinking out of the waterhole in front of the camp. It takes quite a bit of effort for lions to start moving if they are really quite happy where they are…. Such as, right next to the airstrip with planes landing. One guide was driving his guests to the airstrip for the flight out, got to the strip, found the plane and the lions, but no pilot! Concerned that the lions looked a little well fed, he radioed back to camp to ask for assistance. Luckily, the pilot had been picked up by an earlier vehicle, and was enjoying watching the lions from a different vantage point!

Cheetah were consistent throughout the month - several kills were observed, by several different cheetahs. It was a bonus that they were found often at Tau Pan, so we didn’t have to go far to find them!

Amazingly, wild dogs were seen too. Again, we do know that they are around, but do not expect to see them. Central Kalahari Game Reserve is immense, and the dogs home range in this arid country are huge, so it is extremely lucky to see the dogs there!!

Still no elephant to be seen, but plenty of signs around.

Tau Pan always has a lot of black backed jackals, and in the evening you can hear them in the camp. A more rare sighting was the one of a cape fox, hanging around room1 early in the morning.

General game sightings were of springbok, wildebeest, oryx, red hartebeest, steenbok and giraffe.

Honey badgers were also seen and a black mamba. That mamba is not called the black mamba because of its body colour, but for the colour of its mouth – not something everyone wants to see close enough to tell!

Kwando Lagoon Camp

The two male lions that are recent arrivals to the concession have banded with two lionesses – one of which is now heavily pregnant. The lionesses killed a buffalo to share with the males.

The pride of 13 lions were lucky hunters too, killing a giraffe and a http://thewildsource.com/tws/zebra.aspx">zebra – all well fed and happy lions this month at Lagoon!

Guides are reporting that they had more than usual http://thewildsource.com/tws/leopard.aspx">leopard sightings, most of them on kills. Perhaps interested in a form of nouvelle cuisine, one leopard was observed hunting dwarf mongoose – a slightly small snack for the leopard. The mongoose, however, was swifter and got away.

The three cheetah brothers were seen on several occasions. One time they had an ostrich kill, and the other time they tried to hunt a baby zebra. The zebra mother defended her baby very well though, and after one of the brothers got kicked they decided to give up. The cheetah’s body is build for speed, not for strength, and risk of being injured in such a challenge is high.

The pack of 11 wild dogs has been seen several times. They look fit and healthy, and were followed on a couple of hunts, some more successful than others. No sign of them denning as yet, but it should be within the next week or so.

As in the other camps, the elephants are coming out of the woodlands, and entertain us watching them feeding and bathing. Some of them seem quite happy to enjoy the camp as much as the guests, and one of our walkways needed a bit of repair after an elephant decided to have a closer look at a particularly interesting tree one night. Everyone was tucked up in bed when this happened, so only the evidence was found the next morning – perhaps he was heading for the pool?

Herds of buffalo up to a 100 strong come out of the woodlands into the floodplains, and to have a drink at the river.