4 Oct 2010: Pm safari. Started out slow. Walked in to one Rhino bull close to old camp – very good sighting on foot. Not a lot of plains game, but did see 6 lions near Western Cutline. A serval on the night drive on the way home – a rare and exciting sighting of this nocturnal cat. (Dave)
 
07 Oct 2010: Overcast and slight drizzle. Not decent rain. Fairly quiet drive but with good sightings of giraffe, kudu and impala. No sign of elephant, but also no sign of them leaving the area on our cutline’s that border Kruger. Will track later today. PM drive – found full-grown giraffe kill with vultures and hyena on it. Great sightings of 15 plus hyena with two clans meeting and interacting. On the drive back saw 4 rhino at the dam, incl the very small calf. 3 civet sightings this evening as it got dark! (Mark)

09 Oct 2010: AM drive - Zebra and impala and nice journey of 8 giraffe. Fresh male lion prints (adult male) by Rhino Rubbing Post. Followed vultures to very fresh leopard kill (impala ram), 2 kudu bulls, 4 wildebeest. (Mark)

15 October 2010: Very cold and windy conditions. No ideal for game viewing. Very pleased to see large buffalo herd some 400 animals strong. Nice white Rhino bull sighting on pump road.
Pm drive – weather still bad, but took blankets on drive for guests. Giraffe at sundowner spot (or rather coffee with Amarula liqueur!) Hyena on a buffalo carcass, wildebeest and excellent kudu sighting. Returned to camp earlier than usual because of cold weather, but later went out on a short night drive – watched hyena eating at a buffalo carcass until two male lions chased the hyena’s off. Interestingly the lions did not feed off the buffalo – perhaps they had eaten elsewhere – but were not letting hyena’s continue their feeding! (Mark)

24 Oct 2010 – slow general game today, but got big herd of buffalo drinking at the dam. Also found male lion at the dam this AM. He must have killed something during the night, as he is very full and lazy today. 16 buffalo, kudu, impala and warthogs at waterhole in camp during breakfast.
Excellent PM drive – lion at the dam, good sighting of rhino bull at the wallow at the dame. 2 breeding herds of elephant drinking at the dam whilst we had sundowners. 3 spotted hyena on the way home. Side striped jackals calling around camp during the evening.  (Dave)

26 Oct 2010: Big herd of buffalo in Nyati drive – the herd is very nervous. Suspect that the lions harassed them all night. No sign of the lions this PM, but the mother leopard of the two cubs born in Dec 2009 at the dam. Extremely relaxed and came to drink right in front of us as the sunset. Great sighting. Took video footage. General game a bit slow, but good giraffe and zebra. Also heard leopard calling close to camp last night. (Dave)

28 Oct 2010 – 2 x male lions near broken dam, 1 large male hippo and warthog at the big dam.
This afternoon we had an excellent drive; waterbuck on the western cutline, and 3 male giraffe in the same area. A group pf 3 male and 2 female white rhino on the southern cutline near Old Plough. Great plains game also on southern cutline – impala, kudu and zebra. Watched hippo at the dam during sundower’s. 2 male lions calling next to the vehicle near broken dam on the way back to camp. (Brett)

30 Oct 2010 – good drive this morning. Found group of “dagga boys” (older male buffalo rejected by the large herd), appox 13 near Nyati drive. Martial Eagle sighting. Excellent general game at main dam- impala, zebra and warthog. Also found leopard tracks at the dam – will hopefully find them tonight. (Brett)

PM drive – hippo at the dam and breeding herd of elephants. Leopard heading south near Ingwe road. White Rhino and calf near broken dam. Bush bays sightings on night drive. (Brett)

image courtesy N Gauntlett, visitor Sept 2010

October 2010 - 08th - 12th: After an appaling year of Rhino poaching in South Africa, we are happy to report that this week, we have had excellent sightings of White Rhino at Shindzela. We have also spotted two newborn rhino calves, which is very exciting.

12th April 2010:

We recently had two giraffe give birth on the Johnniesdale / Shindzela concession,and last week, guests were lucky enough to come across one of the giraffe with a newborn that was still struggling to get up, and who was still full of the blood and mucous from birth. Sadly, two days ago, we found this baby had been caught and killed by a leopard. It looks like the other youngster born about a month ago was killed by lions. We found leg bones being dragged across a game drive road (as shown by Dave) - in all likelihood, the spotted hyena's spirited some of the carcass away from the area of the kill.

