Thursday 3 July 2014

June 2014 ... An Amazing Month Of Game Sightings At Ekorian's Mugie Camp!


This month at Ekorian’sMugie Camp has brought a few brief,but very effective, rainstorms. It’s lovely to watch the tropical showers move in, we can see them approaching, usually from the north. They look like such ominous clouds and the last time it poured there was an inch of rain in less than an hour! So camp is looking very green and lush, with grass growing like mad and flowers in bloom.

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And it must be that time of year, as there seem to be so many animals with young. Zebras with foals scampering after the herd, buffalo with calves quickly learning the ropes, and the other day we were delighted to see a very young, and very rare, Jackson’s Hartebeast! My favorite is the elephants with their calves, still finding that trunk a real struggle, and often with an older sibling helping look after them.

We had an amazing sighting yesterday – a female cheetah with five cubs! Joseph spotted them (I don’t know how he saw them!) and we drove closer to them. It was the first time I’d seen cheetah cubs and they are so sweet, sitting and watching them was such a treat. We’ve named them Baharti, Lucky, Chance, Esperanza, and Geluk – luck in Kiswahili, English, French, Spanish, and Afrikaans. In the hopes that they’ll survive the many predators that they may face: lion, leopard, male cheetah, eagles, etc.

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This morning our guests saw Brutus, the huge buffalo with the enormous boss, and he is something! Identifiable by his sheer size, he stands out from any crowd. One of the guests is a very keen birder, and though she’s only been here a day, she was chuffed to have seen fifty-four different bird species so far.

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There has also been a lone male elephant that seems to have discovered that the island on the dam has excellent grazing. He swims out to it and climbs up the north facing side. And then he munches away! One afternoon we were going there for a picnic and waited on kayaks on the dam, until he climbed down and swam off. He looked mildly irritated that his grazing had been interrupted!

It’s been an amazing month of game sightings; there’s been so much to see!


www.ekorian.com/diary