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Mombo Camp - December 2008

12 Jan 2009

Mombo with all its wonderful wildlife and magical feel has certainly exceeded expectations this month: phenomenal sightings of leopards, mating lions and a tremendous density of elephants (way more than in previous years at this time).

Vegetation and Weather
November produced mostly fine weather with some late afternoon thunderstorms. Rainfall for the month was only +/- 30mm but enough to start getting the vegetation going. The lowest temperature was 21.7ºC and the maximum was 40.7ºC compared to 36ºC max and 24ºC minimum recorded in December. Rainfall in December was around 60mm.

Game Viewing
Game viewing has been excellent. Leopard sightings have really improved now that the cubs are big enough and seem to be getting a lot more independent of their mother. These cubs however still rely on their mother for food. We have often found her feeding on baby warthog, baby wildebeest and impala since it is baby boom time at the moment amongst these abundant herbivores. The most dramatic sight was of her getting herself into trouble with an adult warthog - an attempted attack went all wrong and she was seen running for cover pursued by the mother warthog. All in all, half of the 22 sightings of Legadima were of her on kills.

There is still one wild dog in the area, which seems to be moving around Mombo Island in search of its pack and or any other dog pack in the vicinity. This female dog seems to be accepting the situation that she is alone and is carrying on with life.

The cheetah female which had three cubs is now only left with one. We do not know the cause of death of the other two cubs since they were still at an age when they are very vulnerable to all kinds of predators and raptors. Other cheetah were seen in the middle of November and we even got to see the presumed father of the cubs in the same area as the female. The cheetah population could potentially increase in the area depending on other predator movements, including the splitting up of the lion prides as described below.

The Moporota floodplains are teeming with a variety of species at the moment: wildebeest, giraffe, impala and all their young. Most predators, including the hyaena, are finding it easy to get food because of all the newborn animals. Good numbers of buffalo have also been seen - up to 400 animals.

We have recorded lions on almost each and every drive, morning and afternoon. There seems to be a big change in the way the lions of Mombo socialise. The big prides have split up into smaller units and in some cases these splinter prides number less than ten animals. These include the Moporota Pride - formally 24 lions, the famous Mathata Pride, which used to have 28 animals, the Western Pride with its maned, fierce females and Boro Pride, which is sometimes found in the southern part of our island. The ''break-aways'' include the Mathata females which have carried on reproducing out of the main pride and now have very young cubs.

We are also seeing a lot of elephants too - even around the camp (mainly the bulls). In camp, a bull nicknamed Stompie, because of his short tail, broke his previous record of walking through the elevated walkways by destroying seven different areas of the wooden pathway in just 48 hours!

-Tapera S.S-