20 March 2010: Cheetah Research in the Timbavati Reserve. Learn more

A mother cheetah and 3 cubs were spotted on 20th March at Shindzela. The researchers are looking for this female and would like to dart her to place a collar on her, so that they may track her and learn more about her movements. Photography courtesy Bruce Bailey, USA who stayed at Shindzela Tented Camp 17 - 20 March 2010.

03 January 2010: Early December brought some heavy rainfall, and mud wallows presented great opportunities to see elephant and buffalo have a glorious time splashing around and cooling off. We have not had rain for the past two weeks, so the wallows are drying up - this wallow is almost dry. 

We are always advising guests not to leave their shoes, wallet or camera bag in the dining tent or on their tent decks. We of course forgot this good advice, and a spotted hyena decided to snack on Dave's wallet which was left on the dining room table. Fortunately, he did not sink his teeth into the VISA card. The wallet was left lying out at the fireplace!

30 November 2009

We headed off to the Timbavati a few days ago in search of a new white lion cub that had been seen on the property next to ours. The cub is only about 2 months old and has'nt been seen before - it was in the company of it's mother and three other tawny siblings.

We had no luck looking for the cub, but did have a fantstic amount of buffalo and elephant on the property- as can be seen from the photo on the home page. They were there every night when we got back from drive and guests had to be ferried back and forth between the tents and dining room in the land cruiser !

Being the start rainy season, the clouds have been building up every afternoon and we have been looking forward to a bit more welcome rain. Our drive on Monday afternoon was uncharacteristically quiet - we saw a herd of buffalo, a lone jumbo bull and not much else. Animals sense imminent changes in weather...

The wind steadily increased during the late afternoon, and storm clouds gathered. At about midnight, the heavens opened with a vengance; the hail came down and the wind blew. Chairs were knocked over in the dining room, the rain fell in sheets and the river rose. By 5.30am the next morning the river bed in front of the camp had swelled to a raging torrent, and was well over two metres deep. The river was now literally at the dining room. Over 150mm of rain fell in about 6 hours - this is over 20% of our summer rainfall in 6 hours!

Taking the cruiser, Enoch and I headed out to scout the river crossing. Our normal access route was completely impassable - the rivers were far too high, and it was clear that an alternative route had to be found.

The Timbavati river crossing was an alternative route, adding a detour of about 30 kilometres.  Unfortunately by the time we had collected our guests and returned, that river has risen by another metre. As we had no alternative but to leave that morning, we packed our bags, loaded our gear and headed for the Mbloyi River.

The next door lodge also had the same problem, and they were stranded on two of their boundaries by high rivers. We waited, and as the Mbloyi river subsided, we decided to risk the crossing. With the assistance of our staff and the staff from our neighbouring lodge, a strap was placed on the back of the Landrover and on the front of our 4X4 - with pulling from the front and pushing from the back we made it through !

The water was over the bonnet but one more crossing and we would be home fee. The second crossing was a bit more difficult than the first but we made it through too - 17 km further on we were home free and back on the tar. A trip that can be done in a normal sedan took six hours to complete in a 4X4; but we were out. Rus and Brenda had enough time to get to thir next destination and we headed back to HQ to dry out. 

The river has subsequently subsided; the roads are a drier, and the white lion cub remains elusive (for now.....)

Ranger Dave

 28th November 2009: Large herd of buffalo at Shindzela. Two large bulls decided to hang around and graze in camp, making it necessary for us to collect guests from their tents by Landcruiser transfer (sort of like a golf cart pick up...bush style) Good sightings of elephant family groups with small youngsters. Last night lions killed a week old buffalo calf - the kill area was very well trampled, leading us to suppose that the buffalo herd put up quite a fight to try and protect the youngster.

We are starting to build en suite bathrooms for each tent, and building should be complete by mid December. We have had a lot of Big Five animals in camp recently, so thought it would be more comfortable for visitors to visit an en suite shower and loo....  Although we often have animals in camp, they are relaxed and we are suitably cautious & aware of safety

14th November 2009:The rains have arrived! We received in excess of 30mm of rain last night, and our dry river bed in front of camp flowed for a number of hours. Green grass shoots have started appearing, and the camp is looking more lush.  A small herd of buffalo were in camp today, grazing along the banks of the river bed. Our small resident herd of impala came to drink at the waterhole, and we noticed the first baby impala in this herd. 

