Rangers Blog 21 June
Sarah-Estelle Sangster

This morning was a brisk morning with a layer of frost glistening across parts of the reserve which was a surprise to us all! But once again there were some fantastic sightings in store for us. We first came across two female rhinos still busy sleeping at the side of the road. Even the sound of us approaching did not disturb them from their slumber though there was some characteristic ear movement signalling that they were aware of our presence. We left them to continue their slumber in peace. Last night late in the evening one of the rangers found a lioness and her two cubs (now almost a year old) so we moved into the area to see if we could pick up any tracks and establish their direction of movement. We did find tracks in the area and started to follow them. We followed the tracks for almost 45 minutes when another ranger called in a sighting of our male lion not too far away. A hippo had died in a nearby dam two days ago (we believe in a territorial battle) and the male lion had gone for an effortless snack. We immediately thought that the lions whose tracks we were following were going in the same direction. We found them and they did eventually meet up with the male who had just quenched his thirst at the dam. As we left they had moved into a shady area close to the dam to no doubt sleep for the rest of the day. We planned to have a coffee stop at another dam close to the lodge but as we got there we discovered that our three hundred strong herd of buffalo had beat us to it and were slowly coming to the waters edge for a drink and a splash around! Rather than go somewhere else for coffee we took full advantage of the sighting in the sunshine and then returned to the lodge for breakfast with big smiles on our faces.