17 February - 18 February

 Monday afternoon never truly gathered pace. We on a single stretch of road, found female leopard and her cub’s tracks, a male leopard track (walking in the opposite direction) and a lone male lion’s tracks, also heading in the same direction as the female and cubs.

Luckily, the lion veered off and headed eastward while Shadow and her cubs made headway for 2^nd windmill and the Marakene riverbed. A little later on we found her tracks sans the cubs, indicating that she had likely left them somewhere in the drainage line and was now off to hunt for the next few days, unless of course favour is kind and she makes a kill sooner.
This is not unusual behaviour for leopards and young cubs can be left for days at a time while their mothers are out hunting.

It is during this time that cubs learn to become independent, initially hunting small game like mice and rats, then migrating on to larger prey like francolins, hares, mongoose, et cetera.

  While the evening before presented a bounty of general game and some exciting birds like the African black duck, a female white-faced duck with multiple hatchlings in tow ( I think we counted a total of eight ducklings), Steppe eagle and Bateleur. This morning was once again, a different kettle of fish.
Within minutes of departure a staff member driving out the reserve made a quick call to one of the camps stating a pack of wild dogs was presently running down Gowrie Main and straight towards Nkorho.
This worked out rather nicely as we were in the east, so driving westward we got our first glimpse of dogs running straight towards us, the sunrise directly behind and shining on the dogs with a golden brilliance.
Ignorant of our presence we watched in awe as the entire pack ran right past the side of the Cruiser, thrilling the guests and leaving all with sheepish grins of delight.

We turned around and followed the pack for a few kilometres as they ran along the road, only stopping occasionally to investigate various scents that only their noses could pick up.
Eventually, about half a kilometre from the Nkorho driveway they veered northward into Torchwood and lay up about 120 metres into the block to sleep the remainder of the day away.
Hopefully this afternoon will bring them back to the man road and past the Nkorho sign where we can then get some shots of Nkorho wild dogs!

  Last but not least, Bahuti (young male leopard) was found sleeping next to a small pan behind a dam wall. He lay there, yawning and occasionally glancing about when a bush rustled, or bird traipsed through the grass, but in the end, went completely flat cat and like the wild dogs, began his heat-of-the-day siesta.

  We took this as our cue and elected to walk the remainder of the distance from Fig tree back to camp looking at various tracks, dung, scats, tress with their uses, butterflies and birds.
By the time we got back to camp the temperature was already a feisty 26 degrees in the shade leaving only ice cold water and a hearty breakfast ahead.