The past two weeks have been rather exciting and active in the reserve, with a number of sightings of Rhino, Buffalo, Elephant & Lion. The last few days have been particularly active around the lodge waterhole with sightings of beautiful large herds of elephant drinking and playing in the mud.
It is common at this time of year to see behaviour like this from Elephant, when the African heat becomes too much for them and they need to cool down by spraying muddy water on their bodies. They will generally spray between the front legs where there is a large number of blood vessels that run close to the surface of the skin in these soft areas, allowing the blood to cool faster and the body temperature to drop respectively.
There has also been a great number of Zebra, Wildebeest, Impala, Warthogs and even Giraffe frequenting our water hole to quench their thirst as the day progresses.
The lodge also saw exciting predator activity in the last week when some Cheetah were camping out and relaxing in the tree line just off the lodge waterhole. It is really special and a rare treat to see these amazing African predators, considering they are an endangered species and that there are only small areas of Africa that are able to sustain wild populations of Cheetah.
