Bushcraft wrote: ↑Mon Aug 10, 2015 2:30 pm
Halfway between the H12 bridge and Skukuza we found a car stopped and spotted our first leopard for the day, which was a major stress reliever for me.
It was now around 4:50pm so we had time to park off and enjoy the sighting, but the sun was setting diagonally behind the leopard, so the Cow and I were battling to understand our cameras and get pics, which added a new stress dimension.
We also tried for signal to phone Gumprins, but eventually gave up on that idea as moving didn’t help with signal either.
Another car stopped next to us to find out what was potting, so the Cow explained to the lady where the leopard was.
Seconds later this lady chirped “There’s another leopard approaching the tree on the ground”
This got my attention “Where, There! Take pics!”
“#$^* it’s gone behind the tree!”
The leopard in the tree jumped up and started forward as the other leopard bailed into the tree.
Around a minute later another leopard arrived and started to climb up, which resulted in the 2nd leopard charging up into the higher branches. The 3rd leopard was a large male and seemed intent on something.
As one can imagine I was now a jabbering idiot because my out of control mindset when leopards are around was compounded big time.
“#$^* this camera won’t focus! The Sun is in my face @*#*”
The growling then started from the first leopard that was on the left which got me even more jumpy.
At this moment a car pulled up next to us.
“What do you see?” So I chirped without moving from my camera viewfinder “Leopards in tree over there!”
There was silence for a few seconds and then “I don’t see them!”
This is where the Cow fortunately took over.
“You see that large tree over there; it has a dead tree in front of it and a fish eagle in the tree to the right of it. There are 3 leopards in that tree. 1 on the right, 1 higher up in the centre and 1 on the right branch”.
Silence again.
“I don’t see them, the tree with the fish eagle?”
“No, the tree next to the tree with the fish eagle!”
This went on for 5 minutes and if I wasn’t so tense I would have been laughing as the Cow was getting frustrated, but now this chap was starting to piss on my battery as he was interrupting the adrenalin I need, so I started chirping rather abruptly.
“There’s only 1 big tree, left, centre, right, 3 leopard!”
“Cow, focus on the leopards now!”
The chap moved on to hassle the 1st car we had told and the Cow turned to me with a confused face.
“Is that guy blind or just rather slow?”
The growling and tense body language from the leopards continued.
Time was now starting to catch up with us and the Garmin was indicating we had minutes to spare. This obviously got me even tenser because there’s no way I was leaving now as this looked like 3 adult leopards so anything could happen.
The one on the left and the one in the middle then seemed to “tag up” and they both started growling and carrying on at the large leopard on the right, who then turned suddenly, paused a little and bailed out the tree.