For more than 2 years I have been contributing back page articles to this magazine and I have also completed a couple of online courses with them.
My biggest Wildlife Campus achievement to date?
Probably the fact that I started a course with them 20 years ago…and I have yet to complete it! FGASA Level1. I started it so long ago that the course has changed its name!
A version of this article first appeared in The Wildlife Campus magazine in April 2021.
Many of my back page articles have revolved around incidents where I have placed myself, or been placed, in a situation where I could have been killed or at the very least, mauled or badly injured.
This month, my story is both happy and has an uplifting ending where no one was injured or harmed.
Lockdown has proven to be a difficult time for both the lodges that I usually frequent as well as travel opportunities that were few and far between during these past 15 months.
As a regular bush goer, it was getting to a point where my need to be out of the urban situation and back into nature was getting to be a priority and important for my mental health.
Although I had been on a couple of trips, the one animal that eluded me on every occasion was the most elusive of all the cats, the leopard.
It was getting to a point where I started taking their lack of appearance as a personal slight against me.
However, this all was about to change when an opportunity presented itself to visit the “home of the leopard”, Sabi Sands.
Guests both local and international know that this area can almost guarantee a sighting of these spotted felines, but given my current track record ‘almost’ was a word that loomed large in that sentence.
6 game drives beckoned and I was hoping that at least one of those would grant me a sighting, no matter how fleeting.
I should not have been concerned as the cats fell out of the trees from the first outing.
During the COVID-19 lockdown, several of the luxury lodges have closed their doors due to dwindling guest occupation and the leopards have taken advantage of this fact.
Given that many of the lodges are built to offer their guests the best views, the animals are making use of this to their advantage when searching for prey.
Our guide responded to a radio call that one of the large males in the area had been spotted (pun intended) lying on the deck of one of those currently abandoned lodges.
We arrived to find him ensconced in a corner of the deck under a Jackalberry tree, lording over all he surveyed.
While sitting and watching him watching us, a passing guide informed us that there was a SECOND leopard INSIDE the property. Try as we might we were unable to spot him from our vantage point and despite driving along the riverbank in front of the lodge, he remained elusive.
But we needn’t have worried for this drive was about to end on a high note.
A female leopard and her cub had been sighted less than 300m from where we were parked!
There was a moment of hesitation as we considered staying to await the possible arrival of the male that was inside the lodge that were were currently parked outside, but the fact that the pair was out in the open made the decision an easy one as we slowly drove to spend time with the duo.
And what a sighting it turned out to be. Mom and offspring enjoying each other and now and again the inquisitive youngster would wander in our general direction, only to be called back by a soft vocalization.
It is moments like this when nature provides sightings that will be remembered for a lifetime, that all else becomes secondary and just being in the moment is enough.
If you want to do an online nature/hospitality course, this should be your go-to website. Click on the logo above to visit their website and enroll in the course of your dreams.
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