We were in Sabi Sands reserve in South Africa in late August 2020, let out of lockdown. It felt just like the end of a long term at boarding school. At last we were again able to travel to our beloved bush places. The bush experience washes away all those urban tensions and allows you to be present in the moment. It is a place where all your senses feel alive.

I was part of a group of avid photographers who spent five days in Sabi Sands hosted by Wild Eye. The weather was heavily overcast and drizzling. for most of the time. It was cold, and once on the game vehicle and moving we got properly wet and the cold turned to freezing. The weather did not matter, we were in the African bush with our cameras to photograph the scenes and the wildlife, and we were determined to work with the light we had.

“Africa is known for her heat, dust and wild things, and she is unpredictable. This journey was damp and cold but speckled with many wild things. The rain brings life to a winter-dried bushveld but territorial boundaries are washed away and new imperatives must be asserted.” ~ Mike Haworth

Sabi Sands has a high density of predators. There are daytime predators like cheetahs and wild dog, and nocturnal predators like lions, hyaenas and leopards. We did not get to see civets and genets at night mainly because the weather was challenging for much of the time. We did get a glimpse of a white-tailed mongoose but it was too far to photograph at night.

The guides on the vehicles were in radio contact with each other communicating the locations of sightings and fresh tracks to each other. The combination of radio contact and tracks meant that we had a high chance of finding those elusive cats.

“The voice of beauty speaks softly; it creeps only into the most fully awakened souls” ~ Nietzsche

On our third day our guide, Greg, got a radio call that a cheetah had been seen next to the Sabi Sabi airfield. In the cold and drizzle, we drove to the airfield to see what we could find. We found a lone sub-adult male cheetah. A family of cheetahs had been seen in this part of the reserve for the previous few days. The family comprised four sub-adult males and their mother.

While we were parked next to the airfield watching this lone male cheetah, a little spell of serendipity presented itself out of the cold overcast early morning. Out of the bush behind us came a pack of wild dogs. They wandered along the edge of the runway for a short while and eventually got sight of the young male cheetah. Numbers count in the bush and so does size. The dogs started trotting toward the cat. This looked like it would turn into an interesting test of speed versus numbers.

All of a sudden, behind the cheetah we were watching, another cheetah dashed off to the left. In an instant, the cheetah we were focused on followed. Within seconds we heard the cry of a duiker as one of the cheetahs caught it. I am not sure how the duiker gave itself away because they are usually nocturnal and it was caught around 8h00 in the morning.

As soon as cry of the duiker was heard, the pack of wild dogs gave chase. Within seconds we were after the dogs and the cats through the bush in the game vehicle. If you need a little loosening up after being in an urban environment for too long, try being shaken up on a game vehicle driving off-road through the bush after wild dogs and cheetahs.

After following the chase for about five minutes, we caught up with the cheetahs and wild dogs. The cheetahs had killed an adult grey duiker.

“Being out on a game vehicle is bewitching. You are out in the open under big skies, the wind in your face. Your imagination is flooding with expectation. Your senses are overflowing with kaleidoscope of scents, sounds and colours.” – Mike Haworth

The grey duiker prefers woodland with plenty of undergrowth and thickets, preferably near water. This vegetation provides food and shelter. This duiker is solitary, except during the mating season. It likes to forage in early mornings and late afternoons until after dark and may linger longer on cool cloudy days, which is probably why it was still out and about when the cheetahs saw it. Much like a steenbok, this small antelope will wait until the last moment before running away. On its way it puts its head down and uses its characteristic jumping and swerving tactics. When not caught by cheetahs, the grey duiker lies down in dense shelter, underneath shrubs or in tall grass during the hottest part of the day to rest.

When we stopped the vehicle, we found the cheetah family, a adult mother and four sub-adult males around the carcass and the wild dogs surrounding them. I was amazed at how quickly the cheetahs had tucked into their meal. With the chattering wild dogs surrounding them it was easy to see why.

Wild dogs have an irregular, mottled coat, with patches of tan, black, brown, white, and yellow fur. Each animal has its own unique coat pattern, and all have lean physiques and big, rounded ears.

The African wild dog is the most endangered large carnivore species in South Africa and the second most endangered in Africa after the Ethiopian wolf. 

The wild dog is the only local canid to have developed a pack system. The pack is led by a monogamous pair and they are usually the only ones to breed. We did not see any youngsters and the dogs were moving around so much I did not notice the alpha female and whether she was still suckling.

