A Day in Kruger Park

by Phil Muller

What do you see?  (Hint: Not cheetah)

We had heard about a leopard with 2 cubs on a dirt road towards Olifants river and went in search of them.

At 07:40 we found a vehicle looking at the cubs in a tree a long way off into the sun.

After a while they climbed down and were out of sight in the long grass.

We continued along the road looking for the mother and found her walking towards them at 08:15.  Another vehicle told us that she had caught a steenbok and hid it about 1km away so she had come to fetch her cubs.  They were very pleased to see mom and followed her.

I would like to prove to those who didn’t see the two cubs in the previous photo that you need to go and spend some time in the veld soon!

Look again – what do you see now?

We followed the leopards but did not see the steenbok as they all disappeared into a dry river bed.

After a while mom came up and kept watch.  We could see that she was struggling to stay awake but she never fell asleep.  After an hour we left because the 3 vehicles watching this spectacle grew steadily to 8.  (In the busy southern area of Kruger it would have grown to 28 by then!)

We went to the high level bridge over the river and came back at 11:30. They were all lying in the shade behind some bushes.  After a while one cub went off ‘hunting’.  It was so cute to see the little one doing the genuine leopard crawl.

After about 30 minutes it was back and they fell asleep while mom watched.

It was an unforgettable experience for Susan and me and fortunately we have some digital memories to cherish.

I was able to continue trying to photograph birds in flight – good example below…