October 2009: It's still very dry in the Timbavati, and the elephants are frequenting our camp waterhole fairly often. These photos were taken from the last tent in camp and from inside our shower. This month we have had excellent sightings of buffalo and white rhino. The buffalo herd seen during October numbers in the region of 500 or so animals. They are often followed by a large pride of lions - it seems that buffalo are the pride's main source of food. There are a number of buffalo carcasses in the veld - all the easier to see now that the grass is so dry and short.

We have had good sightings of owls recently on our night drives - the other evening our night drive yielded a Giant Eagle owl, a white faced owl, and a pearl spotted owl. We are also saw both large and small spotted genets, African wild cat, Bush baby, civet and a chameleon. 

The first baby impala's have been born. They seem to be a bit early this year, as usually the first rains have started before the babies are born.  Other exciting news in October is that we found fresh evidence of a Black Rhino midden on our concession - we are keeping a look out for Black Rhino.

We hosted a group of travel agents in camp this last weekend (6/7 Nov), and were rewarded with excellent lion sightings. We think that there may have been a shift in the prides' social hierachy, as they were all calling from different areas over a course of two nights. The male lions that we saw were also clearly agitated, so perhaps there has been a shift in dominance amongst the males. On the Saturday night a lioness walked right through camp whilst we were having dinner. She was resonding to a calling male lion on the other side of the dry river bed that runs past camp, and the camp was simply in the middle of her route!

 Posted by: Laura & Enoch - Shindzela Tented Safari Camp, Timbavati

  28th September - it's so very hot for a pregnant spotted Hyena, who takes a dip. It's warming up in the Timbavati as summer sets in. The bush is very dry at the moment, although tree's are beginning to show some greenery.

The month of August saw some spectacular lion sightings on the Shindzela concession in the Timbavati Reserve, South Africa. For a period of 4 days in early August, we were able to witness a pride of 12 lions pull down a buffalo. This brought great opportunities to watch the social interactions of the pride, and also to fully experience the process in nature that occurs when a kill is made.

This pride of lions is known in the reserve as the “Caroline” pride. This pride varies in size from 12 - 16 members, and they regularly attack buffalo - it’s  a large animal that can adequately satisfy the hunger of such a large pride. Late one night, we heard the pride attack the buffalo, and early the next morning, we set out with the Landrover to locate the kill. On finding the kill, we settled in to observe this pride of lions feeding off the buffalo.

The initial feeding on the kill was dominated by a large and very aggressive male lion (featured in photo), whilst some of the braver females fought for a place to feed at the carcass. A while later, a lioness with two small cubs, aged approximately 2 months, tried in vain to be allowed to feed from the carcass, but was chased off each time by the stronger, more dominant  lions. She had to wait her turn. This lioness was very careful to keep her cubs far from the rest of the feeding pride, and hidden in the thick bush.

Later that evening, the spotted hyenas in the area began their distinctive, haunting calling, alerting each other each other to the presence of food.  The lion pride had gorged themselves on the buffalo meat all day, and had moved away from the kill site, giving  Africa’s premier scavengers an opportunity to feast on the left over meat. At one point, over 11 hyena’s visited the carcass, varying in age, and allowing us to truly witness their social behaviour and feeding habits.

The next day, the carcass had been spotted by white backed vultures, who were all over the kill, and were now able to feed in a relatively undisturbed manner. Today, the only evidence of this powerful, natural wildlife drama that lies in the African veld are the bones, and even these will be broken down by small carnivores, ants and bacteria – Dave Falkner, Shindzela safari guide. Photographs courtesy Georg Piel. 

Recently, we were happily disrupted in camp by a breeding herd of elephants, who saw fit to dig in the dry river bed (that runs in front of the camp), in search for clean, refreshing water. We sat on the deck of a tent, and watched them playing and generally horsing around for over an hour.

This was a whole family group, made up of matriarchs, sub adults and babies - all using their powerful trunks to shift the river sand and take long drinks of the pure water. The herd was relaxed and playful – a fantastic close encounter!