“Nothing but breathing the air of Africa, and actually walking through it, can communicate the indescribable sensations.” ~ William Burchell

When we found the cheetahs the wild dogs were all around them making their excited high pitched chattering sounds. Wild dogs seldom bark like a typical dog but often make an excited twittering or chattering sounds. Wild dogs have more kinds of yelp/squeals, whines, moans, growls, and barks in their repertoire than have been reported for other canids.

The wild dogs had scared one of the sub-adult males up a fallen tree trunk. The rest of his siblings were tucking into their breakfast. It is interesting is see the different characters in the same wildlife family group.

The dogs were patient despite being greater in number. Eight dogs and four cheetahs on the ground (with attitude) and the balance was set.

The sub-adult cheetahs held their ground but were nervy and kept looking up to see where the wild dogs were.

Eventually, one of the cheetahs, after having fed well, went over to his brother to give him support. The dogs were jumping up and down wanting the two to come down onto the ground.

Eventually the “treed” cheetah came down the tree with support from his siblings.

“Why is it you can never hope to describe the emotion Africa creates? You are lifted. Out of whatever pit, unbound from whatever tie, released from whatever fear. You are lifted and you see it all from above.” ~ Francesca Marciano

The fourth sub-adult male cheetah climbed down from his “dog box”, but he never got to feed. Shortly afterwards, the other young male feeding on the remains abandoned the carcass leaving the left overs to the wild dogs. In an instant, like vultures, they were all over the carcass. Within seconds the dogs had ripped apart what was left of the carcass and each member pulled away to munch on its own piece of the remains.

The cheetahs also backed away having fed well. A duiker would not sustain the cheetah family for more than a day, and one son was still hungry. One of the wild dogs ran around the back of the anthill to check that the cheetahs had actually backed away.

The cheetah family regrouped a few hundred metres from the kill site. The family sat together and began to lick the blood off each other’s fur.

It was a peaceful scene with a mother and son cleaning the blood off each other after the kill.

This was another example of how adaptable these predators are in the bush. I would never have thought cheetahs would have hunted in their relatively thick bush but they appeared to be quite adept to their surroundings.

“Forget your voice, sing!
Forget your feet, dance!
Forget your life, live!
Forget yourself and be!” 
~ Kamand Kojouri

Explore, seek to understand, marvel at its inter-connectedness and let it be.

Have fun,

Mike

I have recently returned from an unusual trip into the bush. It was unusual for several reasons:

“When you are on the game vehicle at first light, there is a cool breeze in your face and a sense of freshness in the bush. The latent temperature change releases the fragrances of the bush veld. The last whoops of homebound hyaenas and jackals can be heard and male francolin are urgently reasserting their territory. There is a sense of expectation mixed with a deep sense of peace.” – Mike Haworth

It was my first opportunity to get into the bush since South Africa’s lockdown in late March 2020. It was absolutely fantastic to be back in an environment which I find so interesting, full of life and devoid of all the human noise. The wildlife did not miss us one little bit during the “lockdown”!

During the five days we spent in the bush, four and a half days were deeply overcast with drizzle and it was cold – not what we expected at the start of spring in southern Africa.

Our trip was hosted by Wildeye and led by Andrew Beck. This photographic safari company prides itself on teaching its guests to see the world differently. The challenge was set. The light was difficult, the weather rainy and and the temperature cold. The lodge was superb but getting on the open game vehicle in that weather was an altogether different challenge. Once the vehicle was moving, the drizzle turned into driving rain and the cold got freezing, to say nothing of the visibility.

We consider ourselves die hard wildlife photographers, so bad weather was not going to stop us getting out into the bush with our cameras. The big question was whether we would be able to get any photography going with such low light and wet drizzly conditions. I wear glasses which added to the visual challenge.

Several wildlife photographic principles came into play. The first and crucial rule is that you have to get out there to find the opportunities to photograph interesting wildlife scenes, behaviours and interactions. You can not dream about them sitting in front of the fire in the pub at the lodge.

The second rule which was properly reinforced on this trip was – “don’t fight the light, work with it”. In this regard, I have to thank Andrew Beck from Wildeye for living this principle. Are you going to take award winning images in these conditions, possibly but very unlikely? Are you going to get the most photographically from your trip? Absolutely! You will learn about light, its directionality and its colour, and you will work your exposure triangle.

I rate myself a keen wildlife photographer, but on a few occasions when we went out in the afternoon it was overcast, drizzling and cold, I had severe doubts. After an hour or two, wet and cold, I figured the drive in the open game vehicle into the bush was a fool’s errand. Andrew must have done this many times before, so judged the probability of getting something interesting was better than even, and he was right.

What we did not take into account is a couple of factors which were in our favour. Firstly, our full frame sensor cameras can handle high ISOs and low light. Secondly, we could go off road to get into as good a position as possible. Thirdly, the vehicle had hand held spotlights which was our light source in dark conditions.

Lastly, mother nature has an unpredictable way of opening up her universe for those prepared to venture into her world on her terms. She will reveal some of her intimate secrets for those prepared to be patient, and who seek to understand and are prepared to look and listen. Nothing happens in a linear way in the bush, it is too complex, too multi-factored and too dynamic. One afternoon we had been driving in the cold and rain for about two hours seeing very little and the low low was fading, when all of sudden the tracker found fresh pug marks in the sand road. The tracks revealed a large leopard had recently moved across the road. By listening to the sounds of the bush we found a lone male leopard in the dark.

It is an amazing feeling to sit quietly in the dark watching this large male leopard. He was alert, sensing all the scents and sounds on the breeze. As humans, we can only marvel at their sensory awareness – there is so much news in the wind!

The rain stopped. This was a new male leopard in the southern area of Sabi Sabi section. He knew he was in some else’s territory but was hungry and was following a small herd of impala. We watched and followed him for a while and them left him to hunt on his own terms.

The next evening it was still raining and cold. It was dark and we were off road following another large male leopard called “White Dam”. One of the several aspects which amazed me about this incident was while we were banging and crashing with the vehicle trying to follow him off road through the bush but he managed to either hear or see a Grey duiker in the dark and rain. In an instant he dashed off to his right and caught it. How he knew the duiker was 10 to 20 metres off to his right in the dark and rain with us behind him I will never know. The spot light shows the conditions.

“We can easily forgive a child who is afraid of the dark; the real tragedy of life is when men are afraid of the light.” ~ Plato

For some inexplicable reason this male dragged the grey duiker probably three to four hundred metres from where he caught it. None of us knew why he decided to drag his kill so far when there were plenty of decent sized trees close by. It may have been because he sensed other leopards in the area or the cry of the duiker probably alerted hyaenas and he wanted to get his kill as far from that area as possible.

This male leopard ended up hauling his catch up a Marula tree only to find he could not secure it properly to feed.

After a few attempts to secure his prey in the Marula tree he decided to bring the duiker back down to the ground to feed.

He managed to feed in peace and we left him in the dark to enjoy his hard earned dinner. Just the skill and strength of hauling his prey up a wet Marula tree trunk was an incredible feat, in my estimation.

“Life isn’t just about darkness or light, rather it’s about finding light within the darkness.” ~ Landon Parham

One of my favourite aspects about Sabi Sands reserve is that almost all of the roads are sand. This means there is minimal dust and the road offers a much smoother ride. More importantly, the sand is like the bush newspaper revealing all the activity of the wildlife in that area.

Sabi Sands has latticed network of sand roads which create the boundaries for blocks of virgin bush. The tracks on the sand roads create a map of what has passed, when, and which direction. This is a great help when tracking well camouflaged predators in thick bush. The trackers also listen carefully for squirrel, monkey or bird alarm calls which signal that a predator is in the vicinity. Our guide Greg Henman and tracker Nhlanhla, worked as a team and were an excellent tracking unit. Greg would often stop the vehicle, turn off the engine and just listen. On a few occasions this tactic yielded results which we would probably have never known unless we had just stopped and listened. After living in the city where your senses are overwhelmed by sensory overload, you need a guide who is tuned into the ways of the bush to interpret its the sounds and signs.

“It is not in the stars to hold our destiny but in ourselves.” ~ William Shakespeare

Another aspect which made the trip more enjoyable was that everyone at the Bush Lodge in Sabi Sabi were so pleased to see guests filling up the lodge, with the sound of animated chatter over meals and laughter flowing out of the pub, a place in the evening where long tales are told with great flare and exaggeration.

I have a few more posts to share on this trip to highlight the unique photographic conditions where we saw some unusual interactions between predators.

“My mission in life is not merely to survive, but to thrive; and to do so with some passion, some compassion, some humour, and some style.” ~ Maya Angelou

Explore, seek to understand marvel at its inter-connectedness and let it be.

Have fun,

Mike